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*                         Pedone 0.4 syzygy                                   *
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DESCRIPTION

This is a new release of Pedone, an UCI chess engine.
It has developed with particular care in code and data structures optimization.
This release support the syzygy egtb.
His playing strenght is between 2600-2700 ELO.
It's a console program and it needs a graphical interface to work like 
XBoard/Winboard (with Polyglot) or Arena.


THE PACKAGE

The package include the following files:

- Pedone_linux32        - Release for 32 bit linux OS.
- Pedone_linux64        - Release for 64 bit linux OS.
- Pedone_linux64bmi2    - Release for 64 bit linux OS 
                          and CPU with BMI2 instructions
- Pedone_win32.exe      - Release for 32 bit windows OS (XP/Vista/7/8).
- Pedone_win64.exe      - Release for 64 bit windows OS (Vista/7/8).
- Pedone_win64bmi2.exe  - Release for 64 bit windows OS (Vista/7/8)
                          and CPU with BMI2 instructions

- ReadMe.txt            - The file you are reading
- TDDBII.bin            - The opening book used by Pedone
- Pedone.bmp            - Pedone Logo
- polyglot.ini          - configuration file

TECHNICAL DETAILS

- Board rappresentation QuadBitBoard
- Magic BitBoard
- PV search
- Quiescence search with captures, promotions and checks
- Transposition Table
- Iterative deepening
- Internal iterative deepening
- Search extension and reduction
- Futility and Null Move pruning
- Delta pruning
- Syzygy egtb support
- Polyglot book support


ENGINE SETTINGS

There are 9 settings that you can manage from the GUI menu 
or the file polyglot.ini:

- Hash:
  select the size for the hash table.
  Pedone can accept value between 128MB and 4096MB.

- Ponder:
  enable or disable pondering

- OwnBook:
  enable or disable Pedone own book

- DrawScore
  Choose the score in cp for the Draw (between -500 and +500)
  And high value makes Pedone play for the draw.
  A low value makes Pedone to disdain the draw.

- MovesPerMatch
  Set the moves number you expect for a game with an incremental time control:
  You can choose a value between 40 and 120 moves per game.
  Choose a lower value if you want Pedone to use more time, an higher one
  if you want Pedone to save time for an expected long match.

- AlwaysBestBookMove
  Let Pedone choose every time the best book move or not. If not it choose a
  random move from the book.

- SyzygyPath
  The path of the syzygy egtb.

- SyzygyProbeDepth
  The search depth where Pedone start to probe the egtb.

- SyzygyProbeLimit
  Limit the egtb probe with this number of pieces left on the board.


THE OPENING BOOK

The TDDBII.bin is the default book used by Pedone. It's a free opening book
found at this link:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/5omgownwd2e/TDDBII.7z

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This realease is a result not only of my own work.
Thanks to:
- Fabien Letouzey for the code that support of the Polyglot opening books.
- Ronald de Man for the syzygy probe code.
- Miguel Ballicora and Peter Österlund for their tuning method that 
  I used for Pedone
- G6 group for the technical support and for being a meeting point for
  the Italian computer chess programmers


PEDONE STEP BY STEP

- Pedone 0.4 13/05/2014
Changed the protocol to UCI
Ponder
Polyglot Book support
Syzygy egtb support
More knowledge in the Evaluation function
Added Transposition Table and forward pruning also in the QSearch
BMI2 optimization
New Logo

- Pedone 0.3 21/03/2014
Changed AlphaBeta search into PVS.
Added checks in the Quiescence search.
Pawn evaluation.
Search extension and reduction.
Futility and Null Move pruning.

- Pedone 0.2.1 01/03/2014
Deleted the configuration file. You can manage all the engine settings
from the xboard menu.
Added the check for the draw by insufficient mating material in the evaluation
function.
Little changes in the piece table.
Some more xboard commands supported.

- Pedone 0.2 20/01/2014
Now the transposition table store the score of the position.
Delete Transposition Table old entries at every search.
Internal iterative deepening.
Draw Score.
Added a configuration file.

- Pedone 0.1 23/11/2013
Board rappresentation with QuadBitBoard.
Alphabeta search, Quiescence search with captures and promotions.
Persistent Transposition Table with only best moves stored.
Iterative Deepening.

For what every you need you can contact me at the following email address:

0xfab10@gmail.com

Fabio Gobbato

