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Subject: Re: Making a Program More Aggressive

Author: Stuart Cracraft

Date: 09:31:13 08/15/04

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On August 15, 2004 at 11:58:28, Uri Blass wrote:

>On August 15, 2004 at 11:31:11, Stuart Cracraft wrote:
>
>>On August 15, 2004 at 10:42:46, Dan Honeycutt wrote:
>>
>>>On August 15, 2004 at 10:25:43, Stuart Cracraft wrote:
>>>
>>>>So what makes a program more aggressive?
>>>>
>>>>Better king safety?
>>>>
>>>>Points for control or occupation of square near the enemy king?
>>>>
>>>>I've tried obvious things and never been satisfied with the
>>>>aggression-level.
>>>
>>>Asymmetrical king safety.  Program needs to not mind moving a piece which
>>>shelters it's own king to a position that menaces the enemy king.
>>>
>>>Dan H.
>>
>>My current king safety is very limited but doesn't involve any
>>hardwiring of friendly pieces to my king. They are free to roam.
>>At the same time, I've noticed no aggressive tendancy. It plays
>>passively and reaction-only to what the opponent with few exceptions.
>>On the other hand, it really fights for the center, develops quickly
>>and castles on a timely basis. But once the middlegame hits, nothing
>>much happens except wood-shuffling.
>>
>>I do have a tropism factor to get queens, rooks, and knights to
>>minimize the distance to the enemy king. Perhaps something is wrong
>>with them. I don't use attack tables in evaluation since my program
>>has none. I'll have to revamp the whole program some day to add
>>them incrementally but haven't found a good paradigm yet Even bitboard.
>>I liked the thing that Atkin/Slate did with incremental updates
>>in their makemove/unmakemove.
>>
>>So basically "middlegame" malaise is my program's problem. I need
>>to tighten the tropism to just the few squares around the enemy
>>king and heighten the bonus. There is already a substantial bonus
>>for loosening pawns protecting the king but I need to get some
>>heavy firepower over there, sans attack tables, using tropism
>>to get something real happening.
>>
>>I wish there were some test suites that gauged early midle-game
>>aggression. Not checkmate/mate type things but simply threats against
>>the castled king.
>>
>>Stuart
>
>I think that based on your WAC results search and not evaluation is the main
>problem of your program.
>
>You should get easily more than 290/300 in a few seconds if your search work
>correctly.
>
>Uri

Uri,

I wish. It's a Pentium 3 1ghz. Not very fast by today's standards.
Also, I can only run with 500,000 hash table entries.

If my search is broken, it will be years before I find the bugs
through trial-and-error.

Also, my results just went up after improving the evaluation only.

Stuart




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