Author: Daniel Shawul
Date: 04:20:33 04/26/04
Go up one level in this thread
On April 26, 2004 at 06:31:58, Tord Romstad wrote:
>Last week, there was an interesting discussion on this forum about which
>criterions should be used to decide whether or not to do a null move search.
>In an attempt to find out what works best for my engine, I played a self-play
>tournament between four slightly different versions of my engine. The
>following pseudo-code explains the null-move criterions used by each of
>the four versions:
>
>/* Gothmog A: */
>int ok_to_do_nullmove() {
> if(in_check(SideToMove)) return 0;
> if(static_eval - value_of_biggest_hanging_piece(SideToMove) >= beta)
> return 1;
> return 0;
>}
>
>/* Gothmog B: */
>int ok_to_do_nullmove() {
> if(in_check(SideToMove)) return 0;
> if(static_eval - value_of_biggest_hanging_piece(SideToMove)
> + value_of_biggest_hanging_piece(Opponent) >= beta)
> return 1;
> return 0;
>}
>
>/* Gothmog C: */
>int ok_to_do_nullmove() {
> if(in_check(SideToMove)) return 0;
> else return 1;
>}
>
>Gothmog D is similar to Gothmog C, except that when the remaining depth
>is 4 plies or more, a null move search with the depth reduced to zero
>is done before the real null move search, and the real null move search
>is avoided if the zero-depth search fails low.
>
>The criterion in Gothmog A is the one I have always used in the public
>versions of Gothmog. Our discussion last week seemed to indicate that
>most others use the simpler criterion in Gothmog C.
>
>In my tournament, I all four versions face each other 50 times. The
>results:
>
> Gothmog A Gothmog B Gothmog C Gothmog D Sum
>Gothmog A XXXX 26.5 31.0 29.5 87.0/150
>Gothmog B 23.5 XXXX 30.5 26.0 80.0/150
>Gothmog C 19.0 19.5 XXXX 31.5 70.0/150
>Gothmog D 20.5 24.0 18.5 XXXX 63.0/150
>
>It is interesting that the version with the most restrictive criterion
>achieves the highest score. This confirms my growing suspicion that
>recursive null move pruning doesn't work nearly as well as most people
>believe, and that it might be a good idea to make an effort to reduce
>its use as much as possible. I will try to experiment with even more
>restrictive criterions (perhaps static_eval-biggest_hanging >= beta+margin)
>and see whether that improves the strength further.
>
>The number of games is of course still not sufficiently big to make any
>definitive conclusions. If I find the time, I will add more games and
>more versions to the tournament.
>
>Tord
Hi Tord
very interseting exeriment indeed!
I am doing A currently and sticking to it just because the effectiveness is
93-94% usually.
About B , I think the criteria should be
eval - our hanging piece - their hanging piece > beta
do null move.
If we do null move, we lose our hanging piece AND ALSO we chose not to capture
the the opponent piece so we lost that too. I think it should be minus both
cases.
later
daniel
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