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Subject: Re: futility pruning?

Author: scott farrell

Date: 04:58:25 11/09/03

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On November 09, 2003 at 07:48:22, Daniel Shawul wrote:

all I meant by alphaBeta is when you call ab(-beta,-alpha) and anything
associated with that, like a call to search hash etc.

mmm.... if we are bad enough to futile-like-fail-low, and we switch sides, the
stand-pat will immediately fail-high - I take your point.

You might still save 60%, but it depends on your maths, I count a futile pruned
node as a normal node, Ernst might not have counted the node, and it looks like
you save more nodes. Maybe he didnt have lazyEval either, so it would save more.

I actually use my lazyEval in doing a futile move. My lazyEval includes
material, pieceSquare I include in makeMove incremently, pawn eval from pawn
hash, badTrade and a few other cheap things. Its whatever is quick, so it makes
my futility pruning a little more accurate without losing too much speed.

Scott

>On November 09, 2003 at 07:40:38, scott farrell wrote:
>
>>On November 09, 2003 at 04:55:40, Matthias Gemuh wrote:
>>
>>>On November 09, 2003 at 03:53:24, Daniel Shawul wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>I do not remember if Ernst's paper said that you make the move first and then
>>>>>decide if it is futile.
>>>>>
>>>>>If it did, then it's definitely killing all the interest of futility pruning at
>>>>>depth 1!
>>>>>
>>>>>The idea is to prune before you make the move. So you stay at depth==1, look at
>>>>>the move, and say "hey, this move looks completely futile, let's ignore it!".
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>    Christophe
>>>>
>>>>A futile move is futile before you make or after you make it.
>>>>    before
>>>>          mat_bal + move_gain + margin < alpha => futile move
>>>>    after
>>>>          mat_bal + margin < alpha => futile move
>>>>Anyway my question is since you go directly to quiescent search
>>>>(where stand pat cutoff of all futile moves occur) after making the move,
>>>>we only saved ourselves "making of the futile moves".I can comprehend the
>>>>extended futlity pruning but not this.For me as long as standing pat cut off
>>>>is there , futility pruning at frontier is unnecessary,and if it is,it only
>>>>saves the time to make and unmake futile moves.Where does the 60% tree shrinkage
>>>>comes from?Please try to see where my proble is.
>>>>
>>>>Daniel
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Your logic seems sound for me. We seem to save only
>>>MakeMove() + UnmakeMove() + Evaluate().
>>
>>I think you are wrong, you save:
>>
>>MakeMove() + UnmakeMove() +alphaBeta()+ qSearch()+ stand-pat+ Evaluate().
>
>it is only make and unmake. qsearch never occurs 'cause we prefer to stand pat.
>And I don't understand what alphaBeta() means.Also if you use lazy eval
>the Evaluate() will not take time at all.So time wastage is
>   Make + Unmake
>that's it.
>>
>>qsearch of course can be a few plies also.
>>
>>I think I do it after makeMove so its more accurate, I might try before makeMove
>>- and see what happens. But I am not sure if I can work out if its a checking
>>move too easily unless I makeMove().
>>
>>Scott
>>>
>>>/Matthias.



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