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Subject: Re: Killer heuristics in other engines?

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 21:02:48 03/30/04

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On March 30, 2004 at 15:00:15, Artem Pyatakov wrote:

>Does anyone else care to comment about how they implemented the killer heuristic
>in their engine? Or is everyone else doing the same exact thing as Crafty?
>
>I definitely think the question is worth revisiting (for instance using killers
>from all plies), because the results I have from trying to use ply-4, ply-2,
>ply, and ply+2 are very, very encouraging.
>
>Maybe someone with a stronger amateur engine could try this idea too? If you are
>already doing what Crafty is doing, it should be trivial to make changes.
>
>For instance, I have something like this now:
>
>if (curMove->move.bits==game->ply [ply].killer.move1.bits ||
>    curMove->move.bits==game->ply[ply].killer.move2.bits) {
>         curMove->priorityScore+=KILLER_MOVE_BONUS;
>	 continue;
>}
>
>if (curMove->move.bits==game->ply[ply+2].killer.move1.bits ||
>    curMove->move.bits==game->ply[ply+2].killer.move2.bits)
>{
>	curMove->priorityScore+=KILLER_MOVE_BONUS;
>	continue;
>}
>
>if (ply >= 2)
>if (curMove->move.bits==game->ply[ply-2].killer.move1.bits ||
>    curMove->move.bits==game->ply[ply-2].killer.move2.bits)
>{
>        curMove->priorityScore+=KILLER_MOVE_BONUS/2;
>	game->stats.extraCounter1++;
>	continue;
>}
>
>if (ply >= 4)
>if (curMove->move.bits==game->ply[ply-4].killer.move1.bits ||
>    curMove->move.bits==game->ply[ply-4].killer.move2.bits)
>{
>	curMove->priorityScore+=KILLER_MOVE_BONUS/4;
>	game->stats.extraCounter2++;
>	continue;
>}
>
>Artem

I don't like the way it appears to be implemented.  I try the killers _before_ I
generate any non-captures.  That is the only reason I use them, as it provides a
cutoff with zero move generation costs...  Your code suggests some sort of
in-place sorting which I would want to avoid...



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