Alf version 1.09 by Casper W. Berg

A WinBoard chess engine written in Java.

web: 	www.student.dtu.dk/~s021692/Alf/alf.htm
email:	s021692 å student.dtu.dk 

Date of current release: Jul 23 2007.


1. Introduction
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Alf is a free chess playing engine written in Java.
Alf runs with the free WinBoard interface by Tim Mann.
Link: http://www.tim-mann.org/xboard.html

Another free alternative to WinBoard is Arena:
Link: http://www.playwitharena.com/

Features:

 Move Now         - No
 Edit Mode        - No
 Analyze Mode     - No
 Opening Book     - Yes
 Create Book      - Yes, from 1.09
 Ponder           - No
 Hash Tables      - Yes
 Table Bases      - No
 Draw Claim       - No
 Resign           - Yes
 Source available - No
 Learning         - No
 XBoard           - Yes
 UCI              - No
 Own GUI          - 1.07/1.08 yes, 1.09 not yet.
 Thinking Lines   - Yes


2. Installation
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Alf is a Java program, which means you must have the 
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment 1.5 or higher installed in order to run Alf.
(not needed for the compiled versions by Jim Ablett)
Link: java.sun.com

WINBOARD:
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To start Alf with WinBoard, type in command prompt or create a link with the text:

winboard /cp /fd="ALFS DIRECTORY HERE" /fcp="java -Xmx1024m -jar Alf108.jar"
NOTE: quotes must be included!

ARENA:
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To use Alf with Arena, create a new engine in Arena, choose filetype ".bat" and choose "Alf108.bat"

OWN GUI:
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To start Alf with the built-in graphical user interface,
type in command prompt or create a link with the text:

java -jar -Xmx1024m Alf108.jar -gui

Or, if you are using Windows, just type "alfgui" in command prompt 
or double-click on the file "alfgui.bat".


3. Configuration
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You can also reduce the hashtable size in the configuration file "settings.ini" to reduce memory use,
but this may make Alf play weaker. You can of course also increase this number.
There are also some other settings, see settings.ini for details.


4. Create opening book
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You can create your own opening book for Alf from a collection of games in PGN format.
You might use this feature for:

- improve your play by training a specific openings against Alf.
- improve Alf's play by making a better book (if you do, I would like to hear about it!).
- weaken Alf's play by making a bad book if you get tired of losing ;-)

Syntax:

java -jar -Xmx1024m Alf109.jar -makebook [PGN-file] [bookname]

Example:

> java -jar -Xmx1024m Alf109.jar -makebook myBook.pgn myBook

Alf will now prompt for some extra parameters:

Evaluation threshold in centipawns (e.g. -50) > -50
Maximum evaluation threshold failure rate in percent [0-100] (e.g. 50) > 75
Minimum score for a move in percent (e.g. 30) > 20
Minimum number of wins for a move (e.g. 2) > 2
Minimum variation length in ply (e.g. 24) > 20
Maximum variation length in ply (e.g. 40) > 30

The two first parameters are to exclude games which Alf evaluates as bad.
If for example -50 and 50 are used, Alf will not include games where 50% or more 
of the positions in the opening are evaluated below half a pawn.
This can of course be disabled if you choose 100% as the max. failure rate.
The rest of the options are self explanatory.

Please note that ONLY moves from the WINNING player will be included, so drawn games are skipped!

After the book has been created, remember to change "bookFile" in settings.ini to [bookname].
 
5. Notes
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The -Xmx1024m memory flag for java is to make sure Alf can allocate as much memory as it needs.
It is normally not nescesarry unless you increase the hashtable size.
However, it does not change how much memory is actually allocated, it just prevents Alf from crashing. 

6. License
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ALF MAY BE FREELY DISTRIBUTED PROVIDED THAT ALL FILES, INCLUDING THIS, ARE PRESENT AND ARE UNMODIFIED 
(Jim Ablett may add to this file for his compilations).
THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF ANY KIND, SO THE USE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Enjoy!