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Gaviota Chess Engine

Copyright (c) 2000-2010 Miguel A. Ballicora
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Gaviota (Spanish word for Seagull) is a chess engine available for both Windows
and Linux. The code has been written as portable as possible, so Gaviota could
support other OS in the future.

Gaviota is only an engine, so it needs to be plugged to a proper chess GUI

(Graphic user interface). Current version fully supports the latest Winboard/
Xboard with all its new features. Gaviota also supports the UCI (Universal
Chess Interface) protocol. Gaviota can be used with some free interfaces such
as Arena (Windows), Winboard/Xboard, ChessGUI, and Scid and any commercial
interface that supports these protocols.

Please follow the instructions of your favorite GUI on how to connect engines.

Gaviota is one of the chess engines with more features. It has its own book,
learning, own endgame table bases, and can use up to sixteen processors or
cores (SMP), and as mentioned above, supports Windows, Linux and the all the
features of Winboard II and most of the features of UCI. MultiPV is still not
supported, but it will be in the next versions.

---- License ------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright (C) 2000-2010, Miguel A. Ballicora

This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty of

any kind. In no event or circumstance will the author be held liable for any
damages arising from the use of this software. Anyone is permitted to use this
software, but its distribution is not allowed without the consent of the
author. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented and you must
not claim that you wrote the original software. Modification of the software
is not permitted. (mails to the gmail account: mballicora)

---- Usage --------------------------------------------------------------------

Gaviota can also be executed from the console to be used as an analysis tool,
generate tablebases, or opening books. If from console it is executed
(do not forget to precede it with ./ if you are running in Linux)

gaviota -v

You will obtain the version number

gaviota

will run as a winboard or UCI engine.

gaviota -x

will be forced to be run as winboard engine

gaviota -s

will be more friendly if you want to use it as a analysis tool from console.
type 'help', and you will get all the available commands. For instance, you
will get

Gaviota v0.75.7
Copyright (c) 2000-2010 Miguel A. Ballicora
There is NO WARRANTY of any kind
# mode = winboard/xboard
# Type 'screen' for a better output in console mode
# Type 'help' for a list of useful commands

help
use:
help <command>
for more information

? accepted adjudicate analyze bk black

book bookpgn bookpgnwb clearbrain clearlearn cores
d display easy egtbpath egtpath epdtest
evaltest exclude fen force fritz go
hard hasha hashb hashl hashp hashr
hinfo hint include kibitz learnf level
log memory name new nopost nowait
nps option otim pause perft perftdiv
ping playother post protover quit random
rejected remove reset result score screen
script sd see setboard sn st
tb tbgen tbtest tbuse tbval tbvali
testbail time traceroot uci undo usermove
wait white xboard

---- Book building and special help -------------------------------------------

Then, if you need more help about a specific command you type help <command>
For instance, to know more about bookpgnwb, which is one of the tools to
build books, you type

help bookpgnwb

bookpgnwb <ply_limit> <white_input> <black_input> <bookfile_ouput>

creates a book with the name bookfile_output from the files
white_input (white repertoire) and black_input (black repertoire).
These two input files should be in pgn format. The maximum length
the variations is limited by the number ply_limit
For example:
bookpgnwb 30 white.pgn black.pgn book.bin
Aftewards, the file book.bin should be registered in the ini file

---- Configuration-------------------------------------------------------------

As many native Winboard/Xboard engines, Gaviota can be configured by

modifying a special text file. In this case, it is "gaviota.ini.txt"
The options in this file are self-explanatory. In addition, if you use
Winboard or Xboard, you can configure the engine options directly from the
graphical interface.

If you use Gaviota as a UCI engine, most likely the GUI will provide a menu for
you to change the options.

---- Acknowledgments ----------------------------------------------------------

You can find an updated acknowledgement note at

http://sites.google.com/site/gaviotachessengine/Home/acknowledgments

Enjoy Gaviota, and you may find more support at

http://sites.google.com/site/gaviotachessengine/

Miguel A. Ballicora