Transposition table based pruning idea

[AndrewGrant]

Ill note that after making the return value changes to Ethereal, I tried making them to SF

http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/v ... 0d945d57bb

Did quite poorly. I imagine it has to do with the fact that SF is probably very accurate in what it prunes from the search tree -- Ethereal not so much.

One additional question -- When you set your flag to skip TT pruning when doing the depth-1 search, do you also skip all other early pruning?

[jd1]

Ill note that after making the return value changes to Ethereal, I tried making them to SF

http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/v ... 0d945d57bb

Did quite poorly. I imagine it has to do with the fact that SF is probably very accurate in what it prunes from the search tree -- Ethereal not so much.

One additional question -- When you set your flag to skip TT pruning when doing the depth-1 search, do you also skip all other early pruning?

Thanks for that info. I'm running the test now.

No, I don't skip all other early pruning. That is something else that could be tested I suppose.

It never ceases to amaze me how some things work well in one engine but fail clearly in others, despite mostly using similar algorithms.

[jd1]

Ill note that after making the return value changes to Ethereal, I tried making them to SF

http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/v ... 0d945d57bb

Too early to say anything definitive here, but this change has certainly started well 35-28-37 (+24) ... at the moment, will run to 8000 games.

Also I wonder if even in Stockfish perhaps it could be worth trying each return value individually rather than all together. Perhaps, for example, it's safe to return the "accurate" values from a null move search but not the static eval in beta /static null pruning or the quiescent value in razoring.

[AndrewGrant]

I plan on submitting each of those individually when the framework is low on tests again.

Maintainers may not like it however, as it creates a sort of 'inconsistency' with the alpha beta logic.

[AndrewGrant]

I was not able to find any success after a couple dozen attempts.

Individual return value changes failed in Stockfish testing as well.

How did the rest of those 8,000 games playout?

[jd1]

I was not able to find any success after a couple dozen attempts.

Individual return value changes failed in Stockfish testing as well.

How did the rest of those 8,000 games playout?

Unfortunately returning alpha/beta also failed here as well, -3 Elo after 8000 games. I haven't tried individually.

[Cardoso]

Don (may I call you Don?),

could you do me a favor?
Could you please count both cases?
1 - trans_value >= beta + margin
2 - trans_value <= alpha - margin

I think case 1 is what occurs the most.
Case 2 is rare.
This is what happens in my case.
Jus trying to figure out all properties and/or if there is some bug in my engine.
thanks,
Alvaro

[Cardoso]

Here's a typical output after 5.5 billion nodes:
alpha cut =3,792,896
beta cut =54,403,072