Questions tagged [engines]
Questions relating to chess engines: any computer program that is able to play/analyze chess positions.
1,044
questions
6
votes
4
answers
3k
views
What type of hardware is the most important for analysing with Houdini?
I am going to analyse a lot of games with Houdini 3.
The system on which I am going to analyse it is really powerful, but I am curious, what is the most important type of hardware for such analysis?
...
8
votes
2
answers
16k
views
Playing chess on a Mac with Stockfish and some GUI
I have a Macbook OS X 10.6 and want to play chess against a challenging program. I'm not very computationally inclined but it seems that I need to download Stockfish and some UCI-compatible GUI. I ...
17
votes
3
answers
5k
views
Computers in correspondence chess
In competitive correspondence chess, can humans win at all against computers? Do humans contribute at all to the game?
Provided that it is allowed by the rules, I fail to see how it is not just ...
7
votes
3
answers
3k
views
strongest chess engine
Can somebody tell me where can i find an updated list of the strongest chess engines. I want to find out a comparison (ordered list of engines)
Information on wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
14
votes
3
answers
3k
views
Can you really learn from playing against computers just like when playing against humans?
I am wondering whether or not playing against chess against a computer will help you get better as quickly as playing against humans.
The motivation for this questions come from video gaming. I used ...
8
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Scandinavian: 2. Nc3 d4
I started out with a simple opening: 1. e4 d5 2. Nc3 and then the computer played 2... d4, surprising me, as I had never encountered it before. Since then, I've been trying to analyse the possible ...
36
votes
5
answers
30k
views
How do chess engines "think"?
What I want to know is how engines are programmed to find moves. I'm sure they first calculate the most forcing lines such as captures and checks. But what about subtle, deep positional moves? They ...
12
votes
5
answers
867
views
Why do people say today's chess is dominated by computers?
Every time I read articles on chess I see people who say that chess is now dominated by computers. For example if you look for a thread on the subject 'Fischer vs Carlsen' (just an example) you see ...
15
votes
2
answers
15k
views
Are the best engines better than the best humans?
I think the title asks it all.
Under match conditions, would the best chess engines routinely beat the best grandmasters?
If you say yes, have there been enough matches played under tournament ...
20
votes
4
answers
5k
views
Why do chess engines sometimes miss good moves (or take forever to spot)?
It is not the first time that I found a greatly superior move than the chess engine did, it even takes them a while to understand these moves after you make them.
For example, the move 15 ... Bf2 in ...
12
votes
3
answers
4k
views
Computer evaluations: How trustworthy are they?
Fritz 12 with Rybka gave a friend of mine an evaluation of +3 for white in this endgame position,
[Title "White to move"]
[FEN "8/8/8/3k3p/3P3K/2P3R1/8/7r w - - 0 1"]
which turned out to be a draw. ...
8
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Chess engine - Losers variant
I often use the Pulsar engine to analyze my Atomic games for better play (post-mortem). I definitely learn something, since I am not as smart as Pulsar. I am interested in doing the same thing for ...
10
votes
6
answers
7k
views
Deep Rybka vs Deep Fritz vs Houdini vs (other), which one to buy?
I want to invest my hard-earned money to buy a chess engine which can help me to:
analyze games easily
experiment with different opening repertoire
strategical analysis
positional play
I don't ...
9
votes
2
answers
5k
views
Fritz: Full analysis Vs Blunder check
In Fritz, I am interested to know the differences between the Full Analysis and Blunder Check.
The differences at the first look seem superficial. For example, I wouldn't mind if there is no natural ...
14
votes
11
answers
11k
views
Free, simple chess program for beginners
I can't play chess very well, and want a computer game to play against. I've tried two so far - Chessbase (Fritz 5.32) and Crafty Chess. Both had the same problem that even on the lowest difficulty ...
7
votes
4
answers
1k
views
Chess engines for analysing games
Up untill now, I have used Rybka for analysis of my games.
What other chess engines have you used, and how helpful are they?
I am not interested in a list of chess engines with their respective ...
13
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Computer endgame strength without tablebases
I have seen that engines aren't particularly strong in the openings without access to a book.
How strong are modern engines in the endgame when they are not allowed access to tablebases? E.g., can ...
9
votes
5
answers
520
views
When playing a computer opponent what situations should I create to give myself a better chance of winning?
Normally when I play against a computer I try to avoid any positions where I feel the knowledge-base of the computer would give it an advantage. For example I find computers very strong in typical ...
18
votes
5
answers
20k
views
How many moves ahead does Anand calculate in his mind?
I always wondered about this! How many moves ahead can strong players like Anand actually 'see' during the game? How does the calculation of a supercomputer like Deep Blue differ from that of strong ...
6
votes
3
answers
2k
views
What is the strength of the Shredder Chrome app?
Today, for the first time, I played against the Chrome app Shredder Chess, and at the "Hard" playing strength of the engine, I was easily able to beat it.
I am just about 1850-1900 Elo. My question ...
7
votes
4
answers
1k
views
Free chess computer game
I am a chess novice.
Can someone suggest a good, free chess computer game that I can use to start to learn chess by playing against the computer? Maybe with some different difficult levels...
9
votes
2
answers
895
views
What was the first chess-playing automaton?
One well-known automaton is The Turk. What is the first one and when was it constructed, including fake ones? [1]:
8
votes
1
answer
368
views
Elements to take into account when evaluating 'board strength'
As part of a demo for a rules engine I'm dreaming up, I'd like to do an evaluation of a chess board that communicates each side's general strength at that point in time. Advanced things like ...
37
votes
6
answers
20k
views
Suggestion for a good chess engine on Linux
I'm using GNUChess with the Knights client (Knights doesn't seem to be THAT mature; crashes are common). Is there any equivalent of Chessmaster on Linux? What about good clients to play on servers ...
4
votes
4
answers
468
views
What is the best automatic chess playing app for a beginning level player?
I play chess very infrequently. Whenever I restart, I take a bit of time to get up to speed. Which chess playing apps are best for a beginner? I would prefer apps that scale up in diifficulty ...
2
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Programming chess engine [closed]
I'm a Java programmer, particularly an Android developer. I'm also a good chess player. My question is where do I start if I want to program a chess engine, may or may not be from scratch. Later I ...
6
votes
1
answer
1k
views
How do grandmasters prepare against computer endgames?
This question is a sequel to an earlier one . Just as in the openings, computers dominate endgames. Endgame tablebases provide an exhaustive analysis of endgame positions with a small number of ...
9
votes
1
answer
5k
views
How do I use the analysis output of a UCI engine?
I'm trying to analyze some of my games with the Stockfish UCI engine. I'd like to make sure I'm interpreting the output correctly. Using this screenshot as an example.
Can someone explain to me all ...
63
votes
15
answers
18k
views
A purely self-trained chess AI
Insofar as I understand, it appears that, before moving, all strong chess software
examines thousands or millions of possible, future positions;
evaluates each future position according to some ...
6
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Why can't I analyze with Stockfish 2.0.1 in Winboard 4.5 beta?
I have to ask an engine-related question: after I installed the Stockfish 2.0.1 engine on my Winboard 4.5 beta, I can't analyze with it. What I mean is, it's giving nothing in the engine output; it ...
15
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Why are there no more exhibition games between top players and computers?
The 1997 match between Kasparov and Deep Blue is likely the most famous chess match in history. This is because it was ground breaking - for the first time ever a computer had beaten the best player ...
4
votes
4
answers
3k
views
Which is the most CPU efficient chess engine?
I am learning artificial intelligence and chess programming. I want to analyze the architecture and read the code of existing chess engines. But I am confused between multiple choices. There are ...
11
votes
2
answers
7k
views
What are good UCI-compatible GUIs for Mac?
Is anyone running a UCI-compatible GUI on a Mac? Preferably something native and modern, so WINE and Rosetta (etc) are not needed. My goal is to simply set up chess positions and let Stockfish ...
13
votes
2
answers
5k
views
Is there any chess engine that can show if one side has a forced draw?
Is there any chess engine that has an analysis mode that can show if a position is a forced draw by either side?
It is common for engines to output evaluations of 0.0 when they detect a draw. But an ...
6
votes
2
answers
6k
views
What's the highest rating any computer has ever attained?
Along with that, I'd like to know what the highest rating of any human has ever been - including historical estimates.
17
votes
11
answers
27k
views
Alternatives to chessbase on OS X
Most of my chess preparation and studying used to revolve around ChessBase products. I stored my databases and notes in .cbh files, used computers with the ChessBase interface to study and do ...
5
votes
4
answers
743
views
When is it appropriate to use a program during games with a longer timeframe, such as correspondence chess?
Are there rules about when a player may use a chess engine to aid his game? Is it always frowned upon? Do you have to specially ask? Not that you can stop your opponent from using an engine, but is ...
25
votes
4
answers
3k
views
Deep Blue vs Kasparov - Aftermath
Evaluating 200M positions per second and having a search tree of 20+ moves might not be enough to beat a World Champion if a computer searches in the wrong direction or if it's evaluating positions a ...
2
votes
1
answer
177
views
Is the World Chess Blitz Championship for Robots going to be broadcast over the Internet? [closed]
Does anyone know if the World Chess Blitz Championship for Chess Robots in Moscow is going to be streamed over the web? Sounds really cool and I'd like to see it.
14
votes
3
answers
914
views
How can I find good tactics problems?
Say you have a database of a lot of games.
How would you go about finding good tactics problems? I suppose you would search until there was a spot where the score shifted, and there was only one good ...
30
votes
4
answers
7k
views
What is the status for seven man end game table bases?
There are complete (or nearly complete) six man end game table bases available for download, and even online.
What is the status of seven man table bases? Is there still active development in this ...
17
votes
8
answers
20k
views
What is an accurate way to evaluate chess positions?
I've been interested for a while about a computer chess AI algorithms (and got the chance to work on one at some point) like Minimax, and as the core component of these algorithms is the so-called ...
20
votes
1
answer
4k
views
What algorithms and heuristics are popular in computer chess?
Computer chess has exploded in the last twenty years, with a computer world championship being established and many chess computer designers becoming quite profitable from their endeavors. Some of ...
17
votes
2
answers
804
views
Has AI changed opening theory, and if so, how?
Pre-AI, it's hard to imagine that opening moves had changed much. Following the birth of computer engines, has AI changed opening theory, and if so, how?