This patch is a combinaison of two recent parameters tweaks which had
failed narrowly (yellow) at long time control:
• improvement in move ordering during search by softening the distinction
between bad captures and good captures during move generation, leading
to improved awareness of Stockfish of potential piece sacrifices (idea
by Rahul Dsilva)
• increase in the weight of pawns in the "initiative" part of the evaluation
function. With this change Stockfish should have more incentive to exchange
pawns when losing, and to keep pawns when winning.
STC:
LLR: 2.93 (-2.94,2.94) {-0.50,1.50}
Total: 10704 W: 2178 L: 1974 D: 6552
Ptnml(0-2): 168, 1185, 2464, 1345, 190
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5ec5553b377121ac09e1023d
LTC:
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) {0.25,1.75}
Total: 60592 W: 7835 L: 7494 D: 45263
Ptnml(0-2): 430, 5514, 18086, 5817, 449
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5ec55ca2377121ac09e10249
Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2691
Bench: 4519117
In master, if the received ttMove meets the prescribed conditions in the various MovePicker constructors, it is returned as the first move, otherwise we set it to MOVE_NONE. If set to MOVE_NONE, we no longer track what the ttMove was, and it will might be returned later in a list of generated moves. This may be a waste. With this patch, if the ttMove fails to meet the prescribed conditions, we simply skip the TT stages, but still store the move and make sure it's never returned.
STC
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) {-1.50,0.50}
Total: 66424 W: 12903 L: 12806 D: 40715
Ptnml(0-2): 1195, 7730, 15230, 7897, 1160
LTC
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) {-1.50,0.50}
Total: 45682 W: 5989 L: 5926 D: 33767
Ptnml(0-2): 329, 4361, 13443, 4334, 374
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2616
Bench 4928928
Current move histories are known to work well near the leaves, whilst at
higher depths they aren't very helpful. To address this problem this
patch introduces a table dedicated for what's happening at plies 0-3.
It's structured like mainHistory with ply index instead of color.
It get cleared with each new search and is filled during iterative
deepening at higher depths when recording successful quiet moves near
the root or traversing nodes which were in the principal variation
(ttPv).
Medium TC (20+0.2):
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5e4d358790a0a02810d096dc
LLR: 2.94 (-2.94,2.94) {-0.50,1.50}
Total: 100910 W: 16682 L: 16376 D: 67852
Ptnml(0-2): 1177, 10983, 25883, 11181, 1231
LTC:
https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5e4e2cb790a0a02810d09714
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) {0.25,1.75}
Total: 80444 W: 10495 L: 10095 D: 59854
Ptnml(0-2): 551, 7479, 23803, 7797, 592
closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2557
Bench: 4705960
Simplification that eliminates ONE_PLY, based on a suggestion in the forum that
support for fractional plies has never been used, and @mcostalba's openness to
the idea of eliminating it. We lose a little bit of type safety by making Depth
an integer, but in return we simplify the code in search.cpp quite significantly.
No functional change
------------------------------------------
The argument favoring eliminating ONE_PLY:
* The term “ONE_PLY” comes up in a lot of forum posts (474 to date)
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!searchin/fishcooking/ONE_PLY%7Csort:relevance
* There is occasionally a commit that breaks invariance of the code
with respect to ONE_PLY
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!searchin/fishcooking/ONE_PLY%7Csort:date/fishcooking/ZIPdYj6k0fk/KdNGcPWeBgAJ
* To prevent such commits, there is a Travis CI hack that doubles ONE_PLY
and rechecks bench
* Sustaining ONE_PLY has, alas, not resulted in any improvements to the
engine, despite many individuals testing many experiments over 5 years.
The strongest argument in favor of preserving ONE_PLY comes from @locutus:
“If we use par example ONE_PLY=256 the parameter space is increases by the
factor 256. So it seems very unlikely that the optimal setting is in the
subspace of ONE_PLY=1.”
There is a strong theoretical impediment to fractional depth systems: the
transposition table uses depth to determine when a stored result is good
enough to supply an answer for a current search. If you have fractional
depths, then different pathways to the position can be at fractionally
different depths.
In the end, there are three separate times when a proposal to remove ONE_PLY
was defeated by the suggestion to “give it a few more months.” So… it seems
like time to remove this distraction from the community.
See the pull request here:
https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2289
This is a functional change that rewards double attacks on an unsupported pawns.
STC (non-functional difference)
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.50,4.50]
Total: 83276 W: 18981 L: 18398 D: 45897
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d0970500ebc5925cf0a77d4
LTC (incomplete looping version)
LLR: 0.50 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,3.50]
Total: 82999 W: 14244 L: 13978 D: 54777
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d0a8d480ebc5925cf0a8d58
LTC (completed non-looping version).
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,3.50]
Total: 223381 W: 38323 L: 37512 D: 147546
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5d0e80510ebc5925cf0ad320
Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2205
Bench 3633546
----------------------------------
Comments by Alain SAVARD:
interesting result ! I would have expected that search would resolve such positions
correctly on the very next move. This is not a very common pattern, and when it happens,
it will quickly disappear. So I'm quite surprised that it passed LTC.
I would be even more surprised if this would resist a simplification.
Anyway, let's try to imagine a few cases.
a) If you have White d5 f5 against Black e6, and White to move
last move by Black was probably a capture on e6 and White is about to recapture on e6
b) If you have White d5 f5 against e6, and Black to move
last move by White was possibly a capture on d5 or f5
or the pawn on e6 was pinned or could not move for some reason.
and white wants to blast open the position and just pushed d4-d5 or f4-f5
Some possible follow-ups
a) Motif is so rare that the popcount() can be safely replaced with a bool()
But this would not pass a SPRT[0,4],
So try a simplification with bool() and also without the & ~theirAttacks
b) If it works, we probably can simply have this in the loop
if (lever) score += S(0, 20);
c) remove all this and tweak something in search for pawn captures (priority, SEE, extension,..)
The "move" class variable is Movepick is removed (removes some abstraction) which saves a few assignment operations, and the effects of "filter" is limited to the current move (movePtr). The resulting code is a bit more verbose, but it is also more clear what is going on. This version is NOT tested, but is substantially similar to:
STC
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 29191 W: 6474 L: 6367 D: 16350
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5ca7aab50ebc5925cf006e50
This is a non-functional simplification.
This custom predicate filter creates an unnecessary abstraction layer, but doesn't make the code any more readable. The code is clear enough without it.
No functional change.
This reverts commit 33d9548218 ,
which crashed in DEBUG mode because of the following assert in position.h
````
Assertion failed: (is_ok(m)), function capture, file ./position.h, line 369.
````
No functional change
Preparation commit for the upcoming Stockfish 10 version, giving a chance to catch last minute feature bugs and evaluation regression during the one-week code freeze period. Also changing the copyright dates to include 2019.
No functional change
We double in this patch the weight of the capture history table in the
local scoring of captures for move ordering.
The capture history table is indexed by the triplet (capturing piece,
capture square, captured piece) and gets information like "it seems to
have been historically good in that part of the search tree to capture
a pawn with a rook on g3, even if it seems to lose material", and affect
the normaly pure « Most Valuable Victim » ordering of captures.
Finished yellow at STC after 228842 games (posting a +1.36 Elo gain):
LLR: -2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,4.00]
Total: 228842 W: 50894 L: 50152 D: 127796
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5b714bb00ebc5902bdba332d
Passed LTC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [0.00,4.00]
Total: 43251 W: 7425 L: 7131 D: 28695
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5b71c7d40ebc5902bdba3e51
Thanks to user Vizvezdenec for running the LTC test.
Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/1736
Bench: 4272361
Rewrite the MovePicker class using lambda expressions for move filtering.
Includes code style changes by @mcostalba.
Verified for speed, passed STC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 43191 W: 9391 L: 9312 D: 24488
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a99b9df0ebc590297cc8f04
This rewrite of MovePicker.cpp seems to trigger less random crashes on Ryzen
machines than the version in previous master (reported by Bojun Guo).
Closes https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/1454
No functional change.
Use a recursive std::array with variadic template
parameters to get rid of the last redundacy.
The first template T parameter is the base type of
the array, the W parameter is the weight applied to
the bonuses when we update values with the << operator,
the D parameter limits the range of updates (range is
[-W * D, W * D]), and the last parameters (Size and
Sizes) encode the dimensions of the array.
This allows greater flexibility because we can now tweak
the range [-W * D, W * D] for each table.
Patch removes more lines than what adds and streamlines
the Stats soup in movepick.h
Closes PR#1422 and PR#1421
No functional change.
Move the first killer move out of the capture stage, combining treatment
of first and second killer move.
passed STC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 55777 W: 12367 L: 12313 D: 31097
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a88617e0ebc590297cc8351
Similar to an earlier proposition of Günther Demetz, see pull request #1075.
I think it is more robust and readable than master, why hand-unroll the loop
over the killer array, and duplicate code ?
This version includes review comments from Marco Costalba.
Bench: 5227124
The current logic in master is to continue return quiet moves if their
history score is above 0. It appears as though this check can be
removed, which is also more logically consistent with the “skipQuiets”
semantics used in search.cpp.
This patch may open new opportunitiesto get Elo by changing or
tuning the definition of 'moveCountPruning' in line 830 of search.cpp,
because obeying skipQuiets without checking the history scores makes
the search more sensitive to 'moveCountPruning'.
STC
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 34780 W: 7680 L: 7584 D: 19516
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a79f8d80ebc5902971a99db
LTC
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 38757 W: 6732 L: 6641 D: 25384
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a7afebe0ebc5902971a9a46
Bench 4954595
For these recaptures, we’re are only considering those captures
that recapture the recapture square (small portion of all the
captures). Therefore, scoring all of the captures and pick_besting
out of the whole group is not necessary.
STC
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 85583 W: 18978 L: 18983 D: 47622
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a717faa0ebc590f2c86e9a7
LTC
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 20231 W: 3533 L: 3411 D: 13287
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a73ad330ebc5902971a96ba
Bench: 5023593
The difference between QCAPTURES_1 and QCAPTURES_2 quiescence search stages
boils down to a simple check of depth. The way it's being done now is
unnecessarily complex.
This patch is simpler, clearer, and easier to understand.
Passed SPRT[-3..1] test at STC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 99755 W: 22158 L: 22192 D: 55405
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5a71f41c0ebc590f2c86e9cb
No functional change.
Avoid constructing, passing as a parameter and binding a useless empty tuple of pointers in the qsearch move picker constructor.
Also reformat the scoring function in movepicker.cpp and do some cleaning in evaluate.cpp while there.
No functional change.
as a lower level routine, movepicker should not depend on the
search stack or the thread class, removing a circular dependency.
Instead of copying the search stack into the movepicker object,
as well as accessing the thread class for one of the histories,
pass the required fields explicitly to the constructor (removing
the need for thread.h and implicitly search.h in movepick.cpp).
The signature is thus longer, but more explicit:
Also some renaming of histories structures while there.
passed STC [-3,1], suggesting a small elo impact:
LLR: 3.13 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 381053 W: 68071 L: 68551 D: 244431
elo = -0.438 +- 0.660 LOS: 9.7%
No functional change.
Rearrange and rename all history heuristic code. Naming
is now based on chessprogramming.wikispaces.com conventions
and the relations among the various heuristics are now more
clear and consistent.
No functional change.
Testing the release candidate revealed only one minor issue, namely a new warning -Wimplicit-fallthrough (part of -Wextra) triggers in the movepicker. This can be silenced by adding a comment, and once we move to c++17 by adding a standard annotation [[fallthrough]];.
No functional change.
Closes#1090
ss->killers can change while the movepicker is active.
The reason ss->killers changes is related to the singular
extension search in the moves loop that calls search<>
recursively with ss instead of ss+1,
effectively using the same stack entry for caller and callee.
By making a copy of the killers,
the movepicker does the right thing nevertheless.
Tested as a bug fix
STC:
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/58ff130f0ebc59035df33f37
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 70845 W: 12752 L: 12716 D: 45377
LTC:
http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/58ff48000ebc59035df33f3d
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 28368 W: 3730 L: 3619 D: 21019
Bench: 6465887
Closes#1085
history related scores are not related to evaluation based scores.
For example, can easily exceed the range -VALUE_INFINITE,VALUE_INFINITE.
As such the current type is confusing, and a plain int is a better match.
tested for no regression:
STC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 43693 W: 7909 L: 7827 D: 27957
No functional change.
Closes#1070
the order of elements returned by std::partition is implementation defined (since not stable) and could depend on the version of libstdc++ linked.
As std::stable_partition was tested to be too slow (http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/585cdfd00ebc5903140c6082).
Instead combine partition with our custom implementation of insert_sort, which fixes this issue.
Implementation based on a patch by mstembera (http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/58d4d3460ebc59035df3315c), which suggests some benefit by itself.
Higher depth moves are all sorted (INT_MIN version), as in current master.
STC:
LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 33116 W: 6161 L: 6061 D: 20894
LTC:
LLR: 2.96 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00]
Total: 88703 W: 11572 L: 11540 D: 65591
Bench: 6256522
Closes#1058Closes#1065
