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in AI and Deep Learning by (50.2k points)

I'm writing a chess engine and recently added a transposition table.

When running a few tests, I found that although the search still returned the same best move, the value of the move (how good it is for the maximizing player) fluctuated.

Is this normal behavior for a transposition table? I remember reading that a transposition table can cause search instability. Is this what that means? So is this a normal occurrence or a serious bug in my code?

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by (108k points)

Null-move can cause search instability, but it can also make your program play like it's on steroids (it is a very good thing when implemented properly). My guess is that you probably have a bug somewhere in your null-move code. It only takes a very small change to have things blow up in your face. Maybe you have a ''<'' where there should be a ''>''. The shallow null-move search is done with a zero-width window around alpha. It could prevent further exploration of a node for a particular value of alpha, but not another.

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