On Conway’s potential function for colored links

The Conway potential function(CPF) for colored links is a convenient version of the multivariable Alexander–Conway polynomial. We give a skein characterization of CPF, much simpler than the one by Murakami. In particular, Conway's "smoothing of crossings" is not in the axioms. The proof uses a reduction scheme in a twisted group-algebra P_nB_n, where B_n is a braid group and P_n is a domain of multi-variable rational fractions. The proof does not use computer algebra tools. An interesting by-product is a characterization of the Alexander–Conway polynomial of knots.