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Subject: Re: Checks in QSearch (Was: Re: Another good underpromotion test position)

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 05:25:16 07/25/03

Go up one level in this thread


On July 25, 2003 at 06:17:57, Tord Romstad wrote:

>On July 24, 2003 at 14:52:34, Matthias Gemuh wrote:
>
>>On July 24, 2003 at 10:35:46, Tord Romstad wrote:
>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>BigLion ? no checks in QSearch().
>>>
>>>OK, this confirms my suspicion that checks in qsearch have a great influence
>>>on the solution time at this position.
>>>
>>>Have you tried searching checks in qsearch?  It is worth a try, IMHO.  It
>>>seems that different people have very different experiences with this, but my
>>>program plays much worse in the middle game when I remove the checks.  In
>>>the endgame it is less clear; I am currently experimenting with this.
>>>
>>>Tord
>>
>>
>>
>>BigLion is very slow, so checks in QSearch() almost halt the engine :).
>
>Gothmog is also not among the fastest.  It does around 150-200KNps on a
>Pentium 4 2.4GHz.
>
>I am not sure checks in QSearch is necessarily a bad idea in slow engines.
>Many of the old, slow dedicated chess computers in the late 80s and early 90s
>had checks in QSearch(), I think.  Checks in QSearch() do not have to be
>very expensive, if you put severe restrictions on what checks you include.
>This is how I do it:
>
>In the QSearch(), I first generate and search all non-losing capture moves.
>If none of the capturing moves resulted in a cutoff, I generate and search
>non-capturing checks if both of the following are true:
>
>1. We are at the first ply in QSearch(), or all previous moves in QSearch()
>   for the side to move have been checks and all moves from the opponent have
>   been single-reply-to-checks.
>
>2. alpha < KNIGHT_VALUE.
>
>At least in my program, this works very well and is not particularly
>expensive.
>
>But as BigLion is apparently slightly stronger than Gothmog at the moment,
>I am probably not the best person to give you advice. :-)

Why do you think that Biglion is stronger than Gothmog?
Based on the information that I read it seems that Gothmog is clearly better
than Biglion.

Uri



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