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International Conference on Computers and Games

CG 2002: Computers and Games pp 154–170Cite as

The Neural MoveMap Heuristic in Chess

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Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNCS,volume 2883)

Abstract

The efficiency of alpha-beta search algorithms heavily depends on the order in which the moves are examined. This paper investigates a new move-ordering heuristic in chess, namely the Neural MoveMap (NMM) heuristic. The heuristic uses a neural network to estimate the likelihood of a move being the best in a certain position. The moves considered more likely to be the best are examined first. We develop an enhanced approach to apply the NMM heuristic during the search, by using a weighted combination of the neural-network scores and the history-heuristic scores. Moreover, we analyse the influence of existing game databases and opening theory on the design of the training patterns. The NMM heuristic is tested for middle-game chess positions by the program Crafty. The experimental results indicate that the NMM heuristic outperforms the existing move ordering, especially when a weighted-combination approach is chosen.

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  • DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-40031-8_11
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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Institute for Knowledge and Agent Technology, Universiteit Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Levente Kocsis, Jos W. H. M. Uiterwijk, Eric Postma & Jaap van den Herik

Authors
  1. Levente Kocsis
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  2. Jos W. H. M. Uiterwijk
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  3. Eric Postma
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  4. Jaap van den Herik
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Computing Science Department, University of Alberta, T6G 2E8, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    Jonathan Schaeffer

  2. Department of Computing Science, University of Alberta, T6G 2E8, Edmonton, AB, Canada

    Martin Müller

  3. School of Computer Science, Reykjavík University, Reykjavík, Iceland

    Yngvi Björnsson

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© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Kocsis, L., Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M., Postma, E., van den Herik, J. (2003). The Neural MoveMap Heuristic in Chess. In: Schaeffer, J., Müller, M., Björnsson, Y. (eds) Computers and Games. CG 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2883. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-40031-8_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-40031-8_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-20545-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-40031-8

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