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Subject: Re: Threat Extension and Tree Explosion

Author: Peter McKenzie

Date: 11:47:19 05/23/02

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On May 23, 2002 at 05:13:42, Andrew Williams wrote:

>On May 23, 2002 at 03:40:29, Steve Maughan wrote:
>
>>I have recently been tinkering with threat extensions (TE).  I'd definitely like
>>to include some form of TE but I have encountered some problems of tree
>>explosion.
>>
>>What is happening is that the null move routine is detecting a mating threat and
>>I'm extending by one ply at ply[x].  I then try a move (at ply[x]) that doesn't
>>aviod the threat. In reply the opponent plays a sub-optimal move at ply[x+1]
>>that does not lead to mate even though a forced mating move does exist.  At
>>plt[x+2] I then detect a threat and extend again...
>>
>>This sequence leads to a tree explosion.  Is there any common wisdom as to how
>>to avoid this?  Some ideas that I've had are:
>>
>>1) Only extend by a fraction - inelegant solution IMO
>>2) Store the rely to the null move that gave the checkmate and make this the
>>Killer move for the next ply - didn't seem to work well - still some tree
>>explosion.
>>
>>Has anyone any ideas?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Steve
>
>Why not restrict your search to one threat extension per line? ie Keep track of
>whether you've had a TE in the current path, and if so don't check for it again.

I do this in Warp, and I'm not that happy with the it.  Its seems pretty
artificial, and doesn't scale well with deep searches.

I'm planning to try partial ply pretty soon.

I suspect Steve has a move ordering problem though.  An interesting issue.

>
>Andrew



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