ICGA Tournaments

- design and implementation in 1991 originally guided by GNU chess 3.0 
- standard - search algorithm: Minmax + Alpha-Beta
  including "Aspiration-Window"; no minimal window search.
- good tactical strength by conventional extensions and threat 
  detection by null-move heuristic
- use of a sophisticated, domain-dependent evaluation window technique
- considerable knowledge implemented in evaluation modules
  evaluation in 3 passes:
   1. scan and evaluation of pawn structure
   2. piece and king evaluation depending on the results of pass 1
   3. evaluation of global positional characteristics 
- implementation of various classes of killer moves
- selectivity: 
   a) razoring, modified fail high reduction at depth 1,
   b) null move search, partly with reduced search depth 
   c) quiescence cut-offs as in GNU-Chess;
- opening book with 120000 positions