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Subject: Re: detecting and evaluating pins

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 08:41:28 02/24/04

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On February 24, 2004 at 11:21:37, martin fierz wrote:

>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

Just don't forget to go back and re-test it from time to time.  Things change as
your search gets better, the hardware gets faster, etc...

I did R=2, R=1, R=2, R=1 no telling how many times before R=2 finally worked
better than 1 for me. :)



>
>
>>
>>>
>>>>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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