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Subject: Re: Traversing bitboards in a symmetrical way

Author: Gerd Isenberg

Date: 04:00:22 08/04/03

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On August 04, 2003 at 06:46:31, Tim Foden wrote:

>On August 04, 2003 at 06:26:08, Zach Wegner wrote:
>
>>On August 04, 2003 at 06:11:20, Gerd Isenberg wrote:
>>
>>>Hi all,
>>>
>>>One common search/evaluation test is to compare the search of a position with
>>>it's mirrored position.
>>>
>>>There is one principle problem related to bitboard traversal in move-generation.
>>>
>>>Black pieces and targets are traversed in an other order than the "mirrored"
>>>pieces and targets, regardless if one uses bsf or bsr and the square-bitindex
>>>mapping.
>>>
>>>Lets take some white pawns with following bit indicies: b2(9),d2(11) and c3(18).
>>>With bsf you'll find them in ascending order: b2,d2,c3. Now with "mirrored"
>>>black pawns on b7(49),d7(51),c6(42) we will foreward scan the ascending c6,b7,d7
>>>squares.
>>>
>>>Even if there is further move sorting, the different initial order of generated
>>>moves in mirrored positions implies different search trees - and therefore
>>>slightly different search results.
>>>
>>>How do you deal with this behaviour in your bitboard based program?
>>>I ignore it so far.
>>>
>>>One possible solution with x86-64 is to use the fast "bswap reg64" instruction
>>>(direct path,1 cycle) before scanning black pieces or targets for movegen.
>>>"bswap" mirrors the bits rankwise (8 becomes 1, 7 become 2...) and a remirror of
>>>the scanned bit index is a simple xor with 0x38.
>>>
>>>According to the sample above we mirror the black b7,d7,c6 pawns to b2',d2',c3'
>>>and we get the same order as with original white pawns: b7,d7,c6.
>>>
>>>One drawback is of course the need of a color2move paramter for bitScan - or
>>>separate black/white traversal.
>>>
>>>Any remarks or implementaion hints?
>>>
>>>Regards,
>>>Gerd
>>
>>What I have always done, which avoids this problem, is to use either MSB or LSB
>>for removing a piece depending on which side of the board it is most likely to
>>be on. e.g. for white pawns, use LSB; for black pawns, use MSB. I dont know if
>>this helps, but it couldn't hurt.
>
>Yes, I basically do the same, for the same reason... it is a very simple
>optimisation.  For the white pieces I always use bsf, and for the black pieces I
>always use bsr.  This also has the added advantage of solving the problem that
>Gerd is talking about.
>
>Cheers, Tim.

Sorry Tim,

i meant exclusive rank-symmetry, but no file-symmetry. In a (rank) mirrored
position queen wing and king wing are still on the same side of the board.

Cheers
Gerd



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