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Subject: Re: But Crafty Scores Different ? Re: Symmetry Position Question

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 15:04:06 08/14/05

Go up one level in this thread


On August 14, 2005 at 16:08:35, Brian Richardson wrote:

>On August 14, 2005 at 15:33:00, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On August 14, 2005 at 14:57:50, Brian Richardson wrote:
>>
>>>Just wondering if others see this behavior or not.
>>>
>>>In the position below, Tinker prefers Qc7 after a bit.
>>>
>>>[D]5rk/3b2p/1q1p1p1p/2p1p/1pP1P1P/1P1PQP/r2N2KR/7R/ b  0 1
>>>
>>>However, in the "flipped" position (horizontally around a rank axis)
>>>it does not like Qc2 (I think the flip is correct)
>>>
>>>[D]7r/R2n2kr/1p1pqp/1Pp1p1p/2P1P/1Q1P1P1P/3B2P/5RK/ w  0 1
>>>
>>>When I ran this test with Crafty, and flipping, the moves are also a bit
>>>different, as are the scores for each full ply.
>>>
>>>So, I'm wondering if this is an asymmetrical evaluation problem, or search
>>>instability, or no big deal.
>>>
>>>Thanks
>>
>>
>>Here's the thing for crafty.
>>
>>It is 100% symmetrical if you just flip the board along either axis.  I test
>>this all the time.  But if you do a search, it might not be, because my move
>>generator generates moves in a specific order, and if you flip the board, the
>>move order will change (think about FirstOne() applied to a bitboard that is
>>rotated, you get a different first or last bit set, etc...
>>
>>a 1-ply search should be perfect unless there are two moves with the same score,
>>and flipping the board causes the generator to produce a different order for the
>>two moves in questio...
>>
>>My "rule of thumb" is _everything_ is a big deal, until properly explained...
>
>Thanks for the reply.  I can understand different search trees based on
>different move generation order and such, but shouldn't the final score for each
>full ply be exactly the same either way?
>
>Perhaps you could see if Crafty does this for you, or not, in which case I'm
>just missing something.
>
>Thanks again.


To test in crafty for yourself, set up a position, type "score".  The type
"flip" or "flop"  which rotates the board along the x or y axis.  flip also
changes white piece to black and vice versa.  flop does not, but it interchanges
a and h files, etc...

Note that if you search the same basic tree, but change the ordering, the hash
table can further alter the tree and even the final score.  Fine 70 is a great
example where minor changes produce major differences at a given depth.



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