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Subject: Re: New opponent programmer, with some beginner's questions

Author: Zappa

Date: 09:42:57 11/21/05

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>1) Is there a good way to choose between Negascout and mtd(f) ?  Right now I'm
>leaning towards mtd(f), because though the Aske Plaat example code is broken, I
>do have a working private version already.  If Negascout is significantly better
>I'll implement that instead, but if they're neck and neck I'll stick with what
>I've got.

Don't listen to the MTD fanboys - there is a reason no top engine uses MTD.
Whenever the score is oscillating MTD has big problems (it takes a LOT of time
to fail low in MTD).  Of course, positions in which the score is oscillating are
the critical ones :)    Its not that MTD doesn't work, but PVS is better.

>2) Okay, this is going to sound dumb.  Why is null move pruning a good thing?

Because you use an R of 2 or 3 so the null move search is actually very cheap.
Null move is not the end-all or be-all of chess programming and there are
definitely other methods that work, but it works well and is easy to implement,
so most people use it.

cheers,

anthony



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