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Subject: Re: Interesting endgame database probe problem

Author: Eugene Nalimov

Date: 14:18:29 02/08/99

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On February 08, 1999 at 16:25:33, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On February 08, 1999 at 11:18:50, José de Jesús García Ruvalcaba wrote:
>
>>On February 07, 1999 at 18:30:17, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On February 07, 1999 at 13:12:01, José de Jesús García Ruvalcaba wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>Was crafty using the full 3+2 five men tablebases?
>>>
>>>yes...
>>>
>>>
>>>>If the position after 100...Kc4 is a mate in 70 moves, then the position after
>>>>101.Qe2+ should allow black a move which is a mate in at most 69 moves. But this
>>>>position appeared *twice* before in the game. I wonder why crafty did not go for
>>>>the mate in 69 *before*.
>>>
>>>
>>>the problem is that at the point where it screwed up, it had a _real_ mate
>>>in 73, or a bogus mate in 70 (bogus because it was a draw before the mate
>>>could be played).  So it went for the mate in 70 because the bug didn't let
>>>it detect that the next opponent move would be a 3-fold repetition.
>>>
>>
>>	I see that crafty would never give up the h-pawn to reach a drawn QP vs Q
>>ending. So I assume that the position after 96. Qxh5+ is won for black.
>>	I do not understand why, in a tablebase position, crafty allowed the same
>>position to appear twice (however, I understand why it allowed the third
>>repetition now). If crafty is in a won tablebase position, the distance to mate
>>should decrease every move.
>>
>
>that was the 'bug' I reported.  in my search, I tried all moves at ply=1,
>but at ply=2 did the tablebase probe _before_ trying any opponent moves.  And
>since I did this, I made a move that led to the shortest possible mate, but
>also led to a position where when the opponent moved, it repeated the position
>for the third time.
>
>Now, I _always_ search all moves at the first 2 plies and only probe at depth=3
>and beyond, to be _sure_ I know that after crafty _and_ the opponent make a
>move, the position is not drawn by repetition or 50 move rule counter...
>

But can the draw happen not on the 1st opponent move,
but on the 2nd?

Eugene

>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>	Is it possible to have a queue of tablebase positions which need to be scored
>>>>waiting for the harddisk to respond?
>>>
>>>not really.  Because when I do a probe, I _know_ I will get a result.  So
>>>the search will definitely terminate here, with win/lose/draw scores.  But I
>>>can't really go on until I know which...  because of alpha/beta....
>>>
>>
>>I see, the score is needed for the cutoffs. I realized that after giving it some
>>thought at home.
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Currently there are no faster drives available, but there will...
>>>
>>>Certainly, although I doubt we are going to see much below 5ms for the
>>>access time.  There is still 'inertia' to overcome.  But it wouldn't matter
>>>if it was down to 1ms...  because compare a 1ms disk read to a 2ns instruction
>>>cycle time in a 500mhz processor...  a difference of _one million_ that will
>>>only get worse, not better...



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