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Sudden death time controls
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Robert Hyatt



Joined: 27 Feb 2006
Posts: 15816
Location: Birmingham, AL
PostPost subject: Re: Sudden death time controls    Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 12:30 am Reply to topic Reply with quote
Mincho Georgiev wrote:
It's much more complicated than just x% of the time, because you will have a very high number of unfinished iterations that way.
What I do (and probably others) is to use time boundaries. One for the absolute maximum allowed (which can be considered for the X%
that you mention, just bigger) and one for the regular slice. If you accomplish the "regular" boundary but the iteration isn't finished yet,
you keep going until the max boundary is reached. On the other hand, if you have let say 70% of the regular finished, don't go for new iteration,
unless something bad is happening (or whatever you decide) - if you do that, use the max boundary.
You have a wide variety with this method and you can choose what part of the max to use and when and so on.

Best Regards!


I've tested this a ton. "unfinished iterations" are not a bad thing. You learn one thing quickly, that is that the previous best move is not as good as you thought. Fail lows happen quicker than fail-highs, and knowing the first move is bad can let you allocate more time, where if you choose to not start the iteration, you never know. In addition, even if you don't get a fail-high or low, or even a best score, when you start the pondering search, a good hash table will get you right back to where you were without wasting any time...

We do have an exceptional case where if we begin to fall behind, we speed up to avoid letting the opponent build up too large a time advantage which can be a killer later on. We do not do anything where we have a big advantage. Thinking too long lets the opponent get ponder hit after ponder hit and search just as long as you do, where it might be better to speed up to his level to avoid letting him ride your back along the time-usage path...

We used to have code that did exactly this, primarily for humans that like to just move back and forth instantly and try to reach a draw by getting their thinking done on our clock (3 0 was the time control of choice for this it seems). That might still be in Crafty, I have not looked recently...
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Subject Author Date/Time
Sudden death time controls Larry Kaufman Thu May 10, 2012 3:17 am
      Re: Sudden death time controls Mincho Georgiev Thu May 10, 2012 5:42 am
            Re: Sudden death time controls H.G.Muller Thu May 10, 2012 8:20 am
                  Re: Sudden death time controls Mincho Georgiev Thu May 10, 2012 10:08 am
            Re: Sudden death time controls Robert Hyatt Tue May 15, 2012 12:30 am
      Re: Sudden death time controls Uri Blass Thu May 10, 2012 8:54 am
      Re: Sudden death time controls Joona Kiiski Thu May 10, 2012 10:57 am
            Re: Sudden death time controls Larry Kaufman Fri May 11, 2012 2:24 am
                  Re: Sudden death time controls Joona Kiiski Fri May 11, 2012 12:37 pm
                        Re: Sudden death time controls Uri Blass Fri May 11, 2012 1:12 pm
                        Re: Sudden death time controls Larry Kaufman Fri May 11, 2012 2:21 pm
                              Re: Sudden death time controls Joona Kiiski Fri May 11, 2012 3:47 pm
      Re: Sudden death time controls Evert Glebbeek Thu May 10, 2012 11:25 am
      Re: Sudden death time controls Jon Dart Fri May 11, 2012 3:23 pm
            Re: Sudden death time controls Robert Hyatt Tue May 15, 2012 12:39 am
                  Re: Sudden death time controls Álvaro Begué Tue May 15, 2012 1:36 pm
                        Re: Sudden death time controls Jon Dart Sat May 19, 2012 12:07 pm
                              Re: Sudden death time controls H.G.Muller Sat May 19, 2012 12:59 pm
                              Re: Sudden death time controls Álvaro Begué Sat May 19, 2012 3:56 pm
      Re: Sudden death time controls Robert Hyatt Tue May 15, 2012 12:27 am
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