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*                           Pedone 1.2                                        *
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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.
It's a console program and it needs a graphical interface to work like 
XBoard/Winboard (with Polyglot) or Arena.
Pedone has no endgame knowledge so it is better to use it with syzygy egtb.
If you are in trouble with Pedone, you have suggestions or you find some 
abnormal behaviour in the software feel free to contact me at the following
email address:

0xfab10@gmail.com
Fabio Gobbato


THE PACKAGE

The package include the following files:

- Pedone_linux64        - Release for 64 bit linux OS and CPU 
                          without SSE4.2 instructions.
- Pedone_linux64bmi2    - Release for 64 bit linux OS 
                          and CPU with BMI2 instructions.
- Pedone_linux32        - Release for 32 bit linux OS.
- Pedone_win64nopopcnt  - Release for 64 bit windows OS (Vista/7/8)
			  and CPU without SSE4.2 instructions.
- Pedone_win64.exe      - Release for 64 bit windows OS (Vista/7/8)
                          and CPU with SSE4.2 instructions.
- Pedone_win64bmi2.exe  - Release for 64 bit windows OS (Vista/7/8)
                          and CPU with BMI2 instructions
- Pedone_win32.exe      - Release for 32 bit windows OS (XP/Vista/7/8)
- pthreadGC2-w32.dll    - a library useful for the 32 bit windows release
- ReadMe.txt            - The file you are reading
- Pedone.bmp            - Pedone Logo


TECHNICAL DETAILS

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


ENGINE SETTINGS

There are 10 settings that you can manage from the GUI menu:

- Hash:
  select the size for the hash table.
  Pedone can accept value between 1MB and 65536MB.

- Ponder:
  enable or disable pondering

- 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.

- OwnBook:
  enable or disable Pedone own book

- BookFile
  Choose the opening book for Pedone

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

- Strength
  Set the strength level from 1 to 100

- Log
  Enable or disable the output commands to be logged

- Threads
  Choose the number of threads for a multithreaded search (between 1 and 64)

- SyzygyPath
  The path of the syzygy egtb.

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


WHAT'S NEW

Bugs fixes
Aspiration window
Tune reductions
Tune IID conditions
Improved pawn shield evaluation
Non linear formula for mobility
Limit engine strength
Don't try null move at high depths in an expected all node
Razoring at depth 4

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to:
- Ronald de Man for the syzygy probe code.
- G6 group for the technical support and for being a meeting point for
  the Italian computer chess programmers
- chessprogramming for the knowledge that it shares
- talkchess comunity for the suggestions and the help received

