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(Redirected from List of chess engines)
A 'chess engine' is a computer program that can play the game of chess.
Traditionally, the term ''chess engine'' referred to a chess playing program that did not have its own user interface. Typically they ran on user interfaces such as XBoard on Linux or WinBoard on Windows. Nowadays, many commercial engines, historically sold tightly integrated with their own interface, now allow additional engines to be loaded. Popular examples include the Chessmaster and Chessbase family of engines.
The command line interface of GNU Chess became the initial de facto standard, first supported by XBoard. There is now a newer protocol, the Universal Chess Interface.[1]
Many engines support both protocols. Both protocols have their
supporters, although Universal Chess Interface has an edge on usability for end-users.
Chess engines increase in playing strength each year. This is partly due to the increase in processing power that enables calculations to be made to ever greater depths in a given time. In addition, programming techniques have improved enabling the engines to be more selective in the lines that they analyse and to acquire a better positional understanding.
Some chess engines use endgame tablebases to increase their playing strength during the endgame. An endgame tablebase is a database of all possible endgame positions with small groups of material. Each position is conclusively determined as a win, loss, or draw for the player whose turn it is to move, and the number of moves to the end with best play by both sides. Endgame tablebases in all cases identify the absolute best move in all positions included (identifying the move that wins fastest against perfect defense, or the move that loses slowest against optimal opposition). Such tablebases are available for all 3-6 man positions (counting the kings) and some 7-man combinations. When the manoeuvering in an ending to achieve an irreversible improvement takes more moves than the horizon of calculation of a chess engine, an engine is not guaranteed to find the best move without the use of an endgame tablebase, and in many cases can fall foul of the 50 move rule etc. as a result.
Some experts have pointed out the potential for faulty use of endgame tablebases by programmers, leading to worse play.
The results of computer tournaments such as the World Computer Chess Championship give one view of the relative strengths of chess engines. However, tournaments do not play a statistically significant number of games for accurate strength determination. Most tournaments also allow any types of hardware, so only engine/hardware combinations are being compared.
Historically, commercial programs have been the strongest engines. The 2006 WCCC was won by Junior. The top four programs were commercial engines but Spike, a freely available engine, finished joint 5th. [2] To some extent, this is a self-fulfulling prophesy; if an amateur engine wins a tournament or otherwise performs well (for example, Zappa in 2005), then it is quickly commercialized.
Chess engine rating lists aim to provide statistically significant measures of relative engine strength. These lists play multiple games between engines on standard hardware platforms, so that results are statistically significant and processor differences are factored out. These lists not only provide a ranking, but also margins of error on the given ratings. Also rating lists typically play games continuously, publishing many updates per year, compared to tournaments which only take place annually.
★ CCRL [3]
★ CEGT [4]
★ CSS [5]
★ SCCT [6]
★ SSDF [7]
Engines can be tested by measuring their performance on specific positions. Typical is the use of test suits, where for each given position there is one best move to find. These positions can be geared towards positional, tactical or endgame play. The Nolot test suite, for instance, focuses on deep sacrifices. [8]
★ Aldebaran
★ Amundsen
★ Amy
★ Amyan
★ AndreChess
★ Arasan
★ Aristarch
★ Averno
★ Awesome
★ BabyChess
★ BBChess
★ Belofte
★ Bestia
★ Betsy
★ Brutus
★ Bullucks
★ Buzz
★ ChessV plays both standard chess and chess variants
★ Cpp1
★ Crafty
★ Crafty Cito
★ Delfi
★ Dirty
★ Eden
★ EveAnn
★ Faile
★ Fantasy-Chess
★ Fruit
★ Gaia
★ Glaurung and Scatha
★ GNU Chess
★ GreKo
★ Hamsters
★ Ikarus
★ JaksaH
★ Jester
★ Kiwi
★ KnightCap
★ LaMoSca
★ Lime
★ List
★ Marquis
★ Mediocre
★ Monarch
★ Naum
★ Nero
★ NSVChess
★ Pepito
★ Petir
★ Pharaon
★ Pos
★ ProDeo - free version of commercial program Rebel
★ RDChess
★ Ruffian - version 1 was free, very aggressive against weaker human beings
★ Rybka, older and beta versions are free
★ Sjeng, (also the engine in Mac OS X Chess)
★ Spike, one of the strongest free engines available today.
★ TJchess
★ Toga II, derived from Fruit
★ Tornado
★ Tytan
★ Vicki
★ Violet
★ Witz
★ Xpdnt
These open source chess programs were expressly written to teach the craft of chess programming.
★ FirstChess
★ Gerbil
★ Gray Matter
★ Mizar
★ TSCP
★ Viper
★ Xadreco Chess Engine
These chess programs are sold commercially. Most of these also include their own user interface.
★ Chess Genius, by Richard Lang of Mephisto fame
★ Chessmaster
★ Chess Tiger
★ Diep
★ Fritz (single processor), Deep Fritz (multi processor)
★ Gandalf
★ HIARCS
★ The King - the engine of the commercial Chessmaster program
★ Junior - (single- and multi-processor versions)
★ Ktulu
★ Loop & List
★ NIMZO
★ Naum versions 2.1 and later
★ Rebel - (see also ProDeo)
★ Ruffian 2
★ Rybka
★ Shredder
★ Deep Sjeng
★ Smarthink
★ Zappa
These programs are personal or research projects which may have competed in tournaments on the Internet Chess Club or on the Free Internet Chess Server, but are otherwise unavailable to the public.
★ Diep
★ Falcon
★ Ferret
★ LearningLemming
★ Weid
These chess playing systems include custom hardware or run on supercomputers.
★ Bebe, a strong bit-slice processor in the 1980s
★ Belle
★ Chess (Northwestern University)
★ ChipTest
★ Cray Blitz
★ Deep Blue
★ Deep Thought
★ HiTech
★ Hydra, predecessor was called Brutus
In the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a competitive market for strong dedicated chess computers. Many form-factors were sold, from handheld peg-board computers to wooden auto-sensory boards with state-of-the-art processors. This market changed in the mid-90s when the economical embedded processors in dedicated chess computers could no longer compete with the fast processors in personal computers. Nowadays, most dedicated units sold are of beginner and intermediate strength.
★ Chess Challenger, a line of chess computers sold by Fidelity Electronics from 1980 to 1992. These models won the first four World Microcomputer Chess Championships.
★ Chessmachine, an ARM-based dedicated computer, which could run two engines:
★
★ The King, which later became the Chessmaster engine, was also used in the TASC R30 dedicated computer
★
★ Gideon, a version of Rebel, in 1992 became the first microcomputer to win the World Computer Chess Championship
★ Mephisto, a line of chess computers sold by Hegner & Glaser. The units programmed by Richard Lang won six consecutive World Microcomputer Chess Championships.
★ Novag sold a line of tactically strong computers, including the Constellation and Sapphire brands
★ Saitek sold mid-range units of intermediate strength
★ Excalibur sells a current line of intermediate strength units
These chess programs run on obsolete hardware.
★ 1K ZX Chess
★ Kaissa
★ Kotok-McCarthy
★ Mac Hack
★ Microchess
★ Sargon
★ Chess Engines Grand Tournament
★ Computer chess
★ Internet chess server
★ Universal Chess Interface
★ Chess Engine Communication Protocol
★ Tim Mann list
★ Chessopolis list
★ WBEC Ridderkerk comprehensive list of Winboard Engines - more up-to-date than Tim Mann's
A 'chess engine' is a computer program that can play the game of chess.
Interface
Traditionally, the term ''chess engine'' referred to a chess playing program that did not have its own user interface. Typically they ran on user interfaces such as XBoard on Linux or WinBoard on Windows. Nowadays, many commercial engines, historically sold tightly integrated with their own interface, now allow additional engines to be loaded. Popular examples include the Chessmaster and Chessbase family of engines.
Protocols
The command line interface of GNU Chess became the initial de facto standard, first supported by XBoard. There is now a newer protocol, the Universal Chess Interface.[1]
Many engines support both protocols. Both protocols have their
supporters, although Universal Chess Interface has an edge on usability for end-users.
Increasing strength
Chess engines increase in playing strength each year. This is partly due to the increase in processing power that enables calculations to be made to ever greater depths in a given time. In addition, programming techniques have improved enabling the engines to be more selective in the lines that they analyse and to acquire a better positional understanding.
Some chess engines use endgame tablebases to increase their playing strength during the endgame. An endgame tablebase is a database of all possible endgame positions with small groups of material. Each position is conclusively determined as a win, loss, or draw for the player whose turn it is to move, and the number of moves to the end with best play by both sides. Endgame tablebases in all cases identify the absolute best move in all positions included (identifying the move that wins fastest against perfect defense, or the move that loses slowest against optimal opposition). Such tablebases are available for all 3-6 man positions (counting the kings) and some 7-man combinations. When the manoeuvering in an ending to achieve an irreversible improvement takes more moves than the horizon of calculation of a chess engine, an engine is not guaranteed to find the best move without the use of an endgame tablebase, and in many cases can fall foul of the 50 move rule etc. as a result.
Some experts have pointed out the potential for faulty use of endgame tablebases by programmers, leading to worse play.
Comparison between engines
Tournaments
The results of computer tournaments such as the World Computer Chess Championship give one view of the relative strengths of chess engines. However, tournaments do not play a statistically significant number of games for accurate strength determination. Most tournaments also allow any types of hardware, so only engine/hardware combinations are being compared.
Historically, commercial programs have been the strongest engines. The 2006 WCCC was won by Junior. The top four programs were commercial engines but Spike, a freely available engine, finished joint 5th. [2] To some extent, this is a self-fulfulling prophesy; if an amateur engine wins a tournament or otherwise performs well (for example, Zappa in 2005), then it is quickly commercialized.
Chess engine rating lists
Chess engine rating lists aim to provide statistically significant measures of relative engine strength. These lists play multiple games between engines on standard hardware platforms, so that results are statistically significant and processor differences are factored out. These lists not only provide a ranking, but also margins of error on the given ratings. Also rating lists typically play games continuously, publishing many updates per year, compared to tournaments which only take place annually.
★ CCRL [3]
★ CEGT [4]
★ CSS [5]
★ SCCT [6]
★ SSDF [7]
Test suites
Engines can be tested by measuring their performance on specific positions. Typical is the use of test suits, where for each given position there is one best move to find. These positions can be geared towards positional, tactical or endgame play. The Nolot test suite, for instance, focuses on deep sacrifices. [8]
Engine categories
Freely available chess engines
★ Aldebaran
★ Amundsen
★ Amy
★ Amyan
★ AndreChess
★ Arasan
★ Aristarch
★ Averno
★ Awesome
★ BabyChess
★ BBChess
★ Belofte
★ Bestia
★ Betsy
★ Brutus
★ Bullucks
★ Buzz
★ ChessV plays both standard chess and chess variants
★ Cpp1
★ Crafty
★ Crafty Cito
★ Delfi
★ Dirty
★ Eden
★ EveAnn
★ Faile
★ Fantasy-Chess
★ Fruit
★ Gaia
★ Glaurung and Scatha
★ GNU Chess
★ GreKo
★ Hamsters
★ Ikarus
★ JaksaH
★ Jester
★ Kiwi
★ KnightCap
★ LaMoSca
★ Lime
★ List
★ Marquis
★ Mediocre
★ Monarch
★ Naum
★ Nero
★ NSVChess
★ Pepito
★ Petir
★ Pharaon
★ Pos
★ ProDeo - free version of commercial program Rebel
★ RDChess
★ Ruffian - version 1 was free, very aggressive against weaker human beings
★ Rybka, older and beta versions are free
★ Sjeng, (also the engine in Mac OS X Chess)
★ Spike, one of the strongest free engines available today.
★ TJchess
★ Toga II, derived from Fruit
★ Tornado
★ Tytan
★ Vicki
★ Violet
★ Witz
★ Xpdnt
Pedagogical engines
These open source chess programs were expressly written to teach the craft of chess programming.
★ FirstChess
★ Gerbil
★ Gray Matter
★ Mizar
★ TSCP
★ Viper
★ Xadreco Chess Engine
Commercial programs
These chess programs are sold commercially. Most of these also include their own user interface.
★ Chess Genius, by Richard Lang of Mephisto fame
★ Chessmaster
★ Chess Tiger
★ Diep
★ Fritz (single processor), Deep Fritz (multi processor)
★ Gandalf
★ HIARCS
★ The King - the engine of the commercial Chessmaster program
★ Junior - (single- and multi-processor versions)
★ Ktulu
★ Loop & List
★ NIMZO
★ Naum versions 2.1 and later
★ Rebel - (see also ProDeo)
★ Ruffian 2
★ Rybka
★ Shredder
★ Deep Sjeng
★ Smarthink
★ Zappa
Personal programs
These programs are personal or research projects which may have competed in tournaments on the Internet Chess Club or on the Free Internet Chess Server, but are otherwise unavailable to the public.
★ Diep
★ Falcon
★ Ferret
★ LearningLemming
★ Weid
Dedicated hardware
These chess playing systems include custom hardware or run on supercomputers.
★ Bebe, a strong bit-slice processor in the 1980s
★ Belle
★ Chess (Northwestern University)
★ ChipTest
★ Cray Blitz
★ Deep Blue
★ Deep Thought
★ HiTech
★ Hydra, predecessor was called Brutus
Commercial dedicated computers
In the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a competitive market for strong dedicated chess computers. Many form-factors were sold, from handheld peg-board computers to wooden auto-sensory boards with state-of-the-art processors. This market changed in the mid-90s when the economical embedded processors in dedicated chess computers could no longer compete with the fast processors in personal computers. Nowadays, most dedicated units sold are of beginner and intermediate strength.
★ Chess Challenger, a line of chess computers sold by Fidelity Electronics from 1980 to 1992. These models won the first four World Microcomputer Chess Championships.
★ Chessmachine, an ARM-based dedicated computer, which could run two engines:
★
★ The King, which later became the Chessmaster engine, was also used in the TASC R30 dedicated computer
★
★ Gideon, a version of Rebel, in 1992 became the first microcomputer to win the World Computer Chess Championship
★ Mephisto, a line of chess computers sold by Hegner & Glaser. The units programmed by Richard Lang won six consecutive World Microcomputer Chess Championships.
★ Novag sold a line of tactically strong computers, including the Constellation and Sapphire brands
★ Saitek sold mid-range units of intermediate strength
★ Excalibur sells a current line of intermediate strength units
Historical programs
These chess programs run on obsolete hardware.
★ 1K ZX Chess
★ Kaissa
★ Kotok-McCarthy
★ Mac Hack
★ Microchess
★ Sargon
See also
★ Chess Engines Grand Tournament
★ Computer chess
★ Internet chess server
★ Universal Chess Interface
★ Chess Engine Communication Protocol
External links
★ Tim Mann list
★ Chessopolis list
★ WBEC Ridderkerk comprehensive list of Winboard Engines - more up-to-date than Tim Mann's
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psst.. try this: add to faves
