Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Search depths X/Y

Author: Eran Karu

Date: 01:43:05 07/22/04

Go up one level in this thread


On July 21, 2004 at 23:45:20, Scott Gasch wrote:

>I've seen a lot of engines report depths like 10/22 or something.  Specifically,
>Zappa and Ruffian both seem to do it.  What does the second number mean?  The
>deepest line with extensions in ply?
>
>Scott

The second number means selective search. When a chess engine starts calculating
in first few plies, brute force is okay and not time-consuming because the
'tree' in first few plies is not big. But when the chess engine calculates
deeper such as beyond 16 or 18 plies deep, the 'tree' becomes too large
exponentially and brute-force search takes time almost forever. So that is why
selective search is provided and it makes the chess engine calculating and
finding best moves faster and efficiently - smart algorithm. ;-)

I understand what search depths mean, although I am not a professional
programmer.

Eran Karu



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.