Price List

[Henk]

Is there a price list of chess program features like:

Implementing LMR costs X hours and gives Y ELO rating points.

That would be nice to have. I think nobody likes to spend a lot of time on implementing features that don't give you any profit.

I would also like to have such a list for playing style.

If your chess program gains more ELO points but plays boring or much too tactical than you do not want to implement that feature or mechanism.

feature examples : alfa beta, PVS, piece square table with only mobility values, king safety, lazy evaluation, futility pruning, killer moves etc.

[hgm]

There is no such list. For one, the Elo gain by a certain feature is different for all programs, as it depends a lot on what other features you have. Even the effect of search features can be dependent on the evaluation you use.

How much time it takes to implement something depends on the programmer, and how he makes the tradeoff between speed and code clarity. Most of the features you mention can be implemented in minutes in a clean program (usually making it less clean). OTOH, if you mess up you can spend days debugging, even if you realise something is wrong.

[Henk]

But estimates are ok too. Or relative figures.

I' ll begin:

Implementing LMR costs 0 .. 24 (hours) and gains -200 .. 150 ELO points.

[velmarin]

Ed Schröder wrote some post, remember,
 
see their website
Experiments in computer chess
http://www.top-5000.nl/
In eval:
http://www.top-5000.nl/eval.htm

[Henk]

Ok that's something. But he doesn't say how many hours it costs to implement these features. Also that list is not complete. I do not see LMR in the list for instance. And what about playing style. A chess program which plays like Petrosjan is different than one playing like Tal

[velmarin]

Ok that's something. But he doesn't say how many hours it costs to implement these features. Also that list is not complete. I do not see LMR in the list for instance. And what about playing style. A chess program which plays like Petrosjan is different than one playing like Tal

Answers are impossible.
LMR may be a few minutes or days.

Style of play, can be an impossible,

And play like a GM, no program possible, engines are mathematical and scientific programs.