My thinking about speculative pondering is as follows (I did not read
the previous discussion carefully so perhaps I just repeat an old
argument):
When the programs select the best move to play it also knows what move
is the *most likely best move* for the opponent given search to that
point.
With speculative pondering all pondering goes into searching the reply
to that *most likely best* move.
If the opponent plays a different move, this move will on average be a
worse move than the expected one. Although there was no gain in
pondering, my program has a better than expected position (on average).
In other words: a strong opponent will cause a lot of ponder hits and
speculative pondering is the best way to search effectively. A weak
program will make many mistakes and the method of pondering does not
matter much. I think there is something general to this argument so it
would apply to any kind of game. Pondering on all possible opponent
moves will always spend search on inferior moves.
-Magnus
Quoting Brian Sheppard <[email protected]>:
It's then the algorithm that is responsible, and absolutely not the
specifics of a game.
Exactly, it is the algorithm. I think we agree on all points.
It just happens that the most successful search algorithm for chess
makes speculative pondering work, whereas in Go it is the opposite.
Brian
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