alt Hacker News> To throw a consistent amount of compute at each move, the simple thing to do is give the engine consistent amounts of time per move.
The simple thing to do is give it a limit on the total number of states it can explore in its search.
If your goal is consistency, wall-clock time makes no sense. If I run 'make -j20', should the chess computer become vastly easier because the CPU is being used to compile, not search? Should 'nice -n 20 <chess app pid>' make the chess computer worse?
Should my computer thermal-throttling because it's a hot day make the chess computer worse, so chess is harder in winter?
If the goal is consistency, then wall-clock isn't the simple way to do it.
>If the goal is consistency, then wall-clock isn't the simple way to do it.
It’s simpler than doing a limit on number of states, and for some applications consistency isn’t super important.
Doing a time limit also enforces bot moving in a reasonable time. It puts a nice limit to set up a compromise between speed and difficulty.
Doing state limit with a time limit might be better way to do it, but is harder.