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Subject: Re: MINMAX verses ALPHA-BETA

Author: KarinsDad

Date: 14:45:05 01/20/99

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On January 20, 1999 at 16:37:41, Bruce Moreland wrote:

>
>On January 20, 1999 at 12:01:14, KarinsDad wrote:
>
>>On January 20, 1999 at 10:08:15, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On January 19, 1999 at 20:20:48, Larry Griffiths wrote:
>>>
>>>>I ran my program with Alpha-Beta and without Alpha-beta.
>>>>The scores and moves chosen were different.
>>>>
>>>>Is this normal for Alpha-Beta or is this an indication of an
>>>>error in my implementation of Alpha-Beta pruning?
>>>>
>>>
>>>It's a bug.  Alpha/beta _must_ produce the exact same result as minimax,
>>>this was proven in "An analysis of Alpha/Beta Pruning" written by Knuth and
>>>Moore, 1975....
>>
>>Actually, it is not necessarily true that there is a bug in the code. There is
>>an assumption on that. Since the min max search should have been exhaustive to a
>>certain depth, you cannot run the program to a deeper depth with the alpha beta
>>or the scores could change which in turn could result in different moves as
>>well.
>>
>>If the alpha beta was able to search deeper than the min max, then there is a
>>bug in the testing as opposed to a bug in the code.
>
>I think the assumption is that he's running to the same depth, otherwise of
>course it won't return the same score and PV, otherwise we'd all search to depth
>= 1 and quit.
>
>bruce

It's the little things that sometimes trip us up. Before Larry started changing
a lot of code, it seemed prudent to remind him of the obvious.

KarinsDad



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