Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: More hash questions

Author: James Robertson

Date: 02:29:55 08/20/99

Go up one level in this thread


On August 20, 1999 at 05:08:06, Bruce Moreland wrote:

>
>On August 20, 1999 at 04:59:26, James Robertson wrote:
>
>>When my program spots a mate, if the position is, say, mate in 5, it may give a
>>score "mate in 10", and then the next move "mate in 6", and then "mate in 3",
>>and so on. Sometimes the "mate in x" will increase to "mate in x+y".
>>
>>When a mate is spotted, my program never fails to mate, and it seems to do it in
>>the minimum moves possible. I am still worried; I don't think I have noticed any
>>other programs doing this.
>>
>>I adjust my mate scores to reflect the node (if (score > MATE/2) score -= ply),
>>but I may be goofing this up. Is this tied in with my problem in the post below
>>this one? If anyone can help, I would really appreciate it.
>>
>>James
>
>When you want to store a mate score or bound in the hash table, adjust the score
>so that it is a bound, if you can.
>
>For instance, if the score is mate in 6, store it as >= mate in 300 or whatever.

I am not completely sure I understand. Say I find a position is +mate in 6,
would I score it with the flag 'lower bound' and a score of mate in 300, instead
of an 'exact' flag with a score  of +mate in 6?

>
>There are some dumb cases like if you are failing high or failing low, where you
>may have to just laugh and not store anything.

Err.... I don't understand here either. How would I decide not to store
anything?

>
>This won't hurt performance, I think, and will guarantee that you can never get
>a bogus mate score bug ever.
>
>If the bound is not enough to cause a cutoff, chances are that you are either
>winning big or losing big, so who cares.

For me, it is a major struggle just to figure out how this whole hash thing
works with alpha-beta. I _think_ I get the gist of what is happening, but may be
completely off. Does this mean that if we look up +mate 300 (actaully it is
+mate in 6, but we adjusted it) is < beta, then we are winning so much it
doesn't matter?

>
>Please resist the temptation to implement this and then assume/wish that you've
>fixed the problem you mention in the other thread.

Ok!

James

>
>bruce



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.