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Subject: [OT] Question about time allocation when limited moves available

Author: Roberto Nerici

Date: 00:23:06 12/01/03


Apologies for the off topic post :-)

I'm implementing some basic time handling code at the moment. I've found a few
bits on how to decide how long to think, some in threads here, some in some
books I've got. Something I haven't seen is how/whether to modify the allocated
time based on the number of moves available to choose from.

It's obvious that if you only have one valid move you can make you just make
that move instantly. I've got my engine to handle that. However, what if there
are two moves to choose between? In a mid-game position where perhaps there is a
check involved, there might be only two available moves and one is much better
than the other. Does anybody's engine try to handle such a situation as a
special case? I've got my engine to compare the scores of the two moves and if
at the first check time (the point when my engine decides if it's searched
enough or should carry on) there is a large difference, it picks the higher
scoring move. However, I wonder if this is too risky, and of course there is the
question of how "large" the "large difference" should be.

Thanks for any thoughts on the matter
Roberto/.

PS: you can all now get back to long, tedious hardware threads, attacking the
ICGA, etc :-)



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