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Subject: Re: null-move

Author: J. Wesley Cleveland

Date: 08:17:35 08/27/04

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On August 26, 2004 at 21:00:10, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On August 26, 2004 at 14:09:06, Bert van den Bosch wrote:
>
>>On August 26, 2004 at 11:33:48, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On August 25, 2004 at 17:37:59, Bert van den Bosch wrote:
>>>
>>>>First of all, I hope the forum will continue in some way!
>>>>
>>>>Before it is gone, I have a question.
>>>>
>>>>I wanted to check my null move so I tested if the null move would create a
>>>>cutoff, and after that I did the normal stuff. So if you have a cutoff with null
>>>>moving you are almost sure you will also get a cutoff with the normal proces,
>>>>except for zugzwangs of course. But this wasn't happening all the time when I
>>>>tested it, and usually the values involved from what I got back from nullmove
>>>>and from the normal process were just a few centipawns in difference. Could this
>>>>be because of search instabillity? If it isn't a bug in my program I had the
>>>>idea to search nullmove with beta-MARGIN in order for the value returned by null
>>>>move to bridge the few centipawns gap. And taking MARGIN the few centipawns. But
>>>>I'm not sure if that is correct. Can someone shine a light on this?
>>>>
>>>>Thanks, greetings Bert
>>>
>>>This isn't what null-move is about.  It will fail high in positions where a
>>>normal search won't, but that doesn't make it wrong.  The point is that if your
>>>opponent can move twice in a row and you fail high after "passing" then your
>>>position is very good and it is safe to avoid searching to the normal depth to
>>>see if it is even better.
>>>
>>>As a general rule, if null-move fails high, a normal search should also fail
>>>high, of course, as that is the point in that the null-move search is easier to
>>>do since it searches to a reduced depth.  But there is nothing to say that if
>>>the null-move search fails high that the regular search will not, that is part
>>>of the risk you take, since null-move is not 100% accurate.  Reduce the depth
>>>and you obviously will miss some tactical shots that the deeper depth would not
>>>miss.
>>>
>>>If you want an "error-free" pruning algorithm, good luck.  Logic says no such
>>>thing exists. :)
>>
>>alphabeta :)
>
>
>OK.
>
>If you want an error-free _forward-pruning_ algorithm, good luck.  Logic says no
>such thing exists.  :)

EGTBs ;)




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