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Subject: Re: retrieving the PV from hash questions

Author: Richard Pijl

Date: 07:33:21 09/06/04

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On September 05, 2004 at 20:31:40, Michael Henderson wrote:

>I take care of the PV during the search, but I have been wondering about the
>other method of getting the PV from hash.  Some of these are obvious
>questions/answers but I would like to discuss them.

IMHO There is no real reason to get the PV from hash. It may seem a bit more
efficient, but the loss of information is not worth it.
I changed to PV from hash some time ago. The Baron was a small engine with
little knowledge. I did notice a few percent increase in nodespeed so I was
happy.
Later I had problems with getting short PV's. Changing back to remembering the
PV's during search did cost me a little in nps, but I also noticed that the time
to ply was less (in longer testruns) due to better moveordering.
Currently I display the PV as remembered during search, and I add moves found in
the hashtable (from previous search runs). To show the distinction, the moves
from the hashtable are shown between brackets.
Now to your questions:

>How do you know the real length of the PV?

You don't, but you can guess the minimal number of moves left from the draft

>Do you not usually get short PV's due to a hash miss?

It happens especially with longer searches, or a small hashtable. When I changed
back to storing the PV in a separate array, I noticed a significant increase of
PV length, and slightly better moveordering because of it.

>If you don't know the "draft" (due to extensions) at any point in the PV how do
>you know a hash hit with depth x is good?

You don't.
>
>How does the path info problem with hash interact with the pv hash extraction
>method?

Take care you break off producing the PV when a repetition in the PV occurs

>Does score backed up ever really go with the leaf position of the PV?

Not often

>I've heard this method can sometimes lead to blunders in the PV?

I guess that when you break off the search before it completed its iteration,
that can happen. It think it should not happen at the end of a completed
iteration.

>Shredder uses this method?




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