Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Please, say in few words what can reduce the "branching factor".

Author: leonid

Date: 19:45:44 09/20/99

Go up one level in this thread


On September 20, 1999 at 22:25:41, KarinsDad wrote:

>On September 20, 1999 at 18:02:23, leonid wrote:
>
>>On September 20, 1999 at 15:22:16, KarinsDad wrote:
>>
>>>On September 20, 1999 at 14:47:49, leonid wrote:
>>>
>>>[snip]
>>>>
>>>>My engin: 6 plys 0.22 sec.    8 plys 18 sec.     10 plys 14min. and 54 sec.
>>>>
>>>>Rebel 10:        2.6 sec             40 sec              12min. and 8 sec.
>>>>
>>>>If my "branching factor" between 6 plys and 8 is 82, for Rebel it is only
>>>>15.3. This is how Rebel take over on the 10 ply. Number of positions per
>>>>second are almost indentical but my are higher. Average number of nodes
>>>>per ply is 36.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Well, it appears that the branching factor for your program (2 ply) from ply 8
>>>to 10 is 49.7 whereas Rebel's is 18.2. So, your branching factor from ply 8 to
>>>ply 10 is dropping relative to your branching factor from ply 6 to ply 8. Rebel
>>>on the other hand has a slightly increasing branching factor from ply 8 to ply
>>>10 relative to it's ply 6 to ply 8.
>>>
>>>So, whatever the problem is, it does appear to be based on the position (i.e.
>>>some set of positions give you a much greater branching factor relative to Rebel
>>>than another set 2 ply higher). Since pure Alpha Beta should have a ballpark of
>>>a 2 ply branching factor of 36 for the position you are examining, I would guess
>>>that you have a mistake somewhere in that portion of the algorithm. Maybe
>>>assigning Beta to a bound when you should assign Alpha or something along those
>>>lines.
>>>
>>>KarinsDad :)
>>
>>Will be nice if you could explain me the last sentence of your response.
>>And also what is the "Ballpark"?
>>Thanks,
>>Leonid.
>
>Basically, your branching factors (82 and 50) are much higher than normal Alpha
>Beta (which for 2 ply should result in a value of about 36). Therefore, it seems
>that either you are not using Alpha Beta, or you have a mistake in your Alpha
>Beta such as assigning a Beta value to a bound on a cutoff instead of assigning
>an Alpha value to it or some such.
>
>"Ballpark" is a reference from American baseball where if a ball is hit inside
>the ballpark, it is still in play. If it is hit outside the ballpark, it is a
>home run (and out of play). Somehow, this became an expression that means that
>something is within a reasonable value (i.e. in the ballpark). It is often used
>with guesses as per "My guess is x which I know is off, but it is in the
>ballpark.". So in this case, a value of 36 is a reasonable value (in the
>ballpark) for a ply 2 branching factor for the position that you examined.
>
>KarinsDad :)

Thanks for your response!
Your saying that around 6 nodes must be seen inside of 36 in the ply
correspond 100% of what I found in the best games. My logic all the time did
worst that this, around 8 from 36. Will try to figure out where those
bounds are wrong.

With my respect,
Leonid.



This page took 0.01 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.