Prédateur 2.1 released, now x32, x64 and Mac!

This new version of Prédateur wasn't meant to be public, as it is only slightly stronger than the prvious version (maybe +50 Elo), when I prefer to release new versions when they are significantly stronger than older ones. But it turns out that I started to rewrite Prédateur using C++ and bitboards, so I had this last pascal version sitting in my harddrive, with some improvements and bugfixes. So I decided to release it anyway. Also, it now comes in three flavors : Win32, Win64 and MacOSX (the Mac version can't "listen" to commands while thinking, so I desabled the ponder mode or it would go into an endless search, unable to answer to a "ponderhit" command). The Mac version will work with Sigma Chess and Jose, but will make Stockfish's interface crash, for some reason I don't know.

Enjoy this new release, before the new generation of Prédateur. :)

Note: this 2.1 version of Prédateur is not to be confused with the "2.1" that entered Olivier Deville's latest OpenWar, which should actually be seen as "2.0.1".

What changed since last update ?

- Prédateur now prunes a tad less, but (hopefully) in a smarter way :
  it should diminish search instability and weird moves that
  sometimes happened.
- memory-overuse by hash tables fixed (thanks, Joost!)
- in a general way, diminution of the memory footprint : Prédateur
  now uses "only" 6 mb of non-hash memory.
- speeded up the move generator, especially the check routine
- some evaluation modifications: Prédateur should now try to
  target your king a bit more... be careful!
- Mac OSX version. (Ponder mode disabled).
- some other bugs fixed, here and there.

Facebook Fan Page for Prédateur

Prédateur now has a Facebook Fan Page. You can "like" Prédateur by clicking the like button on the right column, and join the Fan club page by clicking on this link. :)

Prédateur 2.0 Released - Merry Christmas to all!!

Merry Christmas to all! :) To celebrate our Savior's birth, I give you the produce of two years of episodic efforts : Prédateur 2.0.

Among improvements and novelties, you'll find :

- ponder mode added

- Internal Iterative Deepening

- "Distance to mate" pruning

- Late Move Pruning

- "avoid null-move" in the hash table

- pawn-hash

- switched from verified null move to simple null move

- no more recapture nor pawnpush extensions

- Late Move Reduction finely tuned

- devided the search into a root and branchs ones

- much smarter output (PrÈdateur won't spam you anymore)

- improved time management

- passers and backward pawns recognition added to eval (still basic)

- LOTS of bugs suppressed here and there (especially in the hash tables

management).

You can download it on the top-right of this page. If you use it on a daily basis and find it usefull, please consider showing the developer some support by hitting the "PayPal Donate" button. ;)

I wish you all a joyful Christmas 2010 and a very happy new year 2011! Have fun with Prédateur! :)

A Logo for Prédateur

I just noticed that Dusan Stamenkovic, from the website ChessMosaic, made this nice looking logo for Prédateur. Thanks Dusan! :D

You can now play against Predateur online, on the Free Internet Chess Club (FICS).

To do that, just go to this adress : http://www.freechess.org

There you can download an interface and register the server (you can play as a guest, too). It's totally free.

Predateur's account on FICS has ... 'Predateur' for name.

Prédateur's first competition in Chesswar

Prédateur entered Olivier Deville's 13rd Chesswar tournament for the first time and scored 5.5 points out of 11 (+4-4=3). Average result for an average ranking : 87/194 and a 1575 perf. I'm quite glad anyway, as it's a good result for a first try. I'll try to reach the top 10 next year!

You can watch in a fancy online interface all of the 11 games Prédateur played by clicking here.

One last word : thank you Olivier for organizing and running this great event ! It's much appreciated !

Prédateur 0.1.5 : Harder, Faster, Better

There we go! A new release For Prédateur. Several major bugs were corrected while many improvements were made. As you can see on this link, this version is really improved. The games for this tournament can be seen on this page.

New Functionalities :
- Verified Null-Move (tested working)
- Threat Extension
- Check Extension
- Singular Reply Extension
- Recapture Extension
- Pawn Push Extension
- Late Move Reduction (Thanks Dany!)
- Futility Pruning
- Extended Futility Pruning
- UCI command "go movetime xxxx", making possible to use Prédateur
with "x seconds per move" time ratings
- UCI command "go depth x", making possible to use Prédateur with
"search up to x plies" types "time" ratings
Modifications :
- Small tuning of the evaluation function.
(Hopefully) corrected bugs :
- Gigantic bug that made Prédateur play its last analyzed move before
the end of time instead of its best move found (as a result,
Prédateur was nearly playing randomly when in lack of time).
- Big bug in the hash tables : Prédateur did not take into account the
side to move when storing/retrieving positions in the hash.
- Small bug in the null-move that made it a R3 NM instead of a verified R3 NM.
- Various other unlisted small bugs.

Special thanks to Dany, Harald, Pradu and Andres!