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Subject: Re: Another question...

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 17:15:27 08/02/99

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On August 02, 1999 at 11:38:14, Mark Higgins wrote:

>On August 02, 1999 at 09:06:40, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On August 02, 1999 at 04:34:03, Scott Gasch wrote:
>>
>>>Sorry for flooding the board with my questions... :)
>>>
>>>I have another one.  I am running into slow middle game performance because of
>>>high numbers of captures and deep qeval extensions.  What are some of the ways
>>>people are using to limit the number of captures considered by qeval?  Is there
>>>an easy way to throw out captures that don't make any sense in order to speed up
>>>the program?
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>Scott
>>
>>
>>I use a static exchange evaluator to purge captures (in the q-search only)
>>that seem to lose material (ie QxN, PxQ).  You can also do alpha-based
>>pruning...  if the current material score is way below alpha, and you are
>>sure your positional score can't pull the score up to alpha, and a capture
>>can't do so either, then the capture can be ignored.  IE material_score ==
>>-500 (rook down), alpha=100.  You know your largest positional score is +300,
>>and you are considering a move like NxP.  material+300+100 is < alpha.  No
>>sense in searching that NxP.
>
>It might be NxP Checkmate !!!
>
>Ciao
>
>Mark

If you want to do checks in the q-search, you simply don't do this "culling"
if the move is a check (did this in Cray Blitz).  IE if it is a check, always
include it.  Unless it can't be mate because some previous move in the q-search
was a plain capture and the opponent could stand pat after it...




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