Using partial plys

[Darren Cook <darren@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A search question. In minimax or alpha/beta you search to a fixed ply, so
the leaf values that are passed up the tree are comparable because the same
number of moves will have been played.

But if you are using partial ply's or quiescence search then it is possible
that top-level move A went to a node where black got last move, and move B
went to a node where white got last move. Is it fair to compare them?

When using these algorithms do you normally add an extra move if black got
the last move, so all leaf nodes ended with white getting the last move (or
vice versa)? Or does the fact that you searched deeply to a quiet position
mean that it doesn't really matter who got last move?

A go example: if you play out two joseki and compare the end results, is it
fair to compare them if black got an extra move in one of them? Or could
you just add a bonus to the evaluation function for the side that has
sente. If so, isn't calculating the worth of sente going to be very inexact?

Darren

PS. And how do you think humans handle this? Reading moves out to different
depths is a very human thing to do.