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Subject: Re: Account for a SEE ?

Author: Cristian Zaslo

Date: 01:31:02 03/17/99

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On March 16, 1999 at 22:55:09, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On March 16, 1999 at 18:36:08, Peter Kasinski wrote:
>
>>On March 16, 1999 at 16:58:09, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On March 16, 1999 at 12:04:51, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>>
>>>>On March 16, 1999 at 02:50:20, Cristian Zaslo wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Hi everybody !
>>>>>Will anyone be so kind and briefly explain me what sort of
>>>>>advantages would (not) have a chess programmer to implement
>>>>>a SEE in his code.
>>>>>Much obliged to you,
>>>>>Cristian
>>>>Er....
>>>>What's a SEE?  I've been programming 33 years and I have never heard of one.
>>>
>>>
>>>Stands for "Static Exchange Evaluator".  It is a procedure that analyzes all
>>>captures on a single square and returns a value indicating who comes out
>>>ahead.
>>>
>>
>>>It can be used to order captures so that you try QxP where the pawn is free,
>>>before you try QxR where the R is defended.  It can also be used to discard
>>>some captures in the q-search such as QxR where the R is defended and you are
>>>guaranteed to lose material.
>>>
>>>Used correctly it is possible to cut the size of the tree being searched by
>>>50% or more.
>>
>>
>>Bob, I looked at Swap() in Crafty where this is implemented.
>>Not using bitmaps I don't have a cheap way to determine what pieces attack a
>>given square. Would it still be profitable for me to compute these attacks in
>>order to use SEE?
>>
>>thank you,
>>PK
>
>There are far more non-bitboard programs than bitboard programs.  And SEE
>works just fine.  It will cost a little more probably, because there are
>loops that don't exist in bitmaps, but I had such a function in Cray Blitz.
>
>The idea is to take the target square, and first find out what pawns are
>attacking the  square, then bishops, knights, rooks, queens and finally
>kings.  Then the 'minimax' code at the bottom of my Swap() can be taken
>directly...

So, am I right saying that SEE may be used to improve move ordering in the
Q-Search but it cannot be used as a single way to determine whether a leaf
node is or not a quiet one ?

Thanks!



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