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Subject: Re: Move Ordering at the Root

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 19:58:20 09/15/99

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On September 15, 1999 at 22:47:53, James Robertson wrote:

>On September 15, 1999 at 22:37:34, Will Singleton wrote:
>
>>On September 15, 1999 at 17:12:16, Dan Homan wrote:
>>
>>>I was reading the crafty source again the other day and noticed that
>>>Bob has a special function to improve the move ordering at the root
>>>of the search.
>>>
>>>I really didn't feel like writing such a function last night, but I
>>>thought instead to use the values returned by the search itself to
>>>improve the move ordering at the root.  I know that I only get an
>>>accurate value for the best move, but I thought that my fail-soft
>>>search might return useful numbers for the other moves as well....
>>>
>>>Implementing this was pretty quick and easy: there were a couple
>>>of pit falls, but the total changes were about 5 lines of code.
>>>Previously I simply used the same move ordering at the root that I
>>>use at all other nodes.
>>>
>>>The improvement was amazing!  I got a full ply in many positions and
>>>about a half-ply in many more.   It improved my solution times on WAC
>>>noticably and seems even better in quiet positions.
>>>
>>>I know that my solution was a quick kludge, so I am wondering what
>>>other people do for move ordering at the root of the search.
>>>
>>> - Dan
>>
>>I find it odd that you'd get an improvement with that scheme -- what were you
>>using before?
>>
>>I now use the node-count method, which worked better than my previous method,
>>which I don't remember right now (might have been your new one).
>>
>>Will
>
>I don't use any root-ordering method. How much does it help you? A full ply or
>even half a ply or even a quarter of a ply would be wonderful.
>
>James


I assume that at least you were searching the best move from the previous ply
_first_ before trying any others?  If not then better ordering would be a huge
gain.  But if you did that, it shouldn't be significant except for some tactical
type positions...  where it continuously changes its mind at the root..



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