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Subject: Re: null move question

Author: Gerd Isenberg

Date: 12:01:17 10/06/04

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On October 06, 2004 at 04:38:28, Richard Pijl wrote:

>On October 05, 2004 at 16:43:38, Gerd Isenberg wrote:
>
>>What, if best move after null is the reverse previous move,
>>like doing three alternated null moves in a row.
>>What can we conclude then?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Gerd
>
>Assume for arguments sake that white plays a move, black nullmoves and white
>reverses his move.
>
>Then I think there are two possibilities:


Ok, nullmove fails high or not.


>
>Either that the first move by white was really bad (worse than nullmove), and
>black is likely to get a nullmove cutoff, e.g. a position with a back-rank mate
>threat. Moving a rook off the back-rank is clearly about the worst move on the
>board, so after an opponent nullmove it is moved back.

Seems logical to trust the nullmove cutoff here.

If the reverse move is best after nullmove and if a confirmation search fails,
it might be worth to add some fractional plies. Nullmove's "child" has searched
all successors and found the reverse move as best.


>
>Or that white is in zugzwang (and does the reverse move to do a nullmove
>himsel), in which case the nullmove (the real one) will fail to produce a cutoff
>as playing a move is better, or, when it does produce a cutoff, playing a move
>is even better, so the cutoff is ok anyway.
>
>There may be some horizon effects with the reductions used though (as
>effectively white nullmoved with R=normalR+2, but I guess this is normally not a
>problem as we expect this 'nullmove' to fail low.
>
>Adjusting the score (or even not considering the reverse move) can be dangerous
>as the scores propagated to the parent nodes will be hashed, increasing search
>instability.


No score adjustment in mind here. The reverse move refutes nullmove.
May be there is a better refutation. It seems interesting, probably
with some other conditions, to extend a bit too.


>
>Hope this helps
>Richard.

Yes, thanks Richard.
It was only a hasty thought, but is probably worth to play a bit around.

Gerd



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