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Subject: Re: History based pruning question

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 14:50:32 08/26/05

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On August 26, 2005 at 17:21:57, Uri Blass wrote:

>On August 26, 2005 at 17:08:52, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On August 26, 2005 at 16:58:21, Uri Blass wrote:
>>
>>>On August 26, 2005 at 14:54:32, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>On August 26, 2005 at 14:21:34, Alvaro Jose Povoa Cardoso wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Hi,
>>>>>some of you compare the number of times a move failed high to the number o times
>>>>>the same move failed low in order to decide if a move can be reduced one ply.
>>>>>I've tested this and also tested using the actual values of the history table
>>>>>(using of course another history table for fail lows).
>>>>>I couldn't reach a conclusion though.
>>>>>What is your experience on this?
>>>>>
>>>>>best regards,
>>>>>Alvaro
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>My first thought is that the number of "fail lows" is irrelevant.  What you
>>>>really want to avoid is a reduction on a move that might fail high.  Any move
>>>>will fail low in some situations, but you want to handle the "typical" case
>>>>correctly and not reduce if there is a reasonable chance the reduction will hide
>>>>something.
>>>
>>>I think that it is relevant.
>>>
>>>If a move was never tried and never had an option to fail low then you do not
>>>want to reduce it.
>>>
>>
>>Chances of that happening is about zero.  There are only a finite (and small)
>>number of different possible moves in the game.  "All the right moves" (PhD
>>thesis by Ebeling) illustrated this.
>
>I agree that there is a finite number of moves but
>I am sure that there are moves that are never tried during the first seconds of
>a search simply because you need many moves to make them legal.
>
>It does not mean that in the first time that they are legal they should be
>pruned.
>
>For example
>[D]r1b3k1/1pp5/8/8/8/8/6PP/4KB1R w - - 0 1
>
>I doubt if you will find a move like Kf6-g7 at small depths but it does not mean
>that the move should be pruned and this move can be logical in supporting passed
>pawns.
>
>Uri


by the time I get to _that_ position I could guarantee you every move has been
tried millions of times. :)




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