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Subject: Re: detecting and evaluating pins

Author: martin fierz

Date: 08:21:37 02/24/04

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On February 24, 2004 at 11:14:00, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On February 24, 2004 at 09:27:26, martin fierz wrote:
>
>>On February 23, 2004 at 11:14:28, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On February 23, 2004 at 07:02:59, martin fierz wrote:
>>>
>>>>aloha,
>>>>
>>>>i have a question about pins. pins are a rather important feature in chess; some
>>>>of them are not so bad, some are deadly. i just happened to chat briefly with
>>>>anthony cozzie on ICC, and he said he didn't do any pin detection. i detect
>>>>pins, but i don't evaluate whether a pin is not so bad or deadly. my questions
>>>>are:
>>>>-> are you detecting pins in your program?
>>>>-> if yes, do you try to distinguish between different pins?
>>>
>>>No and No.  I don't do it as I have not found it very important.  IE with the
>>>depth I hit today, if a pin is important, the search can go deeply enough to
>>>discover this without much trouble.  20 years ago I was definitely evaluating
>>>pins, as hitting 5-6-7 plies is not deep enough to see the consequences of a
>>>pin, whereas todays 12-16 plies in longer games is more than enough in most
>>>cases.
>>
>>interesting - and a possible explanation why i believe i need them. muse
>>searches something like 1-2 plies less than crafty on equal hardware (meaning
>>single-processor hardware of course...), and i play blitz matches. so i'm
>>getting something in between of your 5-7 and 12-16 plies; meaning that i am
>>closer to needing pin detection than you are :-)
>>
>>cheers
>> martin
>
>You are also in the danger-zone for null-move R=2 and R=3 as well, at those
>depths.  If you look at the comments in main.c in Crafty, you will see how many
>times I tried R=2 from 1994 to date, and how many times it failed, until the
>depth reached a point where null-move didn't hide too many tactics...
>
>Depth is definitely part of the formula, and the deeper we go, the more things
>change in unexpected ways...

i'm using adaptive R=2 / R=3; R=3 at depths > 6. i once tried using R=3 all the
time with bad results. i know i still  have to work on my search a bit :-(

cheers
  martin


>
>>
>>>There are exceptions, but the question has to be "is the cost of doing this
>>>offset by the playing strength increase?"  I believe that at least for my
>>>program, the answer is "no".
>>>
>>>YMMV of course.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>cheers
>>>>  martin



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