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Subject: Re: question about fixing the time management of movei

Author: Sune Fischer

Date: 11:21:26 07/28/04

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On July 28, 2004 at 11:02:36, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On July 28, 2004 at 03:18:52, Sune Fischer wrote:
>
>>On July 27, 2004 at 18:26:16, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>Aha.  And exactly how many times do you do the N+1 iteration and get the _same_
>>>best move?  For crafty that is about 85% of the time.  So I should cut the
>>>search off one ply early?  Or is that 15% critical?
>>
>>I don't understand the question.
>
>you said I wasted time by starting the next search which won't fail low most of
>the time.  I said you waste time by doing iteration N+1 that doesn't change the
>best move most of the time.  See the fallacy in the argument?  I _know_ going to
>depth N+1 won't change the best move most of the time.  But it will likely
>change the best move when it is important to do so...

No.
It's going to depend on how much time you have left.
If you need 5 seconds to fail-low and you have 4 seconds left, you won't see it.

>I never said "win-win".  I said it works better for me after testing.  And I
>have done _lots_ of testing with various approaches.  That's how I settled on
>the current approach.  I'm not much for tea leaves and Tarot cards.

That interesting, because I was beginning to wonder how you could have such
strong opinions on something you _haven't_ tested. :)

>>I too would like to know if there is a big fail-low at the next ply, I just
>>don't see your way as the most efficient way of doing it though.
>
>That's ok.  All engines are different in some respect.  I base my decisions on
>what to do on testing.  That's all I can say.  Nothing says that what works for
>my program will work for yours or vice-versa.  But what I do works for mine
>pretty well...

Sure, but perhaps you are closing your eyes to something that might work even
better.
You should test it first, then say how much it sucks :)

Unless of course you can come up with some super logical argument why it's not
going to work.

>>To see the next ply you have to extend time, which you won't be able to do if
>>you run out of time before the search returns.
>
>I don't have to extend the time.  You proposed the 15% rule.  It breaks above
>and I'd stop 2 plies too soon, even though I could finish _both_.

Where does it break?

Please show me some analysis output where ply N+1 takes less than 15% of ply N.

You definitely won't find many of those, and even if you manage to find one it
will be insignificantly rare.

>>..and then bite the dust when the fail-low doesn't have time to return or the
>>time is simply wasted :)
>
>Again, I use aspiration search in addition to PVS.  My fail lows happen _very_
>quickly in 99% of the cases.

Ok, so in 99% of the cases you have some idea how long it will take to fail-low,
anything longer means it's not going to FL and it's trying to resolve the score.

Somewhere inbetween you can abort if you are not interested in the score.

> And with my approach I have no special-case "last
>iteration" stuff to deal with.  I just search until the search returns "time up"
>and go with what I have.
>
>That's the KISS part of this.

It's just very random, I prefer something more harmonious.

-S.



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