*********************************** *** BikJump UCI Chess Engine *** *** (C) 2007-2010 Aart J.C. Bik *** *********************************** *** *** This BikJump UCI chess 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 chess engine in any work *** that presents results obtained by using (extensions or modifications *** of) this software is highly appreciated. *** *** All source code of BikJump (except the probing and decompression code for *** the endgame tablebases, which are used with kind permission of Eugene *** Nalimov and Andrew Kadatch) has been built from the ground up by Aart as *** a simple after-hours project to gain some experience with chess engine *** programming and experiment with new ideas. *** ***************** *** Platforms *** ***************** *** *** The BikJump UCI engine is available on the following platforms: *** (1) Windows (64-bit) *** (2) Windows (32-bit) *** (3) Linux (64-bit) *** (4) Mac OS (64-bit) *** (5) Android *** ************************ *** Acknowledgements *** ************************ *** *** Thanks to Graham Banks, Patrick Buchmann, Olivier Deville, Leo Dijksman, *** Igor Gorelikov, N. Swaminathan, Chris Tatham, Stephan Vermeire and many *** others for testing and tournaments. Special thanks to Eugene Nalimov and *** Andrew Kadatch for giving explicit permission to use their endgame *** tablebases probing and decompression code. *** **************** *** RELEASES *** **************** *** *** v1.0 (Jan 2007) approx. 1750RUEL ***************************************************************************** *** *** (1) UCI compliant chess engine *** (2) draw by repetition or fifty move rule detection *** (3) iterative deepening with alpha-beta pruning and quiescent search *** (4) null move pruning and killer move heuristics *** (5) basic search-time control *** *** v1.1 (Feb 2007) approx. 1700RUEL ***************************************************************************** *** *** (1) enhanced search-time control *** (2) transposition table (min 1MB max 1024MB) *** (3) aspiration window *** *** v1.1.1 (Mar 2007) approx. 1785RUEL ***************************************************************************** *** *** (1) fixed bug in panic-time allocation *** (2) improved play in basic end games *** (3) modified various parameters *** *** v1.2 (Mar 2007) ***************************************************************************** *** *** (1) principal variation search *** (2) tactical extensions *** (3) late move reduction *** *** v1.2.1 (Apr 2007) approx. 1785RUEL ***************************************************************************** *** *** (1) improved move ordering *** (2) improved quiescent search *** (3) modified search depth extension *** *** v1.3 (June 2007) approx. 1905RUEL ***************************************************************************** *** *** (1) revised null move pruning *** (2) revised quiescent search *** (3) revised move ordering *** (4) fixed bug in transposition table *** *** v1.4 (July 2007) approx. 1835RUEL ***************************************************************************** *** *** (1) re-implemented evaluation function *** (2) modified various parameters *** *** v1.4.1 (July 2007) approx. 1875RUEL ***************************************************************************** *** *** (1) fixed bug in ponder-time allocation *** (2) restricted depth for late move reduction *** *** v1.5 (Sept 2007) approx. 1885RUEL ***************************************************************************** *** *** (1) sparse piece list *** (2) improved transposition table *** (3) revised pruning methods *** (4) MVV/LVA move ordering *** (5) reduced quiescent search explosion *** (6) improved evaluation function *** (7) avoid re-computation of now-in-check *** *** ended first (out of 167 engines) in the ChessWar XII promotion group *** *** v1.6 (April 2008) approx. 1950RUEL ***************************************************************************** *** *** (1) implemented hash-move for move ordering *** (2) completely redesigned quiescent search *** (3) tuned evaluation function *** *** v1.6.1 (April 2008) approx. 2025RUEL ***************************************************************************** *** *** (1) revised time management *** (2) more tactical extensions *** (3) few more draw rules, some king safety *** *** v1.7 (June 2008) approx. 1965RUEL ***************************************************************************** *** *** (1) bug fix in FEN parsing *** (2) revised time management *** (3) added ability to query the 3-piece, 4-piece, and 5-piece Nalimov *** endgame tablebases during search *** *** v1.8 (June 2008) approx. 2000RUEL ***************************************************************************** *** *** (1) revised panic time *** (2) added more chess rules to evaluation function *** (3) revised various search methods *** (4) added Nalimov endgame tablebases probing for 6-piece as well *** (5) bug fix on missing \n in engine output when tablebases cannot be found *** *** v2.0[1] (Nov 2008) approx. 2090RUEL ***************************************************************************** *** *** (1) complete rewrite of BikJump sources *** (2) switched to bitboard representation *** (3) v2.01 fixed missing check-flag bug ***