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

Author: Sune Fischer

Date: 13:13:59 07/28/04

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On July 28, 2004 at 15:51:47, Uri Blass wrote:

>On July 28, 2004 at 14:21:26, Sune Fischer wrote:
>
>>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 can add that I am practically sure that there are more ways for improvement
>in time management.
>I do not plan to implement them immediatly but I can only tell that they are in
>higher priority relatively to pondering when the program is in book because
>pondering when the program is in book is usually not relevant for more than a
>single move(often the opponent may play the book moves so it even does not save
>time) when ideas that can be relevant for every move in the game seem to me more
>important.

Yes I think so too.
Perhaps there isn't a huge potential gain lying here, nevertheless it's
interesting to try and figure out the ideal way to handle the special search
finish.

I already use a special algorithm for the first plies and I'm thinking about
what to do with the really expensive end-plies.

So much time can easily be wasted by doing the wrong things.

>Crafty use some good ideas that I did not think about them earlier like using
>time only to complete the root move that is not first move even after it used
>the target time if it did not use too much time and this idea inspired me to
>think about more ideas.

Yes, there is an infinite number of possibilities here, with so much room for
experimentation I doubt any engine is doing it optimally.

-S.
>Uri



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