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Subject: Re: DB and Singular Extensions

Author: jonathan Baxter

Date: 17:02:22 11/22/98

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On November 22, 1998 at 19:36:30, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On November 22, 1998 at 18:04:04, jonathan Baxter wrote:
>
>>Can anyone send me an electronic version of the ICCA article by Hsu on
>>Singular Extensions used in DB?
>>
>>Failing that, can someone give me a quick explanation? I understand
>>that they extend moves that look substantially better than all other moves
>>at a node. What I don't understand is that given the nature of alpha-beta
>>search, often you don't know anything about the value of alternative moves....
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Jon
>
>
>briefly:
>
>pv-singular move:  you search the first move at a node with the normal
>window, and the remainder of the moves at that depty with a lowered (offset)
>window (alpha-w, beta-w) where w is the singular margin.  If all those moves
>fail low, the first move is "singular" since it is clearly better.  If any
>one move fails high, you have to do the original test on the first move to
>see if this new best is singular or not...  messy but understandable.
>
>fh-singular move:  you search the first move at a node with the normal
>window and get a fail high.  You first search the *remainder* of the moves
>with the offset window, but to reduced depth (say D-2) to see if all of them
>still fail low with the offset window.  If so, extend.  If not, do the same
>check as in pv-singular.
>
>The idea is that at a PV or fail-high node, you try to prove that the best
>move is better than all other moves at that ply, by a significant margin.  No
>"fail-low" node test has been formulated...
>
>If that isn't clear, feel free to ask more...
>

It is clear enough, thanks. But doesn't this cost hugely? Searching all
remaining nodes at a fail-high node???

Jon
>Bob



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