H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Jan 3, 2018 07:03 PM UTC:
It is possible to look up the game positions. But this usually provides no benefit at all, because engines are usually good enough to win won games on their own steam. Most gain comes from probing EGT in search when there still are more men on the board than in your largest EGT, to make sure you will convert to a won position, rather than a drawn one. This requires several hundred thousand probes per second. E.g. as a simplified example consider a KPPPKPP position, whith many possible ways to force conversion to KPK depending on where you start attacking with your King. If you only have a 3-men EGT for KPK, and no special knowledge of KPK, you would just randomly convert to one of the KPK positions. Pobing the game position would then just tell you "Oh, too bad, this is a draw". The search would not see that, as in KPK you can postpone a stalemate or repetition very long, to beyond the horizon. Only when you can see in the search which KPK positions you can convert to are wins and which are draws, you can make the right choice, and force conversion to the winning KPK position.
It is possible to look up the game positions. But this usually provides no benefit at all, because engines are usually good enough to win won games on their own steam. Most gain comes from probing EGT in search when there still are more men on the board than in your largest EGT, to make sure you will convert to a won position, rather than a drawn one. This requires several hundred thousand probes per second. E.g. as a simplified example consider a KPPPKPP position, whith many possible ways to force conversion to KPK depending on where you start attacking with your King. If you only have a 3-men EGT for KPK, and no special knowledge of KPK, you would just randomly convert to one of the KPK positions. Pobing the game position would then just tell you "Oh, too bad, this is a draw". The search would not see that, as in KPK you can postpone a stalemate or repetition very long, to beyond the horizon. Only when you can see in the search which KPK positions you can convert to are wins and which are draws, you can make the right choice, and force conversion to the winning KPK position.