ResultPruned fair search against full-width fair d4s7 on the previously evaluated 256-game pilot cohort

On the 256 previously evaluated pilot games, full-width fair d4s7 (the same FairSearch as before; its first 32 rows reproduce RUN-20260902T081659Z-d2aa6375's checksums exactly) averages 404,497 points and 116.41 moves (median 315,158, lower quartile 211,976, maximum 1,746,375, no game censored). The pruned search selected by EX-4 (exact one-ply prior, width three at both interior layers) averages 370,889 points and 107.77 moves at 26.8% of the logical work per move (1.40M against 5.22M) and 3.4x faster wall time even under contention. Its paired score delta is -33,608 points with one-sided 95% bounds -69,418 and +1,448 (detection floor 35,114), and its paired lifetime delta is -8.64 moves (bounds -18.35, +0.89; floor 9.54); it wins 121 of 256 games and loses 135. Gate G1 is therefore inconclusive: the non-inferiority bound (-40,000) is not met and a measurable loss (upper bound below zero) is not shown either; the point estimate is 8.3% of the comparator's mean and its sign agrees with the panel (8% of decisions changed, all near-ties in value) and with the lifetime delta. The pruned depth-5 arm (one-ply prior, width two on all three interior layers, first 128 seeds, 1.80x the depth-4 work per move) averages 383,515 points and 111.17 moves against the comparator's 405,130 on the same 128 games: paired delta -21,615 (bounds -76,153, +31,957; floor 54,839), 62 wins to 66, so G2 is a non-measurement whose point estimate is negative, consistent with the panel finding that pruned depth 5 is no better than depth 4 in points. No illegal or incomplete decision in any arm. Read: the pruning is a four-times-cheaper policy that appears to give up about a twelfth of the score, not an engineering speed-up; and buying a fifth ply through pruning does not pay. Pilot tier, previously evaluated development cohort, zero new seeds.