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Subject: Re: Something interesting about Amy

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 07:03:49 02/05/00

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On February 05, 2000 at 04:04:06, Dann Corbit wrote:

>On February 05, 2000 at 03:51:24, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote:
>
>>On February 05, 2000 at 01:05:13, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>
>>>It uses NegaScout() rather than NegaMax() like {for instance} Crafty.
>>
>>
>>Hahaha...Crafty (and every other half-decent chessprogram) uses
>>Principal Variantion Search, which is essentially identical to
>>NegaScout.
>>
>>If it were to use pure NegaMax, you'd see the search depth nearly
>>halved.
>
>Shows you what I know, which is not much.  I was just going by the comments in
>search.c that say this:
>


There is no "negamax" search that I know of, by itself.  negamax is just a
odd formulation of a minimax search that turns it into a "maximax" search for
simpler program, by negating things at every ply.  IE alpha/beta and negamax
alpha/beta are identical, since both use minimax... only the negamax code is
simpler to write (it can be recursive where straight minimax can't be without
a lot of extra tests for min or max nodes...

Crafty uses PVS as the basic search strategy, coded in the 'negamax' framework
of recursive alpha/beta.






>********************************************************************************
>*                                                                              *
>*   Search() is the recursive routine used to implement the alpha/beta         *
>*   negamax search (similar to minimax but simpler to code.)  Search() is      *
>*   called whenever there is "depth" remaining so that all moves are subject   *
>*   to searching, or when the side to move is in check, to make sure that this *
>*   side isn't mated.  Search() recursively calls itself until depth is ex-    *
>*   hausted, at which time it calls Quiesce() instead.                         *
>*                                                                              *
>********************************************************************************
>
>What (exactly) is the modification that turns a negamax search into a Principal
>Variantion Search?
>
>In what way does this cause identical search performance?



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