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Subject: Re: SEE for forward pruning in the Q. search - I'm confused!

Author: Bas Hamstra

Date: 07:40:18 08/12/99

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On August 12, 1999 at 05:58:11, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:

>On August 11, 1999 at 21:57:23, Bas Hamstra wrote:
>
>>This is not a good example of how SEE can error. However there are many examples
>>possible. I too think SEE can miss things, like all sorts of pins and throw out
>>captures when it shouldn't. However, as a percentage of all captures, how often
>>does that happen? I think there is consensus that the errors are more than
>>compensated by the reduction of qnodes.
>
>There is no consensus about this at all.
>
>I'm the opposite. It's like the real dumb program Bob and i are
>discussing about, in the end those stupid things will lose as tactics
>aren't the weakest chain in chessprograms.
>
>If you use SEE for SURE your eval is the weakest chain. You con't even
>see exchanges correctly, or you grab poisened pawns.
>
>A SEE cannot be combined with a big evaluation. A see works brilliant
>for piece square table programs though, as junior quite obviously shows,
>as they don't lose knowledge when applying it.
>
>>A cheap alternative is to throw captures out when after a capture the capturing
>>piece is hanging (and A > D).
>
>>Regards,
>>Bas Hamstra.
>>
>>
>>
>>On August 11, 1999 at 16:12:07, Tom King wrote:
>>
>>>I must be missing something obvious with using SEE to prune
>>>in the Q. search. If I understand right, "losing" captures
>>>(according to the SEE) are pruned right out. But I fail to
>>>see how this won't screw up big time.
>>>
>>>Let's take an example. Now assume we have a white bishop on G5
>>>and a black knight on F6, and the knight is protected by a pawn on G7.
>>>Now the SEE might well assume that BxN is a loser (assuming that
>>>the bishop is worth a fraction more than the knight), because
>>>after BxN, gxB, white has lost a bishop for a knight. But it
>>>might be that this is in fact a very good capture, because it
>>>destroys black's kingside. And a program with the SEE Q. pruning
>>>might not want to play this? Am I missing something obvious
>>>here?
>>>
>>>Cheers
>>>Tom



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