Questions tagged [stockfish]

Stockfish is a strong open-source chess engine.

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14 votes
5 answers
4k views

Is there a way to use Stockfish to see tactics that aren't necessarily great?

Basically - I want to utilize an engine to see tactics through the whole game, regardless of whether they're a good move or not. Sometimes, Stockfish may say a position is absolutely winning, but the ...
5 votes
6 answers
1k views

Reasonable engines to test against (Not StockFish)

I've built a chess engine in Python which I've been testing against StockFish through the use of the Python-Chess package. Testing against StockFish seems/is problematic, and as a result I'm ...
3 votes
3 answers
2k views

Is there a way to ask stockfish from the command line if a position is "quiet"?

Is there a way to ask stockfish from the command line if a position is "quiet"? I am running a script like stockfish_fen.sh to return the analysis, but I would like to also know if stockfish considers ...
5 votes
1 answer
1k views

How to understand Stockfish's source code?

I want to code a Chinese chess engine, and I want to modify the Stockfish source code to do so, but the Stockfish source code is too hard to understand. There is no document that explains everything. ...
3 votes
2 answers
1k views

How should I configure Stockfish if I want it to play as a 2800 ELO player without the UCI_LimitStrength value?

Stockfish has so many parameters that I'm not sure which one I should change so that it has a strength equivalent to that of a human who has 2800 ELO, well that's one of my wishes, the other is to be ...
5 votes
1 answer
338 views

When Lichess analyzes a game, how deep does it analysis?

In reference to the request computer analysis feature, how how deep is Stockfish analyzing, such as looking 12 moves ahead?
2 votes
1 answer
104 views

Macintosh: Seeking client with better listing format than Stockfish

I currently use the Stockfish client on my Macintosh, but don't like the way it displays the moves (left to right, no line breaks between moves, annotation in-line, branches hard to follow). Are there ...
3 votes
1 answer
106 views

How to run lichess stockfish analysis locally?

I am working on a research project where we need to run stockfish on hundreds of thousands of pgns we have collected. We need to extract all information generated from stockfish like centipawns, ...
2 votes
1 answer
196 views

Is there a way to get blunders, mistakes and inaccuracies using Stockfish?

Stockfish provides the best moves/lines but is there a command or technique to get inaccuracies, mistakes and blunders? How is this done by lichess or chess.com? They also have the ability to show an ...
0 votes
2 answers
112 views

Chess game/gui in C++/SDL. Integrating Stockfish. Mostly all is working, but is it possible to find all legal moves for a specified square/piece?

I've never worked with Stockfish or anything command line based like this before, so it took me a lot of getting used to in send/receiving the messages etc. I do now have a C++ game project set up and ...
1 vote
1 answer
809 views

Would Quadruple forking be considered a brilliant move according to Stockfish?

Is a quadruple fork (the image above) considered a brilliant move according to Stockfish? I was just curious to know if Stockfish considers this a brilliant move, but at the same time, I'm not sure ...
2 votes
2 answers
97 views

What does Depth mean in Stockfish Game Analysis?

When I'm observing a game, the evaluation bar works and above the moves list, there is a numerical value for depth. But what is Stockfish depth and what does it measure or tell?
0 votes
1 answer
157 views

What is the Depth reached by chess-AI agents on a regular computer?

I'm looking for some reference for the number of lookahead steps typically used by chess agents (Stockfish / Leela Chess Zero / others?) From a quick search I found that: the answer depends on: ...
1 vote
1 answer
64 views

Extract evaluation data from Stockfish in Cpp

I am working on a chess player-rating system based on engine evaluations. As part of this I would like to extract evaluation data from Stockfish for the top 10 moves in a given set of positions. ...
0 votes
3 answers
1k views

How to modify stockfish "skill" with python chess

I'm using this library and I couldn't find how to modify that value (skill). In any case, what I want is to be able to vary the level of difficulty of stockfish using python chess.
7 votes
2 answers
708 views

Does normal Stockfish handle Chess960?

Is vanilla Stockfish perfectly capable of understanding Chess960 games (including the way castling works), or do you need to use something like Fairy-Stockfish to get the best results? It seems like ...
4 votes
1 answer
173 views

Does Stockfish 15.1 view the stage of the game continuously or discretely, if at all?

If I understand correctly, Stockfish (15.1 at the time of asking this) values material differently according to the stage of the game, "stages" being analogous to what we call opening, ...
1 vote
2 answers
73 views

How to arrange engine games

I have heard in various places that we can make engines play against each other from a certain given position. I want to know how exactly to do that. Is there a website where I can put a position and ...
0 votes
2 answers
249 views

Why does stockfish give "-28.8" as the evaluation number for this position?

[FEN "5K2/8/5k2/5b2/6b1/5b1b/4b1b1/7b w - - 0 1"] This game is an immediate draw by insufficient material (Doesn't Stockfish know this?). I am wondering what the reason behind the score &...
2 votes
1 answer
48 views

What determines length of stockfish 'pv'?

Normally the length (sequence of moves) of what stockfish info prints out as 'pv' matches the search depth, but sometimes it doesn't. When determines its length?
10 votes
5 answers
3k views

Why doesn't Stockfish announce when it solved a position as a book draw similar to how it announces a forced mate?

I notice that when Stockfish has solved a position to mate it announces that checkmate is unavoidable in some number of moves so it's impossible to mistaken a position Stockfish has solved as a win ...
17 votes
5 answers
5k views

Is Houdini 6 a Stockfish clone?

I've been hearing this claim being bandied about quite a lot and I'm wondering if there's any substance to it. Apparently the details are in a certain thread on Talkchess, but it's not viewable to non-...
3 votes
2 answers
197 views

Why does stockfish make these strange recommendations?

The FEN is: r2qk1r1/ppp2p1p/2n1bn1Q/4p1B1/8/2P4P/PP1NpKP1/R5NR b kq - 0 1 Clearly black is winning because the white bishop can be captured (with a discovery available if white recaptures). However, ...
8 votes
5 answers
7k views

What is the optimal way to use Stockfish programmatically?

I have Stockfish compiled on my machine. Instead of just running the Stockfish program in the terminal, is it possible to interact with it in a separate program? For example, some basic things I ...
-1 votes
1 answer
120 views

Why does Stockfish evaluates the trade of a B vs N that bad, while the trade has the King in the open and doubles pawns?

In this position (White to play) (Picture credits to the chess compass extension that analyzes a chess.com game after it ended) The current Stockfish evaluation (before White plays) is ~0.0. But SF ...
2 votes
0 answers
88 views

Are these depth-41 Stockfish evals the result of a horizon effect?

I was using lichess's analysis board for Stockfish's analysis of this line in the French: [Title "French Defence, Steinitz Variation"] [StartFlipped "0"] [fen ""] 1. e4 ...
4 votes
1 answer
128 views

Are endgame tablebases included with Stockfish?

I just downloaded Stockfish as a .exe file for use with SCID vs PC. Are tablebases included with the executable? If not, how can I make Stockfish use them while analysing a game with SCID vs PC? I ...
6 votes
2 answers
578 views

How to program Ruthlessly Aggressive Chess AI?

For the past few months, I have been experimenting with Stockfish with the goal of making the AI more fun to play against. Stockfish is obviously a very powerful Chess AI but it plays very ...
0 votes
1 answer
136 views

Game analysis app for Mac?

I am using a Mac and trying to find an app that can analyse the whole game and tell me where the mistakes/inaccuracies/blunders are, instead of just telling me what I should do for the next move. The &...
8 votes
3 answers
4k views

Why does Stockfish suggest this move (25. Qxa6?)

In this position, why does Stockfish suggest the move 1. Qxa6? Also, after 25. ...bxa6, Stockfish also suggests 26. Rd7+, which is followed by 26. ...Bxd7 and 27. Rxd7+. White would just have traded a ...
0 votes
2 answers
188 views

I downloaded stockfish 15 ,the POPCNT version. It downloaded, but I don't know how to open it to play chess. Can you help me?

I downloaded stockfish 15 ,the POPCNT version. It downloaded, but I don't know how to open it to play chess. Can you help me?
17 votes
3 answers
8k 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 ...
6 votes
3 answers
941 views

Solvable studies that computers fail to crack

Are there chess studies that require an outside of the box thinking that goes beyond the concrete calculation capabilities of today's engines (e.g. Stockfish)? I have sometimes seen certain endgames ...
2 votes
1 answer
203 views

How can I query the current value of an UCI option?

I've got a (simple) question regarding the UCI options and their current values: I start my engine (e. g. Stockfish). The console opens and I enter "uci" and press [Enter]. As a result, I ...
5 votes
0 answers
168 views

Why does Stockfish change evaluations and best moves depending on the number of displayed variations?

No matter whether I test it online on lichess or locally: Stockfish shows different variations and evaluations depending on the number of variations displayed. Where does this behaviour come from, and ...
4 votes
1 answer
117 views

How do I get the solutions of the puzzle using stockfish?

I have a list of PGN files that are games between top grandmasters where one player resigned at the end of the game. I am looking to find solutions to those position using stockfish/or another chess ...
1 vote
2 answers
5k views

What is Stockfish 15's FIDE calibrated Elo rating?

Elo rating only makes sense based on the population of players. So I wonder, has Stockfish's Elo been calculated in a pool including humans or human-calibrated engines? Related: How accurate are chess ...
3 votes
3 answers
643 views

Does the Stockfish engine use past matches, or does it not need such a "database"?

I have a simple question. Does the Stockfish engine use, amongst the steps of its complicated algorithm, a library/database of past matches? For such an algorithm to work, it would to need store many ...
8 votes
2 answers
2k views

Why does Stockfish recommend this queen sacrifice in this puzzle?

[Variant "From Position"] [FEN "r1b1r1k1/pp3ppp/2p5/2Ppn1q1/1P1Q2B1/4P1N1/P4PPP/R4RK1 w - - 9 18"] [Title ""] 1. Bxc8 Raxc8 2. f4 https://lichess.org/training/fRzq3 The ...
5 votes
4 answers
1k views

Book recommendation for chess engine building

This might be too broad a question, but can anyone recommend specific books that deal with chess engines, including hard-coded ones such as Stockfish, Komodo, and other ones also based on neural ...
7 votes
3 answers
29k views

Is there a list of approximate ELO ratings for each Stockfish level?

I want to create something that will select an appropriate Stockfish difficulty setting automatically given the player's rating. The straight Stockfish v11 that I've downloaded has 20 difficulty ...
8 votes
1 answer
716 views

Why do Engines show a fraction for the "Depth" and "Current Node" values?

Forgive me if this has been asked elsewhere, but I've both Googled and searched here at CSE and cannot find an answer. When I'm using an Engine for analysis (in this case, Stockfish 15), I've noticed ...
2 votes
2 answers
951 views

Can't properly use python stockfish package in Mac

I'm trying to get stockfish for python working but I am running into issues. This is my code so far. from stockfish import Stockfish stockfish = Stockfish('/Users/Me/opt/anaconda3/lib/python3.9/site-...
1 vote
1 answer
633 views

StockFish under WIndows 8 doesn't work

I'm trying to run StockFish under WIndows 8.1, but I'm just getting the prompt as copied below. Also, Winboard Load First/Second Engine doesn't work: nothing is happening. How can I run StockFish ?
8 votes
4 answers
3k views

Piping Stockfish input

I'm trying to write a Linux command line UCI interface for Stockfish. My program writes a bunch of commands to a text file and then tries to pipe them to Stockfish via the command line. My problem is, ...
6 votes
3 answers
1k views

Why does Stockfish prefer White here?

My analysis of the position: Materially, black is a pawn up. White's rooks and bishop are active. White has potential counterplay on Black's Kingside but I think it can be defended by the move Ng6. ...
2 votes
1 answer
877 views

Using stockfish from command line to calculate the total number of legal moves for each side after a given move

I am running stockfish 15 from the command line. I'm wondering if there is an easy way for Stockfish to report the total number of legal moves (safe, or otherwise) for each side after a given move. ...
4 votes
1 answer
438 views

How do you nerf Stockfish to analyze the same position multiple times?

I want to make some statistics by analyzing the same position, multiple times, at different levels of Stockfish. Precisely, I would like Stockfish to analyze a specific position at different "...
14 votes
4 answers
3k views

What does it mean when stockfish evaluates a move as an inaccuracy after previously thinking it was the best move?

I stumbled onto this position from a game posted on reddit. Stockfish gives the best move as cxd4, which it evaluates as +2. If you play cxd4, it then says cxd4 was an inaccuracy (only being +1), and ...
-2 votes
1 answer
216 views

Why does Stockfish miss mate in 5 with only two legal moves?

I'm interested to understand what is going on for Stockfish on Lichess here. There are only two legal moves for Black, and it gives the position mate-in-14 for white. When asked to play its ...

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