Author: Uri Blass
Date: 03:50:04 07/26/04
Go up one level in this thread
On July 25, 2004 at 22:01:31, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On July 25, 2004 at 21:16:11, Uri Blass wrote: > >>I still do not know the reason for the bug in the time management against >>isichess when movei used about half of it's time for move 61 (time control was 2 >>hours/60 moves+ 30 minutes/rest of the game) >> >>I suspect that a possible reason for bugs in my time management may be that >>movei simply did not update the remaining moves immediatly before it started to >>ponder and the result is that it assumes wrong number of moves to the time >>control and wrong time when it starts to ponder(I know that it is assuming wrong >>time when it starts to ponder but usually it is not a big problem because the >>target time is nearly the same and it is changed as soon as movei get the time >>command from winboard). > >First rule: Write a log file. And in that log file, write _everything_ that >might be of interest. Time limit. Absolute time limit. Etc... > >Then you won't be guessing the next time :) I have a logfile but I am afraid that I did not write there everything that may be of interest in the game against isichess. In any case I think to change the global varaibles that I have for time management and to use static local varaibles. After all checking time is not something that I do very often so all the information about it should be in a specific time.cpp file that I will add when that file will include reading the level command and having a function that calculate the number of moves to the next time control based on the ply of the game. > > >> >>I am not sure if the problem was assuming wrong number of moves and movei is >>supposed to update the remaining number of moves after every make move but I >>think that it may be better simply to get rid of global varaibles like >>num_moves(number of moves to the next time control, num_moves_1(number of moves >>to the first time control),num_moves_2 number of moves to the second time >>control and. >>have some function with static local varaibles that movei is going to call when >>it needs the information. >> >>Note that I do not plan to get rid of the compliacated formula that I use to >>decide about time management but I plan to have function to calculate relevant >>data instead of updating it in many places when I may forget to update it. >> >>I basically try to calculate number of expected moves to finish the game or the >>next time control and use this information to decide about target time and I >>also use the time of the last iteration to decide if to do another iteration(I >>usually try to finish iteration in most cases with the idea that after finishing >>an iteration there is a smaller chance to change my mind when the main exception >>are cases when the program pondered enough time). > >Bad idea. Start the next iteration even if you don't think you will have time >to finish it. You might fail low. Wouldn't that be nice to know? :) It is at least not clear if it is a bad idea and at least I believe that Amir is using that idea. In most cases I am not going to fail low and I am going to save time for later moves. The question is how much time do you need to detect fail low in the next iteration. If you can do it fast enough then it is clear that it is better to start the next iteration only to see if you can detect fail low in a short time but I have no statistics about it and unfortunately I did not tell movei to print fail low information(it prints only fail high) so I have no impression about how much time it takes. The question is the following question: Suppose that you used X nodes for the last iteration and you have fail low in the next iteration. What is the probability that you detect fail low after less than (1+epsilon)X nodes. If the probability is high enough for epsilon that is small enough then I agree that it is better to start the next iteration only to see if you do not fail low in a short time. Uri
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