Transposition Tables

Jos Uiterwijk
May 3, 2006

Transpositions

A transposition is the
re-occurrence of a
position in a search
process.

For example, in Chess

the position after 1. e4
e5 2. Nf3 is the same
as after 1. Nf3 e5 2. e4.

Transposition tables
So,

the search tree actually is a search graph

Therefore, storing the information in a table
can give huge gains. E.g., in an alpha-beta
search process, store the:

Value
Best move/action
Search depth
Flag (real value, upper bound or lower bound)
Identification (hash key, see further)

Transposition tables
Normally

the number of possible positions

largely exceeds the available memory for a
transposition table. E.g., Chess has some
1050 possible positions.
Solution: hashing.
Requirements:

Unique mapping from position to table

Quick calculation of table entry
Uniform distribution of positions over the table

Zobrist hashing
Uses de XOR operator to calculate the table
entry
Properties of XOR-operator:

1.
2.
3.
4.

5.

a XOR (b XOR c) = (a XOR b) XOR c

a XOR b = b XOR a
a XOR a = 0
If si = r1 XOR r2 XOR XOR rn with ri random
numbers, then { si } also is random
{ si } has a uniform distribution

Zobrist hashing
Example:

suppose we want to hash words of

3 letters, only using A Z. We start with 78
random numbers:
s1,1 means a letter A in position 1
s1,2 means a letter A in position 2
s1,3 means a letter A in position 3

s26,1 means a letter Z in position 1

s26,2 means a letter Z in position 2
s26,3 means a letter Z in position 3

Zobrist hashing

The hash of the word CAT is obtained by XORing the

concerning random numbers, thus:
hash value(CAT) = s3,1 XOR s1,2 XOR s20,3

For a board game:

Suppose m different possible pieces on a square (Chess: m =

12, Go: m = 2)
Suppose n squares (Chess: n = 64, Go: n = 361)
Then m x n different combinations of pieces/square

So m x n random numbers needed for calculating the

hash value of a position

Zobrist hashing
Often

possible for incremental updating the

hash value:
Adding one piece (Go):
hash value (new_position) = hash value (old_position)
XOR random number (new piece)
Moving

a piece (Chess):

hash value (new_position) = hash value (old_position)

XOR random number (from_square)
XOR random number (to_square)
For

difficult moves sometimes more

operations needed

Transposition table mapping

The hash value is used to map a position to a table:

Hash key

Since the number of possible hash values normally

far exceeds the number of entries, we only use part
of the hash value (say, k bits) as a the entry. This is
called the primary hash code. Therefore,
transposition tables typically have 2k entries.
Another hash value (or typically the remaining bits)
are used for identifications purposes (secondary
hash code or hash key).
E.g., for 64-bits random numbers 20 bits are used
as primary hash code for the mapping on a 220 entry
transposition table, and the remaining 44 bits are
used as hash key.

Errors

1.

2.

Two types of error:

Type-1 error: two positions having the same
hash code (primary + secondary). This is
serious since this can remain undetected!
Type-2 error: two positions having the same
primary hash code. This is called a clash or
collision. Now we should use a replacement
scheme, e.g., keep the deepest
investigated, or the newest, or others.

Example 1

Example of a midgame
position in Chess:

Example 2

Example of an
endgame position
in Chess:

Conclusions
Transposition

tables can be of great

importance, with huge savings
Importance depends on type of game and
type of position
Zobrist hashing is a convenient way of storing
positions
The number of bits must be sufficiently large
to avoid errors