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Subject: Re: Q: pawn hash?

Author: Andrew Williams

Date: 02:47:04 07/20/99

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On July 20, 1999 at 02:20:03, Scott Gasch wrote:

>
>Ok, I've heard people talking about pawn hash tables and this got me thinking
>about them.  I am not sure how to do it --
>
>1) if you just hash 8 pawn locations and an associated evaluation that is pretty
>easy.  It's a nice small number, can fit in memory, etc... However, you can't
>recognize passed pawns becasue you don't know where the enemy pawns are?
>
>2) if you make a table with all 16 pawns in all possible configurations I
>calculate a total of 1120853258472 possibilities.  That requires quite a bit of
>memory... ;)
>
>3) do you mean just hash the recent scores for pawn structures?  This way any
>node that has the same pawn structure anywhere in the tree can get the pawn
>score instantly?
>

Yep. You make a hash key just like your normal hash key except that you only
include the positions of Pawns in it. You can then hash any information that
only pertains to Pawns in your Pawn Hash Table. A tip - don't include any
scoring that depends on anything not in this pawn hash key, or it won't work.
In PostModernist, I can switch off pawn hashing, so that I can check that I
get *exactly* the same nodes with it and without it. That's very important.
In my case, the score for a passed pawn includes whether it is under attack
and whether it can advance safely. Because of this, I don't hash any position
where there's a passed pawn, as this attack/advance information depends on
enemy Pieces as well as Pawns.


Andrew Williams




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