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Subject: Re: Interesting endgame database probe problem

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 21:26:46 02/08/99

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On February 08, 1999 at 17:18:29, Eugene Nalimov wrote:

>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

yes it can...  this is a problem, but I don't think it can happen in this case
again, because It should continue to work toward the shallowest mate.  My case
was a real bug that happened.  But with repetitions and 50-move issues, it can
be a problem...  the point here is that for 50 move problems it would choose
the best mate that pushes the pawn.  Ditto for repetition, hopefully, although
there is likely still a big hole there...  Probably would be better, once _in_
a tablebase position, to only probe at the 'tips'??

Messy stuff this non-path database info.  :)


>
>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>	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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