Chess Engine Update
by
Clyde Nakamura
Although my specialty has been unorthodox
chess openings, I use the various strong computer chess engines to test my
unorthodox chess openings. We live in an age where computers have become an
important part of everyday life and also an important part of chess.
Since 1985 I realized that I would be left behind in life if I was not
literate in the usage of computers.
 My
first computer was the PC Junior in 1985. My current computer is an
Acer 4400 Athlon with dual core processor, 2 gigabytes of ram, 300 gigabyte
hard drive and Windows Vista Home Premium operating system. I also
have an external 250 gigabyte hard drive connected to my computer via the
USB port.
I use the various chess engines to help me
do analysis for my Chessville column called “The Search
for Dragons and Mythical Chess Openings” and also articles for the
quarterly ”Yahoo
Unorthodox Chess Openings Newsletter.”
A very strong chess engine is like a
grandmaster chess partner who you can play against or help you analyze your
chess games. I sometimes run an engine tournament with my Deep Fritz 8
chess program to test some new chess opening gambit or a new unorthodox
chess opening. I also like to collect chess databases which helps me
to write my chess articles.
Chess engines usually require some kind of
graphical user interface (another chess program) to view the chess board on
the computer screen. There are various user interfaces such as
Chessbase/Fritz, Arena, Winboard, Chess Partner and other chess graphical
interfaces.
 I
have mainly used my Deep Fritz 8 chess program to load the various strong
chess engines. However there are some strong chess engines that cannot be
loaded by a Fritz interface. You would have to use chess programs such
as Winboard, Arena or Chess Partner. Chessmaster 10th edition can
load some winboard chess engines. And to load a Winboard chess engine
on to your Fritz chess program you would need a uci adapter.
Chess engines vary in playing strength from
1400 to 2800 Elo. The strongest chess engines are rated from 2600+ to
2800+. A chess rating of 2500+ is considered to be approximately
grandmaster strength. I like to play against the chess engine called
Firefly which is rated about 2330 Elo because I have a good chance of
defeating it in a 5-minute blitz game or a game set at 15 minutes each or a
longer time control.
 Each
chess engine has a different style of play. Some chess engines play
very aggressive and speculative and some play very safe and positional.
Listed below are a few commercial and mostly
free chess engine sites. Some of the commercial chess engines have a
free download of a lower version of their chess engine or a free download of
a demo version of their chess engine. I have not listed the links to
the various main commercial chess program sites such as Fritz, Shredder,
Junior, Chess Tiger and Chessbase. I also have not listed all the
chess engines because there are hundreds of chess engines.
I have attempted to list all the strong
chess engines with estimated ratings of 2600+. I may be missing a few
strong chess engines. Also you should remember that the true strength of a
chess engine varies with the processing speed of your computer.
Chess Engine Sites
WBEC Ridderkerk
This site
tests chess engines, provides a rating list of chess engines and has one of
the largest listing of links to chess engines that you can download. Both
uci and winboard chess engines are listed. There are also some Linux chess
engines also listed. See link below:
http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl
Top UCI Chess Engines
This chess
web site has the links to the top uci chess engines.
http://www.sdchess.ru/Engines_UCI_top.htm
Aristarch Chess Engine
The Aristarch
chess engine is uci and winboard compatible and can be played under other
chess graphical interfaces such as Arena, Chess Partner and etc. Its
estimated strength is 2647 on the CSS rating list. You can download a free
copy of the latest version 4.50 of Aristarch at:
http://www.zipproth.com/chess/
Colossus Chess Engine
The Collossus
chess program was first developed in 1983 and was later updated in 2004 to
conform to the uci standard which can be loaded as a uci chess engine under
the Fritz graphical interface. During the 1980’s Colossus was one of the top
selling commercial chess programs. Its current estimated strength is 2625.
The latest version of this engine is 2007c which can be download at the
following link listed below. This engine is free to download.
http://www.colossus.demon.co.uk/chess/colossuschessuci.htm
Deep Pharaon Chess Engine
This chess
engine is uci and winboard compatible and supports computers with 1 to 4
processors. Its estimated strength is 2690. The latest version is Deep
Pharaon 3.5.1, which is free and can be downloaded at the chess link listed
below.
http://www.fzibi.com/pharaon.htm
Fruit Chess Engine
In the World Computer Chess Championship 2005 Fruit
came in second place beating out a lot of the commercial chess engines.
Fruit does not play speculative or unsound attacks, and it can play a fine
positional maneuvering type of game if necessary. Fruit's playing
style is very balanced and has no outstanding strengths but neither any
serious weaknesses. It will develop its pieces reasonably in the
opening, find the tactics in the middlegame and accurately convert an
advantage in a technical endgame. And Fruit will convert a slight
advantage with great accuracy or outmaneuver the opponent in a positional
battle. If the opponent prefers a slugfest, it will find the necessary
tactics though. Its estimated strength is 2754 Elo. The latest
version of Fruit is 2.3 which can be loaded as a uci chess engine under the
Fritz interface or it can be used on a Mac. A Linux version is also
available. This chess engine recently became freeware as of August
2007 and can be downloaded at the link below.
http://www.fruitchess.com/purchase.htm
Gambit Fruit Chess Engine
Gambit Fruit is
a uci chess engine based on the Fruit 2.1 chess engine. It is written
by Ryan Benitez and Fabien Letouzey. It is about 2700+ elo in
strength.
http://www.superchessengine.com/gambit_fruit.htm
Glaurung Chess Engine
The Glaurung
chess engine is quite strong and the latest version is Glaurung 2 – Epsilon
5 which uses the Fritz graphical interface. Its estimated strength is 2650+.
This web site listed below also has a Mac version for Mac OS X, with GUI and
opening book. It is said to play more human like and is an improvement over
a previous chess engine called Gothmog. See link below.
http://www.glaurungchess.com
Kaissa2 Chess Engine
Kaissa2 is a uci
compatible chess engine with an estimated blitz strength of 2600. It was
programmed by Vladimir Yelin of Belarus. You can download it free at:
http://www.sdchess.ru/download_engines.htm
Naum Chess Engine
The Naum Chess
Engine is a very strong Winboard/UCI compatible chess engine. The latest
version is 2.2 which is commercial. It is said to be one of the top 5 uci
chess engines in the world. However you can download the 2.0 Naum chess
engine which is free at the web site listed below.
http://www.geocities.com/naum_chess/
Patriot Chess Engine
The Patriot
Chess Engine was programmed by Vladimir Belin of Belarus and is uci
compatible. Its estimated blitz strength is 2600. It is a free download at:
http://www.sdchess.ru/download_engines.htm
Prodeo Chess Engine
The Prodeo chess
engine is the former chess commercial chess program called “Rebel”.
Its estimated strength is 2700 elo. The latest version of Prodeo is 1.5 and
can be downloaded free at:
http://www.top-5000.nl/prodeo.htm
RYBKA CHESS ENGINE
Rybka is a stand alone UCI
chess engine programmed by International Master Vasik Rajlich and can be
used to play chess games or to analyze chess positions. The
commercial version of this uci chess engine is version 2.3 and is considered
the strongest chess engine available. Rybka won the 2007 World
Computer Championship in Amsterdam with a score 10 points out of 11 games.
Unlike the other commercial engines Fritz and Shredder, this chess engine is
not a standard brute force chess engine which looks at many chess positions.
This chess engine is knowledge based. The chess graphical user
interfaces that Rybka can use are Arena, Chessbase/Fritz, Chess Assistant,
Shredder and Chess Partner. The link to the Rybka web site is listed
below:
http://www.rybkachess.com/
You can download the 2.1 demo version or the
1.0 Beta version which are both free at:
http://www.rybkachess.com/index.php?auswahl=Download+demo
Scorpio Chess Engine
Scorpio is one
of the strongest winboard chess engines, however you would have to use a uci
adaptor to use it under a Chessbase/Fritz interface.
http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/details/Scorpio.html
Spike Chess Engine
The Spike 1.2
Turin Chess Engine tied for the 5th place at the WCCC 2006 in Torino.
A Linux version is available. The latest version of the Spike chess engine
is 1.2 Turin. See web link below. This is one of the strongest free uci
engines available.
http://spike.lazypics.de/dl_index_en.html
Strelka UCI Chess Engine
Strelka is a
very strong uci chess engine programmed by a Russian programmer Yuri Osipov.
Its estimated stength is 2750 to 2800 according the its programmer. The
latest version is Strelka 1.8 UCI which means it can be loaded as a uci
chess engine under the Fritz graphical interface. This chess engine is free
to download at the link listed below.
http://www.sdchess.ru/Engines_UCI_top.htm
Toga II Chess Engine
Toga II Chess
engine is based of the Fruit 2.1 chess engine by Fabien Letouzey. It is
written by Thomas Gaksch and Fabien Letouzey and is uci compatible. And like
Gambit Fruit it is about 2700+ elo strength. There are 2 versions of this
chess engine at the link listed below.
http://cito.atspace.com/other.html
ZAPPA Chess Engine
The Zappa chess
engine version 2.2 surprised everyone by winning the World Computer Chess
Championship on 8/21/05 with a score of 10.5 out of 11 games. Like Fritz or
Shredder, it is a standard chess engine, which is a brute force alpha-beta
searcher with a heuristical evaluation. Zappa attempts to achieve a
somewhat humanlike style of play by aggressive tuning but most of the time
it is not willing to destroy its position for a pawn.
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/acozzie2/www/zappa/#features
The Zappa version 1.1 is free and can be
downloaded at:
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/acozzie2/www/zappa/#download
Visit Clyde's Search for
Dragons and Mythical Chess Openings.
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