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Subject: Re: Repetition detection test position

Author: martin fierz

Date: 01:56:45 11/28/03

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On November 28, 2003 at 01:21:16, Russell Reagan wrote:

>I had this position in a game I played tonight. Analyzing it, I found that I
>missed a draw. Ruffian took 9 seconds and 14 plies, while Crafty took 4 minutes
>and 22 plies to see that it was a draw (Athlon 2GHz). Ruffian gives a draw score
>after two repititions, so this might be why. I'm not sure what Crafty does.
>
>[D]8/8/8/1p6/8/8/pq3P2/3k2KQ w - - 0 76

i don't know why your crafty needs this long. my stupid engine sees the draw
score after 1 minute on P4 2.4GHz at depth 15. which just goes to show how
stupid it is compared to ruffian - needs a ply more and much more time. i'm not
doing any clever stuff to catch repetitions (i do have a 1-ply check extension
which might help detecting a perpetual though?), so i'm surprised that crafty
needs a deeper search than my thing to find this - but perhaps it's also a
problem with your crafty setup as bob suggested?

>While we're on the subject, what do you programmers think is the best approach
>for repetition detection? Giving a draw score after two repetitions or waiting
>until three? Or are there advantages to both approaches?

i return a draw score on the first repetition. if it's the first repetition of a
position that occurred in the search, that is correct. if you include
repetitions of game history positions, it's not correct, but not completely
incorrect either - as a human you also might want to speculate that the opponent
repeats moves when you're in an inferior position.

cheers
  martin



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