depth

My Chesssmaster  program posts a depth analysis. The  number is e.g. 4/11. What does this mean? I assume its considered 4 plies of moves and 11 different moves for each plie-Is this correct? It also shows the number of positions which is a number like 15 million when the depth is 4/11

Hi.  If you see a 15 million or so defenitely 4/11 is not what you think it is.  If it were what you think then the code would have analyzed 4x11 = 44 moves but you see 15 million.  Allow my interpretation, although I may be wrong too.  I think the 11 is the depth, which I understand as the Elo the code is going for.  So it goes, 4/11 then 5/11, then 6/11, to finally reach 11/11 at that point the code is ready for 1200 Elo, and so on.  Now, a quick comment on the 15 million.  Lets say a game lasts 50 moves, or 100 ply.  Considering that each time either white or black moves there are say 10 possible moves, (I know it is an approximation) then 100 to the power of 10 gives you the totall possible moves which are 10^20 and in millions for you is one hundred million million millions (100 trillions in short), and in consequence the 15 million the computer has done is way far from doing all possible moves.  Cheers.

Interesting ! You may be right.However 100 to th power 10 would be 10^12 which is 1 trillion I think. Do you believe that the 1200 ELO comes from the power of 12 ?

Hey leokv2.  After I responded to you I was thinking that programers are forced to define the Elo after a certaing number of possible moves because in the end the more analyzed moves the better the result.  For that reason what you say is possible but quite frankly I do not know.  You can also check the numbers of moves you see at depth 12, if you get 10^12 --- which is a billion by the way, not a trillion--- possible moves then maybe you are right.  You may try to google about the issue, there should be a table of computed moves versus Elo somewhere, and if you find something please post it, I find interesting to know about it.  Cheers.