
		+-------------------------+
		!                         !
		!  PROCHESS 102 A doctor  !
		!    by Edoardo Manino    !
		!         (Italy)         !
		!                         !
		+-------------------------+

Italian Champion 2012 in the original programs section!

# A RAW STYLE

After many years of chess and programming studies I created ProChess.
It is comparable to a strong candidate master in strength and it has
a very raw style: good tactic skills but bad positional ones.
Really computer-like!
The name "ProChess" is a subtle joke about "process", "pro" and "chess"
words. The non-italian people would not understand why there's a judge
in the logo: in italian "process" means also "criminal proceeding".
The main version number are years since my chess club foundation (1910),
the glorious Societa' Scacchistica Torinese (Turin).

# LEGAL NOTES

ProChess executable is free: you may copy it for private use but you may
not modify, sell or redistribute it as a part of another software.
The author is not responsible of any hardware or software damage or
malfunction.
ProChess source code is public to show its inner working.
Nobody is authorized to copy the whole or part of it for any reason.
In case of different interpretations the italian version of these notes
prevails.

# INSTALLATION

This package contains those files and directories:
- "README.txt" the file you are reading
- "LEGGIMI.txt" the italian one
- "ProChess102AD.exe" the program executable
- "ProChess.ini" the option file
- "Logo100x50.bmp" the 100 x 50 bit logo
- "Logo130x65.bmp" the 130 x 65 bit logo
- "Books" contains the opening bool in Arena and ChessBase formats
- "Data" a directory with some essential files
- "Sources" the source code directory
ProChess has not his own graphical interface so you have to install it
on some UCI compatible GUIs like Arena, Fritz or ChessBase.
The executable is a 32 bit compile for Windows tested on XP, Vista and 7.
It does not work in console mode.

# FEATURES

ProChess is a brute force engine written in Visual Basic 6.
It implements the following well known techniques:
- 0x88 board representation
- negamax alpha-beta
- iterative deepening
- priincipal variation search
- quiescent search (captures and promotions only)
- move ordering with MVV-LVA, SEE and history euristics
- trasposition table
- internal iterative deepening
- evaluation function based on piece square tables
- tapered eval between opening and endgame
- positive SEE check extensions
- futility pruning
- null move
- ponder
The UCI commands "setoption", "searchmoves" and "multipv" mode are not
supported.

# OPTIONS

Open "ProChess.ini" to change the options. ProChess will prefer forced
draw lines if the contempt factor is positive. Hashtable parameter
allows you to change the transposition table dimension. Each entry
occupies 16 byte. If persistence is set to false, old hastable entries
will be erased before each analysis. ProChess has three level of
output verbosity: 0 only bestmove, 1 analysis info, 2 log file.

# ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people contributed to the development of ProChess. Among them I want
to mention Andrea Macheda - the "official" sparring partner - Luca Nassi
for his help in tuning the evaluation with his phenomenal hardware, each
G6 member for their unvaluable suggestions and my brother Federico without
whom I have not ever become a programmer.
Special thanks to Tomasz Michniewski for having published his simplified
evaluation function, the core of older ProChess versions.
