Re: Shallow Or Deep Search?

[Darren Cook <darren@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>1) Results from searches that are not "deep enough" give results of 
>such poor quality, that they are tantamount to worthless.

I agree with this.** You must search until you find something. **
Otherwise you are just wasting processor time.

'something' means an answer one way or the other to the question you gave to
your search.

If the question was "can this group live?" then you search until the group
is provably alive or dead.

If the question was "what will the score be if I play here?" then you search
until a quiet position where your evaluation function is reliable.

These are obvious points, but I feel it is important to think about it
before deciding if you are going to use alpha-beta, proof number or some
other kind of search.

Darren