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

Author: Sune Fischer

Date: 15:30:26 07/29/04

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On July 29, 2004 at 11:44:39, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>"more complicated" != "more advanced".  I don't believe it is possible to
>accurately forecast the time for the next iteration.  Which means when is it
>appropriate to do that quick nullwindow search?

I can't pridict when a check extension is wasted and when it is useful either, I
can only say if it works better or worse on average.

> And when you do it and it
>returns way quicker than you expected, what do you do with the remaining time?
>
>There appear to be more problems this way than with what I currently do...

Simple != Good

(I can play that game too:)

>>But you have not tested what I'm suggesting.
>
>I have definitely tested doing a fail-low search.  You can find references to
>that back in 1978 which was when I finally dumped the idea of "don't start the
>next iteration if I don't believe it can be finished..."

Then why did it not work, which part failed, what is your analysis?

>>
>>>Your "assumption" is based on facts that have tons of contradictory evidence (IE
>>>I _have_ done lots of testing and reported on it many times in various ways.)
>>
>>AFAIK it was a completely new spin on an old idea.
>
>There's nothing new about the null-window search at all.  As I said, in 1980
>_every_ search I did started with a null-window search.  As did Belle's...

Don't mix two experiments here, I'm not talking about starting every search with
a nullwindow...

Be careful with drawing too many parallels here.

>
>>
>>I read your conclusion that ply N took 1.5 and ply N+1 took 1.4.
>>This is what I call the same magnitude, ie 1.4 >> 0.15*1.5
>
>Yes.  But _both_ together took less than 15% of the total time used up to that
>point...

Yes that's true, but I think you should compare the last iteration time with the
time remaining, that way you eliminate a big branchfactor issue.

Secondly, don't jump to the conclusion that it won't work because you found a
position where it might not work perfectly.

I can show you 100 positions where nullmove causes more damage then good, still
that doesn't mean you should turn it off in Crafty, right? :)

I think only testing is the way to go.

>>I don't think it varies "too" much.
>>
>>-S.
>
>
>You are lucky.   Mine is wildly varying...

Hehe, but on average.... :)

-S.



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