Questions tagged [engines]
An engine is any machine or computer program that plays chess.
608
questions
18
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4answers
6k views
Creating chess engine, machine learning vs. traditional engine?
I am both an avid chess player and computer programmer. I would say that playing chess and programming are the two things I spend the most time doing. Naturally, I am wanting to create my own engine ...
3
votes
1answer
74 views
Adding time to game played with chess engine
Are there any chess engines out there that will allow me to add arbitrary amounts of time to their clocks as the game progresses? I am interested in experimenting with two engines playing each other ...
1
vote
1answer
81 views
What is the most efficient way to calculate attack squares in a chess engine?
I have made a chess engine, and it seems from cProfile that my most expensive function is the one that calculates attack squares for both players. Here is the cProfile results for a perft function I ...
2
votes
1answer
136 views
Speed of minimax with alpha beta pruning in chess engines
Can a minimax function with just alpha beta pruning really evaluate 1.8 billion chess positions (3 ply = 356) in just a second?
My chess engine, which uses minimax with only alpha beta pruning, takes ...
2
votes
2answers
134 views
What chess app displays the name of the opening being used in the game?
I used to have a chess app that would say the name of the opening being used when you played. Then my tablet broke, and I thought it would be easy to find that chess app, but no luck.
Does anyone ...
2
votes
2answers
238 views
If a pawn promotes to a checking piece while also revealing a check, it is a double check?
I'm writing a chess engine just for fun, and during the validation of movement generation, I found some positions in Perft Results that differ from what my engine is producing.
As an example, take ...
1
vote
3answers
122 views
Computers and draws
Engines really push for a win in a dead-draw middlegame position, unlike humans who may agree on a draw. Why is that happening?
3
votes
5answers
239 views
Are engine ratings directly comparable to human-level play?
Yesterday, I play a game against Stockfish 7, and it has 2200 rating points.
I drew 2 games, and lost 1. The point is that if I play against a human-rated 2200 player, I would probably have a ...
1
vote
1answer
64 views
Software with support for Database with opening analysis
I'm looking for a software tool that will:
Engine Support. For analysis suggestions.
Support for software evaluation of the moves. I guess this is optional, although I've seen this feature in ...
3
votes
1answer
243 views
Why can Stockfish give different evaluations at the same depth?
When I let Stockfish get to a certain depth (say depth 33), it gives some evaluation. Then I refresh the position (while leaving Stockfish on) and when it gets to the same depth it gives a different ...
7
votes
2answers
223 views
First known computer-found error in expert chess analysis
What is the first known example of published expert chess analysis that was disproven by a computer search, with the winning player completely opposite? That is to say, a widely known published ...
4
votes
1answer
148 views
Chess Engine: Generate a Bitboard of Pinned Pieces
I'm currently working on a chess engine and have a pseudo-legal move generator working. I'm looking for a way to efficiently generate a bitboard of pinned pieces, so I could skip them when generating ...
3
votes
1answer
176 views
Python-chess : Are the move scores enough to rank moves from the most to least likely moves played by an engine?
My goal is to make a script to finding the most and least likely move an engine will play, and then make a list it. I tried using the scores to make such a list, with the best score equalling the most ...
3
votes
1answer
579 views
Python-chess : how to get a list for the best engine moves
I am working on a simple cheat detection script to find if a user used one of the top engine moves in a game, so I found this great python-chess library
Additionally, I found this example to getting ...
4
votes
1answer
150 views
Leaving the score aside, what are the criteria allowing Stockfish to choose its “best move”?
I'm trying to understand how a chess engine like Stockfish works. I use Stockfish 10 directly, without an UI.
For example, for this position (white to move)...
r3n1k1/1bpp2pp/pp2p3/2P1P3/R2P4/3B1rPq/...
1
vote
0answers
50 views
SCID vs. PC: Multi-Engine Analysis
Is it possible to configure SCID to output the annotating engine in the variation itself?
For example;
Ne5
(Stockfish: -0.01 / +0.32 25. Bc4 ...)
(Engine2: +0.20 / +0.48 25. 0-0 ...)
(Engine3:...
2
votes
0answers
127 views
Wrong perft result?
I'm writing a chess engine for fun. Currently I'm finishing writing the move generator. During the research I leaned about PERFT for debugging my software. Indeed, I found many bugs, some of them was "...
3
votes
1answer
191 views
Stockfish on Android Question
I recently downloaded Stockfish 10 on my android phone and after unzipping the rar file, there were three separate engine binaries and I am wondering which one would be the strongest one to use. The ...
15
votes
3answers
6k views
Bad Stockfish evaluation
This is the study
[fen "3B4/1r2p3/r2p1p2/bkp1P1p1/1p1P1PPp/p1P4P/PPBK4/8 w - - 0 1 "]
As you can see, Stockfish gives an absolute decisive win for black, though it is clearly a draw!!
Check it out ...
3
votes
2answers
400 views
How does Allie's search algorithm work?
Allie is a strong engine that's looking competitive with the top ones (Leela Chess Zero and Stockfish). It's supposedly based off AlphaZero, but works differently. As far as I understand it, the most ...
1
vote
1answer
93 views
Enable pondering with Leela chess zero
I just got Leela Chess Zero up and running inside docker using this guide. Added a couple of weights from here
Now, when I run leela
$> lczero -w path/to/weight/file
go
info depth 16 nodes 435 ...
2
votes
1answer
161 views
How to use opening books on mac/linux
I would like to use opening books for my stockfish chess engine, but I'm not sure how to do this. As far as I understand stockfish doesn't support these, so I though I setup a system next to stockfish,...
9
votes
5answers
437 views
Why does Fishtesting test Stockfish against itself, not other engines?
As I understand the so-called Fishtesting, people write patches, then try the patches against the current version of Stockfish. If the new version performs better, it's promoted to be the main version;...
5
votes
1answer
483 views
Are there any attempts at writing Stockfish MCTS?
As of time of writing, there is one major traditional engine using Monte Carlo Tree Search for its search algorithm - Komodo. The MCTS version of Komodo started out weak but gained strength quickly, ...
5
votes
2answers
621 views
Leela Chess Zero - UCI engine
What is current use status of Leela for practical player? Is it already working well as UCI? Could anybody give some insight on strength with various thinking times, especially in analysis mode? As ...
2
votes
3answers
933 views
To what extent (if at all) is the new Komodo 13 MCTS an AlphaZero Lite?
The new Komodo 13 MCTS has been announced with the claim that:
Komodo 13 MCTS thinks like no other chess engine in the world.
Inspired by the ideas of AlphaZero and Leela, Larry and Mark set out
...
6
votes
2answers
329 views
How to evaluate and comment moves in PGN format?
I want, with Python-chess, to evaluate any movement of some game and generate the PGN with analysis, as Chess.com does in its analysis.
For example, i played one game with fools mate and they ...
0
votes
1answer
56 views
Is it possible to manually alter initial values in a chess engine?
I am curious of the games that would arise if I changed the initial value of a knight to -1 or make standing on e5 worth -10 points.
How would I go about to create such an engine? Is it possible ...
3
votes
3answers
727 views
Why was castling bad for white in this game, and engine strongly prefered trading queens?
I'm a novice player, trying to improve. In the following game I played as white recently on chess.com, I analysed afterwards and my worst move of the game was apparently when I castled. The engine ...
0
votes
1answer
89 views
How much of the Principal Variation can I trust? [closed]
Chess engines will have a Principal Variation (PV) that may be as many as 30 (or more) ply deep. Of course, the PV and the other facets of the engine help to determine the best move at the root ...
14
votes
2answers
944 views
Can an Irwin Cheat Detector catch a user who is using a Leela chess bot for cheating?
I’m a big fan of chess cheat detection apps, like Irwin that was created by lichess.org.
But I heard that there is a new bot called Leela that is teaching herself how to play chess, and to think in a ...
2
votes
2answers
98 views
Is it possible for an engine to be stronger at short time controls, and weaker at long time controls?
Is it possible for engine A to be decisively better than engine B at short time controls (say, 5 min/game) but decisively weaker at long time controls (say, 1 hour/game)?
If the answer is yes, what ...
3
votes
3answers
909 views
Why does Lichess only tell me my “inaccuracies”, “mistakes”, and “blunders”, and not e.g. my “brilliancies”?
A computer analysis of a game in Lichess lists your "inaccuracies", "mistakes", and "blunders". An example is below:
What I don't understand is why Lichess doesn't point out my good moves. It seems ...
0
votes
1answer
142 views
Why did the (Black) computer play 9. … Ke7 here?
Not having played chess in ~5 years, I started playing against the computer on my phone at ELO~800 (I've since reached ~900). I do not know what engine the app uses (Chess for iPhone by Mastersoft Ltd)...
14
votes
3answers
2k views
How does engine strength scale with hardware?
Say I run Komodo on my 4-core machine. How much stronger would Komodo be if I used an 8-core machine? A 40-core machine? A 4000-core machine?
Is there a general relation for this? Also, does this ...
4
votes
1answer
155 views
Color-coding moves and games
If you are familiar with watching chess broadcasts on ChessBomb, you'll know they have an engine running on the server which evaluates moves, and colors each move according to whether (according to SF)...
1
vote
1answer
300 views
Why does NCM show no progress for Stockfish when each new version has to beat the previous version?
NCM plays each Stockfish dev build 20,000 times against Stockfish 7. This yields an approximate Elo difference and establishes confidence in the strength of the dev builds. As of time of writing, one ...
3
votes
2answers
185 views
An objective measure of the difference in strength between top programs and top human players in the four most popular forms of chess?
Is there an objective measure of the superiority (or otherwise) that the strongest computer programs enjoy over the strongest human players which can be compared across the four main forms of chess, ...
2
votes
4answers
261 views
Why is it a mistake to trap this bishop?
In the below position, I played pawn from g7 to g5, trapping the white bishop. The computer didn't like that at all, and gives white a huge advantage. Instead, it wanted me to just simply develop my ...
3
votes
1answer
110 views
Is there a chess AI that can force checkmate on a specified square?
I'm looking for a program that can force a lone king into checkmate on a specific square. Are there any programs out there that can do this?
5
votes
3answers
429 views
Do chess AIs still use old-style opening books?
(See also this related question and this related off-site discussion.)
Do state-of-the-art chess AIs still normally start games in human-compiled opening books of master games?
Years ago, as far as ...
-1
votes
1answer
239 views
Python and Stockfish [duplicate]
I am trying to get Stockfish to work in Python 3. Just to get started on my project, I tried to have Stockfish think until a depth of 20. However, the program instantly returns that Stockfish ...
10
votes
3answers
467 views
Human-like engine for endgame training
I am doing endgame training with LucasChess (LC), but the problem is not really related to LC, but to chess engines in general.
I have this problem: See picture. When I move Kh6 in this position, ...
5
votes
2answers
192 views
How do opening books in engine chess work?
I thought opening books were just big compilations of opening moves that engines have access to, and they choose at random which move to play from the list of moves that the opening book says is good. ...
2
votes
2answers
411 views
Where is the neural network used in MCTS?
Where does an engine (such as AlphaZero) use its neural network in MCTS? It shouldn't be needed to evaluate positions reached via MCTS, since I'm under the impression that only terminal game states ...
14
votes
2answers
866 views
Why does NN + MCTS & AB + handwritten eval dominate engine chess?
As I understand it engines can be divided into four groups right now: those that use Alpha-beta (AB) + those that use Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) for search, and those that use handwritten ...
7
votes
2answers
420 views
Is there a reason AlphaZero hasn't been allowed to learn for longer?
Why don't the developers of AlphaZero let it learn for days, or even months on end? Wouldn't its neural network become much stronger, at the cost of just occupying some computational resources for a ...
1
vote
1answer
123 views
Why might this supervised engine make mistakes based on an example game?
I am developing in my free time a python-based supervised chess engine. It is trained on past games to detect who wins (only games without draw), then it proceeds as follows:
1) find the top 4 moves ...
12
votes
2answers
4k views
What was the first chess engine that could beat the world champion on a standard desktop?
What was the first chess engine that could beat the world chess champion when running on a standard desktop playing at standard speeds (i.e. not blitz chess)? For concreteness, say a $1000 PC.
5
votes
2answers
337 views
Can anyone recommend a Chess platform that, well, you better read further
I thought I might take a minute to share a project I started about 20 years ago.
Essentially, I used my ChessMaster program to make a "Chess Explorer".
In 1998, I noticed I could add notes into ...
