When testing if a move blocks the threat path there is no
reason to require the threat to be a slider. Indeed threat
can be a double pawn push like in this example:
r1bq1rk1/ppp1np1p/4n1p1/3p4/3P2Q1/2P1B3/PPBN2PP/R4RK1 w - - 0 16
Where white's move Rf6 blocks the threat f5.
As a nice side effect we can retire the now useless helper
piece_is_slider().
This patch kicks in only very rare cases, indeed the bench is
still the same!
bench: 5809010
There is no guarantee that split() consumes all the node's
moves. Indeed split() can return without performing any job
for instance because MAX_SPLITPOINTS_PER_THREAD is reached
or becuase no available threads are found (this latter case
is much more common).
So search must continue in those cases and we cannot force
exiting from move's loop.
Bug introduced by 1ac417edb8 of 5/10/2012
Spotted by Frank Genot.
No functional change.
If a previous move attacks the king (with the piece
of the threat move removed) then must be a discovered
check, otherwise it means that first move gave check
and we were not able to do a null move.
Also renamed stuff to better document the function's
context.
No functional change.
When testing if a piece is moving through the squares
vacated by a previous move there is no reason to require
the piece to be a slider, indeed we can have a double
pawn push like in this example:
r1q2rk1/2p1bppp/2Pp4/pN5b/Q1P1p3/4B2P/PP1R1PP1/1K5R w - - 3 18
Where black's move f5 is connected to previous move Be7 that
frees the path.
Or we can have a castle move:
r1bqkb1r/pppp1ppp/2n1pn2/1B6/4P3/2N2N2/PPPP1PPP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 5 1
Where a previous move Bb5 allows the white to castle king side.
This time patch is mine ;-)
new bench: 5809010
We send to GUI multi-pv info after each cycle,
not just once at the end of the PV loop. This is
because at high depths a single root search can
be very slow and we want to update the gui as
soon as we have a new PV score.
Idea is good but implementation is broken because
sort() takes as arguments a pointer to the first
element and one past the last element.
So fix the bug and rename sort arguments to better
reflect their meaning.
Another hit by Hongzhi Cheng. Impressive!
No functional change.
When checking if the moving piece p1 in a previous
move m1 defends the destination square of a move m2
we have to use the occupancy with the from square of
m2 removed so to take in account the case in which
f2 will block an x-ray attack from p1.
For instance in this position:
r2k3r/p1pp1pb1/qn3np1/1N2P3/1p3P2/2B5/PPP3QP/R3K2R b KQ - 1 9
The move eXf6 is connected to the previous move Bc3 that
defends the destination square f6.
With this patch we have about 10% more moves detected as
'connected'. Anyhow the absolute number is very low, about
4000 more moves out of 6M nodes searched.
Another issue spotted by Hongzhi "Hawk Eye" Cheng ;-)
new bench: 5757373
Instead of use a variable so to resolve many conditions
already at compile time. In quiesce is also where we
have most of the InCheck nodes and is one of the most
performance critical code paths.
Speed up of 1.5% with Clang and 1% with gcc
Suggested by Hongzhi Cheng.
No functional change.
When checking if a move defends the threatened piece
we correctly remove from the occupancy bitboard the
moved piece. This patch removes from the occupancy also
the threatening piece so to consider the cases of moves
that defend the threatened piece x-raying through the
threat move.
As example in this position:
r3k2r/p1ppqp2/Bn4p1/3p1n2/4P1N1/5Q1P/PPP2P1P/R3K2R w KQkq - 1 10
The threat black move is dxe4. With this patch we include
(and so don't prune) white's Bb7 that would be pruned otherwise.
The number of affected position is very low, around 1% of cases,
so we don't expect ELO changes, neverthless this is the logical
and natural thing to do.
Patch suggested by Hongzhicheng.
new bench: 5323798
Only in not performance critical code like pretty_pv(),
otherwise continue to use the good old C-style arrays
like in extract/insert PV where I have done some code
refactoring anyhow.
No functional change.
In multi-threads runs with debug on we experience some
asserts due to the fact that TT access is intrinsecally
racy and its contents cannot be always trusted so must
be validated before to be used and this is what the
patch does.
No functional case.
And restore old behaviour of not returning from a RootNode
without updating RootMoves[].
Also renamed is_draw() template parameters to reflect a
'positive' logic (Check instead of Skip) that is easier
to follow.
New bench: 5312693
When signal 'stop' is raised we return bestValue
that could be still set at -VALUE_INFINITE and
this triggers an assert. Fix it by returning
a value we know for sure is not +-VALUE_INFINITE.
Reported by 平岡拓也 Hiraoka.
No functional change.
Note that the actual pickup is done in the class
d'tor so to be sure it is always triggered, even
in case of a sudden exit due to a 'stop' signal.
No functional change.
We can have ttValue == VALUE_NONE when we use a TT
slot to just save a position static evaluation, but
in this case we also save DEPTH_NONE so to avoid
using the ttValue in search. This happens to work,
but due to a number of lucky and tricky cases that
we now documnet through a bunch of asserts and a
little change to value_from_tt() that has no real
effect but clarifing the code.
No functional change.
Simplify the code and doing this introduce a couple
of (very small) functional changes:
- Always compare to depth even in "mate value" condition
- TT cut-off in qsearch also in case of PvNode, as in search
Verified against regression with 2500 games at 30"+0.05
on 2 threads: 451 - 444 - 1602
Functional changed: new bench is 5544977
As Joona says: "The problem is that when doing full
window search (-VALUE_INFINITE, VALUE_INFINITE), and
pruning all the moves will return fail low which is
mate score, because only clause touching alpha is
"mate distance pruning". So we are returning mate score
although we are just pruning all the moves. In reality
there probably is no mate in sight.
Bug spotted and fixed by Joona.
Port to qsearch() the same changes we recently
added to search().
Overall this search refactoring series shows
almost 2% speed up on gcc compile.
No functional change.
First disable Contempt Factor during analysis, then
calculate the modified draw score from the point of
view of the player, so from the point of view of
RootPosition color.
Thanks to Ryan Taker for suggesting the fixes.
No functional change.
A simplification and also a small speed-up of
about 1% mainly due to reducing calls to
thisThread->cutoff_occurred().
Worst case split point recovering time after a
cut-off occurred is limited to 3 msec on my slow
PC, and usually is below 1 msec, so it seems safe
to remove the cutoff_occurred() check.
No functional change.
This is very crude and very basic: simply in case
of a draw for repetition or 50 moves rule return
a negative score instead of zero according to the
contempt factor (in centipawns). If contempt is
positive engine will try to avoid draws (to use
with weaker opponents), if negative engine will
try to draw. If zero (default) there are no changes.
No functional change.
Use a value related to PawnValue instead.
This is a different patch from previous one because
could affect game play and skill levels, although
in a mostly unmeasurable way. Indeed thresold has
been raised so easy move is a bit harder to trigger
and skill level is a bit more prone to blunders.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Show the real value in the code, not hide it
behind a variable name, especially when there
is only once occurence.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com>
Extend for an extra half-ply in case the node is (probably)
going to fail high. In this case the added overhead is limited.
A novelity is the way this patch has been tested: Always in
self-play but with a much longer TC to allow the singular
extension to fully kick in and also (my impression) to have
less noisy results.
Ater 1015 games on my QUAD at 60"+0.05
Mod vs Orig 173 - 150 - 692 ELO +8
Handle also the SMP case. This has been quite tricky, not
trivial to enforce the node limit in SMP case becuase
with "helpful master" concept we can have recursive split
points and we cannot lock them all at once so there is the
risk of counting the same nodes more than once.
Anyhow this patch should be race free and counted nodes are
correct.
No functional change.
As long as isPvMove (renamed to pvMove) is set after
legality check, we can postpone legality even in PV case.
Patch aligns the PV case with the common non-pv one.
No functional change.
Currently we exit the loop when
abs(bestValue) >= VALUE_KNOWN_WIN
but there is no logical reason for this. It seems more
natural to re-search again with full open window.
This has practically no impact in most cases, we have a
'no functional change' running 'bench' command.
