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Subject: Re: Question on Null Moves

Author: William Bryant

Date: 07:18:12 10/19/99

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On October 18, 1999 at 23:12:29, Robert Hyatt wrote:


>at times you do a hash probe, and you get a score or bound, but the draft
>is insufficient.  However, think about your null-move search.  It is going
>to search this same position, but 2 plies shallower.  So if the hash entry
>isn't good enough to use normally, remember when you get a UPPER bound from
>the hash table, and see if that bound is < the current alpha value.  If so,
>and the depth is good enough to satisfy the null-move search (draft is at least
>remaining depth - 3 plies since null-move will reduce depth by 2 and you would
>normally reduce by one more) then you know that the null-move search won't fail
>high, since this hash entry says it would fail low.  Don't bother trying the
>null-move search since you know it won't fail high and will just be wasting
>time...
>
>In crafty, hash.c, the "avoid_null" variable holds this.  If we can't fail
>high or low or return an exact score, I return this value which says "no
>good hash info, but avoid trying null move here anyway..."
>
>Bob

I still think I'm missing something.  I understand the explination, but it
differs from what is in the source code (I think?).

You description say to see if the bound is less than the current _alpha_ value,
yet the source compares this to *beta, a pointer to the actual beta.

Where I am skipping a beat on this one?

Thanks.

William
wbryant@ix.netcom.com




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