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Subject: Re: Branche factor

Author: Bert van den Akker

Date: 12:36:28 11/22/99

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On November 21, 1999 at 21:12:09, James Robertson wrote:

>On November 21, 1999 at 18:57:56, Bert van den Akker wrote:
>
>>On November 21, 1999 at 16:37:52, Daniel Clausen wrote:
>>
>>>Hi
>>>
>>>On November 21, 1999 at 16:04:39, Peter Kappler wrote:
>>>
>>>>On November 21, 1999 at 14:59:53, Bert van den Akker wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>From the start position I get a branche  factor of about 14%
>>>>>
>>>>>This is in a 10 ply search from the start position.
>>>>>
>>>>>The branche factor is defined as:
>>>>>
>>>>>(total_number_of_moves_looked_at_in_a_node_before_cutoff /
>>>>>total_number_of_generates_moves) * 100
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>This is how I used to compute branching factor, too.  I still think it's the
>>>>best way to measure the quality of your move sorting.
>>>
>>>I've no "experience" in computing a branching factor, but this formula looks a
>>>bit
>>>strange to me. I would have expected an absolute number, not a percentage.
>>>
>>>And consider the following: Let's say you try the move in the hashtable first
>>>and you
>>>get a cuttoff. (That's what you want in most cases.) According to your formula
>>>you
>>>get a branching factor of 100% - I think you'd like to get a small percentage
>>>though!
>>>
>>>>But, I think most programmers measure branching factor by dividing the total
>>>>number of nodes search at depth n by the number searched at depth n-1.
>>>
>>>This formula seems to be very intuitive to me.
>>>
>>>Kind regards,
>>> -sargon
>>
>>
>>Before I try the hash move I first generate all moves.
>>So the percentage will be ok.
>>
>>In my example on ply 10
>>27632 moves from the hashtable were causing a cutoff.
>>
>>Not generating all moves would save me around 0.15 second.
>>
>>My move generator can generate 200000 times all moves in the start
>>position.
>>
>>BvdA
>
>It is a much better plan to try the hash move before generating all moves. :)
>
>James


Why?

I have to check if the hash move is correct.
Now I can look in my generated moves and this cost only 0.15 seconds.

Otherwise I must write seperate code to check if the
hash move is legal.


BvdA



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