BAO 0.1 User guide
H.H.L.M. Donkers
Universiteit Maastricht
email:
September 5, 2001
Before you study this user guide, please make sure to read the
rules of the game.
Doing a move
There are two ways to enter a move:
textual: enter a legal move string in the inputbox on the bottom left
and press "enter" or the "Go" button.
drag and drop: Click on the hole from which you want to play,
keep the mouse-button down and drag in the desired direction of the move.
The start hole will turn yellow, and the hole in which you end the dragging
will turn green. As long as no direction is indicated (no green hole), you can select
another hole to play by releasing the mouse button.
If the direction of the move is determined by the situation (e.g. capture move
at a kichwa) only a single click is needed.
If you want to play the nyumba during a drag-and-drop move, select the
checkbox "play nyumba" before dragging.
New moves are added to the bottom of the move list at the right.
Illegal moves
If the program discovers that you entered an illegal move, it will
show a message at the bottom of the window. This message will include
a reference to the rule(s) of the game that are violated.
Animation
The program animates moves automatically. You can adjust the
animation speed or turn animation off by using the menu "animation".
It is possible stop a long move by selecting "abort" in the animation menu.
Play against the computer
In the menu "game" select "computer" for the north player or
for the south player. Then select "New" in this menu. Fill in
the game properties and ckick ok. The game now starts. If the computer plays south then
the program will start immediately. If you want to
stop playing against the computer, select "stop" in this menu.
During the time that the computer is searching for a move or during an animation
of a move, many options in the menu are disabled. If needed, you can abort the
search by selecting "abort" in the menu "Compute". This ends the current game.
Saving a game
Select "save" in the menu "File" to save a game
transcript of the game being played.
Game analysis
You can analyse stored games or a game just being played by using the
move list at the right of the board. This can only be done when the computer
is not actually playing against you. If so, select "stop" from the menu "game".
Double-click on a move in the movelist to go to the position after that
move was played. Use the symbol "||<" to return to the start of
the game. If you click on a move below the actual position, the moves up to
the point at wich you clicked will be animated (if animation is turned on). If you
click at a move above the actual position, no animation will be performed.
loading games
You can analyse stored games by selecting "Load" in the file menu.
changing moves
During analysis you can enter new moves at a certain position. This move will
then replace the move in the movelist and all moves after that are deleted.
computer search
It is possible to let the computer find the best move at a certain position
during the analysis of a game. Select "Compute now" from the menu "Compute".
The answer of the search will be displayed in the engine report form. (Select
"show engine report" from this menu.
Extra's
openings
You can use non-official opening positions by selecting "manual" for "opening"
at the "game" menu.
engine report
During a play against the computer, you can make the the engine report visible
by selecting "show engine report" from the "compute" menu.
The report shows the best move as computed, the evaluation of this move,
the number of nodes generated, the time used, and the number of nodes
generated per second. The report also shows the number of long moves that
where encountered during search.
search depth
It is possible to adjust the maximum search depth of the search engine by
selecting "search depth" from the "compute" menu.
long move limit
To adjust the limit that the computer uses to detect long moves, select
"Long move limit" from the "compute" menu.