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Subject: Re: Benchmarking chess algorithms

Author: Dan Homan

Date: 09:47:29 07/20/99

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On July 20, 1999 at 12:12:14, Dann Corbit wrote:

>I think it would be interesting to benchmark chess algorithms:
>0. Move generators -- all types

This one is do-able by restricting ourselves to moves generated per
second in a standard position.  From the opening, EXchess
generates approximately 3.0 million moves per second on a 400 MHz Cel.
The move generation algorithm is a simple loop over the board (stored
as a 64 square array) with simple logic checks to find the boundry.

For generate/make/unmake EXchess preforms approximately 600,000 moves
per second on the 400 MHz Cel.  My make involves a position copy, so
I don't do an unmake routine.  The formula here is 1) generate all
the moves from a given position 2) make/unmake each move in turn
3) count the moves generated/made/unmade.

>1. Alpha-Beta vs MTD(f)

This one is harder to compare, but I like some of Bruce's ideas in
another post.

>2. Bitboards vs 0x88

Move generation and make/unmake is covered in category 0.  Comparing
things like "SWAP" and eval routines would be interesting but very
difficult to standardize.

 - Dan

>3. etc.
>
>Prepare a large crosstable and do a large number of runs with as many
>implementations as possible and under as many different conditions as possible.
>
>Change the search time from very short searches (10 sec or less) up to half an
>hour to find the bit O(f(n)) properties of the algorithms.
>
>A systematic study might eliminate a lot of guesswork or even tell us *where*
>certain algorithms work better than others.  For instance, we might use one
>algorithm at a certain time control and a different algorithm at a longer time
>control and yet another at correspondence chess time controls.



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