Instead of MgPieceSquareTable[16][64] and EgPieceSquareTable[16][64]
This allows to fetch mg and eg values from adjacent words in memory.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Save mid and end game scores in an union so to
operate on both values in one instruction.
This patch just introduces the infrastructure and changes
EvalInfo to use a single Score value instead of mgValue
and egValue.
Speed is more or less the same because we still don't use
unified midgame-endgame tables where the single assignment
optimization can prove effective.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Try an internal iterative deepening not only when we don't
have a TT move but also if search depth is more then 4*OnePly
higher then TT move depth.
On some tests it seems that in around 20% of cases ttMove changes !
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Also remove some fallback templates that prevent a
compile error in case the user runs 'make icc-profile-popcnt'
from a non supported machine.
We want to loudly fail in that case instead of silently
fallback in a non-popcount compilation.
Updated documentation too.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Variable 'f' in 'for' loop scope hides same named
one in outer scope.
Of curse no functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Thanks to Eric Mullins we have now endian friendly
pop_1st_bit() and also is removed the need to use
-fno-strict-aliasing compiler option with GCC.
Speed is almost as fast, very small difference if any in
perft test, so I assume almost no difference in real games.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
This allow us to avoid the generation of the
evasion moves if we already have a TT move, and
in case we have a cut-off we skip evasion generation
altoghter.
Node count is changed because now we try TT move _before_
to generate evasions. The search on the TT move alters the
piece lists so that when we come back to generate evasions
we build the move list with a diferent order and this alters
the node count.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
It is now no more needed to know dc candidates
inside MovePicker, so avoid calculating there.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Big cleanup and semplification of pawns evasions that
now are pseudo-legal as the remaining moves. This
allow us to remove a lot of tricky code.
Verified against perft: no functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
This allow a big semplification in move generation
that will be committed with the next patch. And makes
handling of evasions similar to the other type of moves.
This patch plus the next seem to improve also on
the performance side because after 640 games to
verify there are no hidden regressions we are at +9 ELO
Verified with perft no functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Generate captures of checking piece and blocking
evasions in one go.
Also reduce of one indentation level early returning
when we have a double check.
Verified with perft no functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Don't seem to help, perhaps because we
return an approximate SEE score instead of the
real negative score so that we have some bad capture
or evasion sub-optimal ordering that compensates
the speed up.
Anyhow after 999 games at 1+0
Mod vs Orig +240 =514 -245 -2 ELO
So almost no harm to remove and make the code simpler.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Always try ttMove as first. Then try good captures ordered
by MVV/LVA, then non-captures if destination square is not
under attack, ordered by history value, and at the end
bad-captures and non-captures with a negative SEE. This
last group is ordered by the SEE score.
After 999 games at 1+0
Mod vs Orig +254 =546 -199 +19 ELO
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Because we only generate legal moves we can assume
a king cannot be recaptured, so we can safely return
immediately with the captured piece score. If the move
turns out to be illegal it will be pruned anyhow,
independently from SEE value. This gives a good speed up
especially now that we SEE-test all the evasions that
are always legal and very often are king moves.
Another optimization catches almost 15% of cases, unfortunatly
we have already calculated the very expensive attacks, so
benefits are not so big anyway.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
This patch cuts 30% of SEE calculations, as a drawback
a returned negative value is no more always correct if
a shortcut is found.
This could impact move order when based on negative see
score as example bad captures and evasions.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Check generation is used only in qsearch and
only at Depth(0), castling moves that give check
are very rare overall and even almost not exsistent
at Depth(0).
So retire this almost never used code that adds
a small but consistent slow down in the normal path.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Because discovery checks are very rare it is better to handle
them all in one go and strip from usual check generation
function.
Also rewrite direct checks generation to use piece lists instead
of pop_1st_bit()
On perft test we have a +6% of speed up and is verified we
generate the same moves, although in a different order.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Patch from Joona with extension to benchmark and inclusion
of Depth(0) moves generation by me.
Note that to test also qsearch and in particulary checks
generations a change in the end condition is needed.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Verified against tuning branch.
After 100 games at 1+0 on Joona QUAD
Mod - Orig: 527.5 - 471.5 (+20 elo)
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Give a bonus for each kind of attacked piece. Bonus
value is based on the type of attacked piece and the
type of attacking one.
Penalize pieces attacked by enemy pawns, also in
this case penality value depends on the type of
attacked piece.
This patch oboletes as redundant the increased mobility
count of the attcked squares that is then removed.
After 956 games at 1+0
Mod vs Orig +262 =462 -232 51.57% 493.0/956 +11 ELO
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Small code cleanup and a bit faster too.
The only functional change is that in extension
in pv node we extend promotions and not only captures
when condition met.
This is practically an undetectable change and has
no impact on strenght.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Even if SEE is negative there is always a good possibility
that TT move is a cut move anyway. For instance a lot of
BXN exchanges that have negative SEE can very easily be
good exchanges.
A nice side effect is a bit reduced frequency of
see_sign() calls.
After 643 games at 1+0
Mod vs Orig +174 =327 -142 52.49% 337.5/643 +17 ELO
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
When the move list is very small, like captures normally
are, it is faster to pick the best move with a linear
scan, one per cycle.
This has the added advantage that the picked capture move is
very possibly a cut-off move, so that other searches are
avoided. For non-captures it is still faster to sort in
advance.
Because scan-and-pick alghortim is not stable, node count
has changed.
After 885 games at 1+0
Mod vs Orig +196 =510 -179 50.96% 451.0/885
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Only in less then 2% of cases we have a new sp->bestValue,
so check before to lock and save a costly locking
most of the times.
Patch suggested by Joona.
No functional search.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Use futility pruning also in split points.
Do not use history pruning in split points when
getting mated.
After 1000 games on Joona QUAD
Orig - Mod: 496 - 504
Added an optimization to avoid a costly lock in the
very common case that sp->futilityValue <= sp->bestValue.
A test on a dual CPU shows only 114 hits on 23196 events,
so avoid a lock in all the other cases.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
It is stable and it is also a bit faster then std::sort()
on the tipical small move lists that we need to handle.
Verified to have same functionality of std::stable_sort()
After 999 games at 1+0
Mod vs Orig +240 =534 -225 50.75% 507.0/999 +5 ELO
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
If after the first tried 2 + int(depth) moves we still
have no any move that takes us out of a mate then do
not prune the following move, it is more important to
escape mate then speed up search.
This fixes an odd behaviour regarding mates, as example
the following diagram is a mate in 4, not in 3 as bogusly
reported before this patch.
1B2n3/8/2R5/5p2/3kp1n1/4p3/B3K3/8 w - - bm #4;
The performance impact should be minimal, the increment
in searched nodes is less then 0.1 %%
Idea and patch by Joona
After 999 games at 1+0
Mod vs Orig +193 =604 -202 -3 ELO
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Marco's new code for evaluating two unstoppable passed pawns where
one pawn promotes a single ply before the other tried to detect
cases where the pawn that promotes first could immediately capture
the pawn that promotes a ply later, but didn't work in cases where
the two pawns are on the same file. An example of this is the
following position:
8/8/3K4/2P5/2p5/3k4/8/8 w - -
With the new code, such positions are handled correctly.
In this case we call evaluate() being in check and this
is not allowed.
Bug found testing with reduced PLY_MAX value as suggested
by Miguel A. Ballicora on talkchess.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
