I wonder if there is conclusion or consensus on whether to store
quiescence search results in hash table. What are the advantages and
disadvantages? If I choose to store the results, is it better to store
in the same hash table as regular one or I should have separate one?
And reasons for that?

Thanks in advance!

Jih-tung Pai wrote:

I wonder if there is conclusion or consensus on whether to store
quiescence search results in hash table. What are the advantages and
disadvantages? If I choose to store the results, is it better to store
in the same hash table as regular one or I should have separate one?
And reasons for that?

Thanks in advance!

The general idea behind using techniques like transposition-tables is
that it gives you a performance gain. It is a good excercise to simply
experiment with it, untill it gives the best performance.

Clock your execution, count the number of nodes visited. Let the program
run solitairily on your computer and do some test. Normally you should
use some test suites, in this way you might be able to compare your
results with others.

You can of course also think about it a little while and guess... This
is normally not a good idea.

Good luck!

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Jih-tung Pai wrote:

I wonder if there is conclusion or consensus on whether to store
quiescence search results in hash table.

I think, there is no definite conclusion. I think many engine authors tried
it both ways. I for example use HTs in qsearch. Crafty for example, does
not.

What are the advantages and
disadvantages?

They should be rather obvious. Advantages - you can cut the trees or get a
reasonable move for move-ordering (even in normal search). Disadvantages:
complicates your qsearch function and adds processing time.

If I choose to store the results, is it better to store
in the same hash table as regular one or I should have separate one?

I use the same HT.

Regards,
Dieter

Jih-tung Pai wrote:
I wonder if there is conclusion or consensus on whether to store
quiescence search results in hash table. What are the advantages and
disadvantages? If I choose to store the results, is it better to store
in the same hash table as regular one or I should have separate one?
And reasons for that?

Thanks in advance!

I have done it both ways. Not hashing in the q-search makes my trees
about 10% bigger, but the program is 10% faster so it is a "wash".

Hashing in the q-search has one important effect that I actually like to
miss, that of overloading the hash on long searches. This lets smaller
hash sizes work fine. As a result, I don't hash q-search at the present.

If you do checks and/or other non-capture moves in the q-search, this
might change, so you have to test carefully...



--
Robert Hyatt Computer and Information Sciences
University of Alabama at Birmingham
(205) 934-2213 115A Campbell Hall, UAB Station
(205) 934-5473 FAX Birmingham, AL 35294-1170

Thanks for all the replies. I forgot to ask what kind of behavior
differences one should expect between cleaning hash table after
calculating each move and not cleaning it. I would think not cleaning
it will save some time, but I also know Crafty clean it after every
move. Why?

My engine has a boolean value for "keep" in each hash entry. When an
attempt to save a position is made the first check is based on this
variable, if it is false then the write occurs no matter what. If true
then the write occurs if the search depth of the to-save position is
greater than what is already there. When a search is started the first
thing done before we enter root search is to "clear" the hash table
which is that I turn the "keep" variable off for all entries. What then
happens is that interesting positions that where evaluated in the last
search are still available but uninteresting ones get deleted as the
search progresses.

The above is a depth based ttable, there are many other methods.

If this is your first engine you will find citeseer very helpful:
http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/cs

Search for "Transposition table chess" and read "Replacement Schemes for
Transposition Tables" and "Information in Transposition Tables" by
Breuker et. al.

NR