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Subject: Re: WAC 141 blowup

Author: Stuart Cracraft

Date: 16:09:45 09/02/04

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On September 02, 2004 at 19:06:06, GeoffW wrote:

>>Hi Geoff,
>>
>>I think one possibility is this...
>>
>>I don't increment 'ply' when null-moving... (i decrement remaining depth, of
>>course)
>>
>>That may explain why Crafty works with +1 and TRACE works with +2.
>>
>>In fact, that may point out a capital search bug in TRACE. My nullmoves
>>'corrupt' the true value of ply. Not good. And it explains some odd search
>>behaviours. Also, I cannot test if (ply & 1) to see if the side to move is a
>>particular colour. I will fix this in the next week or so and see if it helps.
>>Oooooohhh.... I have a good feeling about this...
>>
>>Ross
>
>Hi Ross
>
>Yes, that does look like the explanation as to why there is a difference of +1
>
>I was interested to see what effect the correction would have so I quickly put a
>ply++ and ply-- around the null move search call.
>Not sure what your code will do but mine went Splat !!
>Thats going to be a fun one to debug, no idea what is causing it at the moment,
>hope your works better than mine. I will be interested to know how it worked for
>you ?
>
>         Regards Geoff

I was doing a ply+1 to the null move search with a mate threat of
-MATE+ply+2. When I removed the ply+1 and just had ply (no increment),
and kept -MATE+ply+2, my solutions with MATETHREAT enabled went up
to the same level as I get without MATETHREAT on. Formerly, having
MATETHREAT enabled cost me 4 or 5 positions (out of 300).

I had hoped for beating my no-MATETHREAT setting with my MATETHREAT
but apparently no luck. At least it doesn't hurt, is parity, and
theoretically better.

I don't think there is a bug. The code is rather simple.

Stuart



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