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Subject: Re: Killer Move Heuristic Questions

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 11:44:58 06/03/99

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On June 03, 1999 at 14:40:44, Eugene Nalimov wrote:

>The good strategy is to maintain 2 killers, and when the move causes the cutoff,
>check: if it is killer#1, do nothing; if it is killer#2, swap killers; if it is
>new one, move killer#1 to killer#2, and that new move to killer#1. Also, if the
>move is capture of the opponent's piece that just was moved, do not store it as
>killer, as it's likely that move will not be good in the next position (that
>means that you have to try those captures first, before considering killers -
>very reasonable, as in the half of nodes we have to try every move, and after
>majority of moves you can easily win the material by just capturing moved
>piece).
>
>Eugene


I don't even store captures as killers, since good captures are tried before
the killers anyway...




>
>On June 03, 1999 at 14:29:23, Andrew Williams wrote:
>
>>On June 03, 1999 at 12:59:02, William Bryant wrote:
>>
>>>Every time I try to improve my program, I seem to break it in innumerable ways.
>>>
>>
>>Join the club :-)
>>
>>>The killer move heuristic should be rather easy to implement.
>>>
>>>At every ply, any move that generates a cutoff (I interpret as a beta cutoff, a
>>>fail high), this move is added to the current killer table.
>>>
>>
>>This is what I do.
>>
>>>Is it an alpha cutoff (score > alpha) more appropriate?
>>>
>>>Also, does this move automatically displace previous killer moves, or do you use
>>>some qualifier such as the search score, keeping the moves with the greates
>>>score?
>>
>>What I use is a count for how many times the killer move has been successful
>>(caused a cutoff). The least successful gets replaced.
>>
>>>
>>>Finally, in using the killer moves for move ordering the ranking I am using is:
>>>1. Hash Table Move
>>>2. PV Move (in not the same as #1)
>>>3. Captures with a net positive score (captured piece > capturing piece)
>>>   Promotions
>>>4. Killer moves and Captures with an equal score (exchange)
>>>5. Loosing Captures
>>>6. All other moves--sorted by the history heuristic.
>>>
>>>Any help will be appreciated, I am missing something simple because this is
>>>slowing down, not speeding up my search.
>>>
>>
>>How many killers are you using? (I find that changing the number of killers
>>makes quite a difference). Are you checking killers before generating your
>>moves? This (I think) was the original justification for killer moves; you can
>>try them before even generating moves at the current ply. If you do this, you
>>must be careful to ensure that the killer is valid in the current context, as it
>>may have arisen from a quite different position.
>>
>>I hope others will also answer this question, as I have never found killers
>>to be a particularly big win either. Normally I just use the history heuristic.
>>At the moment, I'm keeping a couple of killer moves and checking for them
>>when I generate moves. This isn't in the "spirit" of the killer heuristic, but
>>it seems marginally better.
>>
>>
>>Andrew Williams



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