Chess engine

Nesik

(current version: 0.7.0 alpha, MPPS edition /30/09/2004/)

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Logo by David Dahlem

History:

Version 0.7.0 alpha, MPPS edition (30/09/2004)

• Polish Vice Champion in uniform hardware category, 2004 year
• Bugfixes
• Extensions changed and added (fractional extensions used, check, recapture, single reply to check, pawn's advance to 6th and 7th rank, transition to pawn ending extensions are used now)
• Tuned evaluation function (slightly changed weights, partly rewritten for higher performance)
• Time control enhanced (to take advantage of ponder hits, extending on fail-low at the root)
• Null move and futility pruning tweaks
• Limited razoring added
• New opening book format (due to adding book learning code - learning is permanently disabled at the moment, as it still requires some work)

Version 0.6.4 alpha (25/05/2004)

• Mainly bugfixes - now runs successfully in several Internet tournaments without reported problems

Version 0.6.2 alpha (08/05/2004)

• Bugfixes - Nesik seems to be pretty stable (can play many games in a row without any hangs)
• Minor changes of evaluation function

Version 0.6.1 alpha (05/05/2004)

• Bugfixes - Nesik seems to be quite stable now

Version 0.6.0 alpha (04/05/2004)

• Many bugfixes, some of them very important (mainly stability issues) - should be much more stable now
• Added out-of-check and recapture extensions
• Default hash sizes changed

Version 0.5.0 alpha (29/04/2004)

• added opening book support (largest available book at the moment contains about 300,000 positions, up to 24 plies, taken from GM games; the book is not tuned yet)
• fixed pondering bug (should not halt computer any more)
• some evaluation function improvements (especially late endgames)
• experiment: null move pruning changed to adaptive (as described by Heinz in his classic paper) - I haven't verified results of this change yet
• minor bugfixes
• added configuration file (hash tables size, opening book trust)

Version 0.4.0 alpha (19/04/2004)

• added some chess knowledge to the evaluation function (bad side is a drop in NPS) - still requires parameter tuning, however the game Nesik started to play one might now call chess
• First games on FICS (initially rating settled about 2000 (blitz) and 2150 (lightning) )
• some bugfixes

Version 0.3.0 alpha (12/04/2004)

• added null move (much smaller search trees and greater depths reached)
• added aspiration search (further decrease of search tree size)
• added piece square values to the evaluation function (basic chess knowledge)
• improved SEE code - pretty improved NPS

Version 0.2.0 alpha (02/04/2004)

• fixed and improved transposition table
• added history heuristics (much smaller search trees)
• added pondering (works but often halts program - a fixed version will be available soon)
• fixed many bugs (e.g. bug in threefold repetition draw claiming)

Version 0.1 alpha (26/03/2004) - initial public release

• Winboard interface
• pure alpha-beta function
• iterative deepening
• bitboard and rotated bitboards move generation
• static exchange evaluation
• quiescence search
• transposition table (not fully working yet)
• killer moves
• evaluation function considering only material balance