Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: NegaScout v Alpha-Beta

Author: Steve Maughan

Date: 03:28:42 03/09/99

Go up one level in this thread


On March 09, 1999 at 03:46:16, Alessandro Damiani wrote:

Allessandro

Thanks for the feedback - I'm afraid you lost me with some of it!

>Hi!
>
>I have changed from Alpha-Beta to NegaScout because of Singular Extensions. The
>big advantage of NegaScout is that at the root of the search 'tree' you know
>which move will be the PV-move:

I don't understand!?

Surely with Alpha-Beta and iterative deepening you also know which move will be
the PV move at any point?

>if the null-window test tells you that the
>current move is better than the best move it will be researched and get the best
>move. So NegaScout gives you more information about the pv than Alpha-Beta. If
>you use heuristics that change the length of the paths of the 'tree' then you
>will notice search anomalies (contradictions between a null-window test and a
>research). To avoid this I have removed the fail-soft part of NegaScout,
>accepting the consequences.
>
>In Fortress I only use Singular Extensions at pv-nodes. Using NegaScout the
>program accepts a pv only if all singular moves on it are searched deeper and is
>still best. Of course the cost is high! But I hope that a better forward pruning
>will change that (the current forward pruning is too risky).
>

What do you mean by "accepts a pv only if all singular moves on it are searched
deeper and is still best"?  How are you defining what is and is not a singular
move?

>Alessandro

Regards

Steve Maughan



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.