Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Half baked idea for an EGTB

Author: Ricardo Gibert

Date: 15:49:58 09/10/99

Go up one level in this thread


On September 10, 1999 at 11:03:38, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On September 10, 1999 at 09:56:30, Ricardo Gibert wrote:
>
>>On September 10, 1999 at 00:20:59, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On September 09, 1999 at 21:57:28, Ricardo Gibert wrote:
>>>
>>>>Would it be feasible to generate an EGTB in the following manner: Instead of
>>>>storing DTM or DTC in the EGTB, how about storing "nth generated move progresses
>>>>towards mate"? It would seem this would be more compact in some endings. An old
>>>>idea? Yes? No? Maybe? Incorporating a little primitive AI to order the moves
>>>>generated would make the the tables even more compact.
>>>
>>>
>>>Suppose _all_ moves head toward mate.  How do you pick the one that leads to
>>>the shortest mate?  Not important?  If you keep choosing a move that leads to
>>>a mate in 10, you eventually run into the 50-move rule.  This is why everyone
>>>likes distance-to-mate databases.
>>
>>You missed the key word "progresses". You are including what I call
>>retro-gressive moves leading to mate i.e. prolongs the win.
>>
>>I do need to amend my description for a very different reason, however. There is
>>a problem in extracting reasonable defensive tries. How does the defender best
>>prolong the game to delay its loss? "Nth generated move  that is optimal rather
>>than "Nth generated move progresses to mate" would include defenders best best
>>defensive tries. All you need to know is that a move is optimal and not whether
>>it mates in X number of moves or that it wins or draws. But this amendment is
>>moot as the idea has other problems. DTM can be partitioned into smaller pieces,
>>which makes it better memory wise.
>
>If you only store a single index, how is this more efficient than Eugene's
>format?  IE you are going to have to use 8 bits for the move index, he is using
>8 bits for the distance to mate score, so it seems to be a 'wash'.  IE your
>approach seems to be no different from what we already get with Eugene's,
>because we _can_ get the move that 'progresses' trivially.  From the current
>database 'hit' position, generate all moves, probe for each one, and take the
>one that leads to the quickest mate...

Nth generated move should be a smaller number, even smaller still if the moves
are re-ordered with a little "AI". Example, the moves can be re-ordered by
placing moves that do not hang a piece or decentralize the King ahead of those
that do. This will improve the compressability of the EGTB. This is what I'm
after.

>
>The main problem with the index into a move list is that it requires that
>everyone use the same canonical move generator order, something that is very
>non-trivial.  We want the probe code to fit into a chess engine very easily,
>not require special move generator order or whatever to make it work...

They can use any move generator they want. Sorting is trivial.



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.