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*** BikMove Checkers Engine      ***
*** (C) 2009-2012  Aart J.C. Bik ***
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***
*** The BikMove checkers engine has been developed by Aart J.C. Bik.
*** This software is *not* in the public domain. However, it is
*** freely available without any fee for education, research, and
*** non-profit purposes. By obtaining copies of this software, you,
*** the Licensee, agree to abide by the following conditions and
*** understandings with respect to the copyrighted software:
***
*** 1.  The software is copyrighted by Aart J.C. Bik
*** and he retains ownership of the software.
***
*** 2.  Permission to use and modify this software and its documentation
*** for education, research, and non-profit purposes is hereby granted to
*** Licensee, provided that the copyright notice, the original author's
*** name, version identification, and this permission notice appear on
*** all such works, and that no charge be made for such copies.
***
*** 3. Any entity desiring permission to incorporate this software into
*** commercial products should contact Aart J.C. Bik (http://www.aartbik.com/)
***
*** 4.  THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE SUITABILITY
*** OF THE SOFTWARE FOR ANY PURPOSE.  IT IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT EXPRESS
*** OR IMPLIED WARRANTY.
***
*** 5.  The copyright holders shall not be liable for any damages suffered
*** by Licensee from the use of this software.
***
*** 6.  Your courtesy in mentioning the use of this checkers engine in any work
*** that presents results obtained by using (extensions or modifications
*** of) this software is highly appreciated.
***
*** All source code of BikMove has been written by Aart Bik (except the endgame
*** databases probing code, which is used with kind permission of Martin Fierz)
*** as a simple after-hours project to gain experience with game programming.
***
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*** RELEASES ***
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***
*** v1.0 (March 2009)
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*** (1) Checkerboard compliant checkers engine
*** (2) Iterative deepening with alpha-beta pruning and quiescent search
*** (3) Ability to query Martin Fierz' endgame databases during search
***
*** v1.1 (July 2010)
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*** (1) Added fixed-size transposition table
*** (2) Improved evaluation function
*** (3) Added "static evaluation" support for Checkerboard
*** (4) Added in-memory "distance-to-win" endgame databases
***
*** v1.2 (Nov 2010)
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*** (1) Added internal iterative deepening to search
*** (2) Configurable sizes for transposition table and endgame database cache
*** (3) Improved evaluation function
*** (4) Avoid querying Fierz's database when *either* side can capture
***
*** v1.2.1 (Dec 2010)
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*** (1) Transposition table improvements (zobrist keys and best move)
*** (2) Search and evaluation function improvements
*** (3) Added move ordering and tactical extensions
***
*** v1.3 (April 2012)
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*** (1) Added history to detect position repetition
*** (2) Try to find win in known won endgames
*** (3) Simple forward pruning
*** (4) Evaluation function tweaks