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Subject: Re: No Qsearch?

Author: Peter McKenzie

Date: 16:27:26 08/27/03

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On August 27, 2003 at 14:01:18, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On August 26, 2003 at 18:42:59, Ricardo Gibert wrote:
>
>>In the Richard Lang interview at:
>>
>>http://www.beepworld.de/members37/computerschach/
>>(Just click on the link "ChessGenius Classic 7" in the leftmost column. The
>>interview also appears in *English*)
>>
>>"For example I have never used capture searches and rely instead on a static
>>swap off routine."
>>
>>This seems to indicate that CG does not employ a qsearch. I also understand that
>>Junior does something similar. I wonder how this is done? I would presume some
>>type of accuracy tradeoff must be involved, but I wonder what? I'm very curious
>>about how this is all done and why doesn't everybody do it this way?
>>
>>How is all the effort that goes into creating a good eval compatible with such a
>>handling of non-quiescent positions? It just seems kind of wacky to me.
>
>
>I can tell you what I did in the 1970's.
>
>The issue is that the _last_ move in the search path is "iffy".  IE if you
>just do a pure 4 ply search, no extensions, no q-search, the last move in your
>pv will _always_ be a capture of the most valuable piece that can be taken,
>whether it is protected or not (IE in a worst case, you end the PV with QxP,
>where in a real game, the opponent would the reply PxQ.)

Yes, this is really funny to watch :-)

>
>If you apply a SEE type exchange evaluation to the last piece moved, you
>stop this nonsense.  Of course, that misses overloaded pieces and the like,
>but it is certainly possible that the errors that produces are not frequent
>enough to cause a problem.

I did something similar to this in the early days of LambChop.  I did a capture
search but only on the destination square of the last moved piece.  It seemed to
work reasonably well (much better than nothing of course), and had very little
overhead.

>  The tree is far more robust than I would have
>thought possible, until some recent testing has produced some amazing results.

We're all ears...



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