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Subject: Re: Help stuffing PV into Hash Table

Author: Bas Hamstra

Date: 07:13:29 10/08/99

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On October 07, 1999 at 18:42:35, William Bryant wrote:

>Bob has said on may occasions that he puts the pv into the hash table before
>each search to improve move ordering and efficiency.
>
>Trial and error has gotten me close to succeeding in this but a few questions.
>
>1. I stuff the PV at the start of each iteration.
>	Now, do you restuff it if a search fails high with a new root move?
>	If it fails high with the original root move?
>	If it fails low and you are going to research every move all over again?

I am experimenting with this too. I do it when it fails low and I have to
research everything over. If I don't do this it takes much longer to get a new
PV. I don't have internal deepening yet, maybe that is better.

But for me it works better than doing nothing. I just want it to play a fairly
good line first, even if its not the best.


>2. What values do you use for the hash table entry.
>	I have been placing each move in as follows:
>		flag == exact
>		depth == 0
>		score == pv score following the last iteration
>		bestmove == pv move.
>
>	Note: we want the best move, but not to generate a premature cutoff so
>		I set depth to 0.  This means, that the rest of the entry except the
>		bestmove will be not be used.
>
>	Should I be using alpha instead?

I have a flag PVMOVE. That means the HashMove will be played first, but no score
will ever be read from the record.

>3. In the root search, I don't probe the hash table, so there is no bestmove.
>	I use the pv move in this case.
>
>4. In the QSearch, where I don't probe the hash table, do you still check to see if any of the captures are part of the pv, or simply sort them all in the
standard way?

I don't update PV's in the QSearch, so the latter.

>I am concerned that I may have a few bugs, because I am not getting the
>performance that I had by searching the pv move and then the hash table move.


Regards,
Bas Hamstra.


>Thanks in advance.
>
>William
>wbryant@ix.netcom.com



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