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News List

Interesting computer-chess announcements and discoveries. (ie: Chess tools, Chess GUIs, pgn collections, computer-chess opening books in various formats, old chess engines, protocol translators, etc.) This list includes commercial, shareware, and free software. The major chess software is shown in bold.

Some of the 'discoveries' are not recent but only recently discovered by us. Some of this information cannot be found anywhere else. (Latest free engine releases can be found at the Chess Engine List.)

Date News
2014/10/14 Kvetka 3.23.2 Chess GUI - Supports UCI only; intended for game viewing and analysis; several plug-ins available; available in a portable version
2014/10/10 ChestUCI 5.2 & ChestUCI-DB - mate-finder program by Franz Huber & database of mate positions
2014/10/10 Winboard 4.8.0b - HG Muller's full release for Windows; 4.8.0a(Win) XBoard (Linux) 4.8.0c(Mac) Winboard beta
2014/11/05 Chess for Android 4.5.1 (WB/UCI) - Aart Bik's free Chess GUI + chess engines for Android
2014/10/25 Scid vs. PC 4.13 Chess GUI (WB) - open source fork of Scid project enhanced for playing chess; Win32/64, Mac & .tgz source for Linux
2014/10/16 Winboard/XBoard Alpha News - latest alpha news and latest alpha releases, XBoard Alpha News; latest build for Mac; latest Winboard Beta
2014/10/04 ChessX 1.2.2 (WB/UCI) - PGN database program for Win32/64, Mac64 & Linux with WB/UCI engine support for analysis only (not for playing)
2014/10/04 Norm Pollock site - PGN, EPD, and TXT utilities; also Opening Book Databases
2014/09/19 PgnScanner 0.92 - PGN utility by Gabriel Guillory; scan and extract information from pgn files
2014/09/15 Lucas Chess 8.09a - play chess against the computer with increasing levels of difficulty and with a limited number of hints that are given by a chess tutor; download
2014/09/15 Ordo 0.9.7 - command line chess rating software (Elo-like) cross-platform, open source program by Miguel A Ballicora
2014/08/18 Popeye 4.69 - open source chess problem solving with support for variant play
2014/07/30 Sedat Opening Book - Perfect 2014 Opening Book by Sedat Canbaz
2014/07/14 Scid 4.6 - a PGN database program for creating opening books, also a Chess GUI; lots of features; Win32, Linux, Mac & Pocket PC
2014/06/02 ChessZone - Free monthly chess magazine of annotated GM games
2014/04/10 Crafty Chess Interface 9.0 (WB) - chess GUI for Crafty with nice wood board by Valters Baumanis (requres VB6 run-time library & includes latest Crafty engine); supports WB engines
2014/04/07 LiliaChess Chess GUI 4.9.4.0 (WB/UCI) - Chess GUI by Carlo Bellentani written in Java with source code available
2014/03/02 STS Testsuites - 15 epd testsuites by Swaminathan and Dann Corbit; Undermining; Open Files and Diagonals; Knight Outposts; Square Vacancy; Bishop vs Knight; Re-Capturing; Offer of Simplification; Advancement of f/g/h Pawns; Advancement of a/b/c Pawns; Simplification; Activity of the King; Center Control; Pawn Play in the Center; Queens and Rooks to the 7th; Avoid Pointless Exchange; there is also a STS Stat 3.2 utility and an Elo estimator 1.0
2014/03/27 Arasan Test Suite - from Jon Dart
2014/01/13 Protools 1.4 - Ed Schröder's command-line tool for improving engines
2014/01/05 Chess Hero 2.5 - Chess trainer; produces test positions from PGN files; compare your best move to your favorite WB/UCI chess engine's choice; default engine is TogaII
2014/01/01 Arena 3.5 Chess GUI (WB/UCI) - Nice-looking interface! comes with engines, GUI books, & GUI ebtb
2013/12/15 ChessGUI 0.245g Alternate download site - A nice chess GUI / tournament manager for WB or UCI engines by Matthias Gemuh; there is a separate download for a portable version
2013/12/03 Olivier Deville's PGN collection - also a Polyglot book based on the PGN games; updated monthly
2013/07/15 Chess Engines for Android - Aart Bik's download list of Android chess engine binaries
2013/07/12 Cutechess-cli 0.6.0 (WB/UCI) - by Ilari Pihlajisto; a cross-platform command line interface to run engine-engine games source alt site
2013/07/11 Jim Ablett Linux Chess Distros - iso images to make a bootable CD/DVD; 32/64-bit versions; booting from this disk will not affect your Windows or Linux installation
2013/07/08 Tarrasch GUI 2.02ar - open source UCI Chess GUI + chess engine by Bill Forster Code Repository
2013/07/05 6 statistical/probability tools (direct link) - by Jesús Muñoz
2013/06/17 Penguin 10.0 - Penguin is a PGN viewer / reader / editor and GUI with a limited functionality UCI interface
2013/04/01 Scidb Beta 2013-04-01, rev 701 - open source cross-platform chess database project
2013/03/14 Scid On The Go 1.42 for Andoid - database browser by Gerhard Kalab; open source fork of Scid project
2013/03/02 MillionBase 2.22 - huge pgn collection from Ed Shroeder
2013/02/07 Chessdiagrammer 8.2 - Chess Diagram creator
2012/12/02 Shredder for for PDAs - commercial engine for Android, and iPhone/iPad/iPod
2012/11/11 Match 1.3a - Ed Schröder program to monitor live engine-engine games showing win/loss scoring, LOS, & Elo at 10 second intervals, or pgn analysis post-match
2012/10/27 icsdroneng 0.28 - by Michel Van den Bergh; acts as a command line interface between ICS/FICS and a WB-compatible chess engine; UCI engines are supported by using Polyglot adapter
2012/10/14 Talkchess 2012 Hard PGN Testset - direct link; very difficult testsuite compiled and maintained by Vincent Lejeune
2012/10/02 Polyglot 1.4.70b - Michel Van den Bergh's Linux and Windows builds based on Fonzy Bluemers modification of Fabien Letouzey's Polyglot with original work and bugfixes
2012/08/26 Lantern Chess GUI 4.94 - Chess GUI by Mike Adams supporting WB & UCI for ICC online play/chat for Linux, Windows and Mac
2012/07/17 P2P 0.3 - HG Muller's WB adapter; runs under a GUI as a WB engine, used for connecting to remote GUIs
2012/06/06 LittleBlitzer 2.74 (UCI) - Windows tournament manager program for UCI chess engines by Nathan Thom; intended for very fast time control games
2012/06/04 AlienBoard 1.3 - Android GUI for playing chess, variants, checkers, Go, Reversi, and more
2012/05/30 Patrick Buchmann Thematic books - Thematic opening books
2012/04/20 UCI2WB 1.9 - allows UCI engines to play in a WB environment (source)
2012/02/26 ChessPad 2.0.3 GUI - Create and manage PGN databases; game viewer/editor; WB/UCI engine analysis; annotate games; create position diagrams; play chess engines
2012/01/21 Polyglot 1.4w29 - Fonzy Bluemers modification of Polyglot by Fabien Letouzey. Polyglot is a UCI to WB adapter. THsi version does not require cygwin.dll, extends the features a bit, and prevents occasional time losses too; it includes Michel Van den Bergh's work to use Polyglot opening books plus some code from Eric Mullins for pv display, white point-of-view scoring, and adjustment of process priority
2011/11/05 CLOP 0.0.9 - by Rémi Coulom; used to tune chess engine parameters
2011/10/09 Chess Diagram Generator - creates a graphic board display (png, gif) from a fen position
2011/10/04 Power Chess PGN Databases - long time control, multiprocessor engine/engine games in PGN format
2011/09/13 Jin Chess GUI 2.14.1 - GUI for chess servers; supports ICS and FICS on Windows, Mac, and Linux
2011/08/31 Chess Engine GUI 0.2 Build 1070 (UCI) - Chess GUI; “works with both iCE and mACE engines”
2011/08/19 BagaturPgnTool - Java source PGN reader & opening book creator for Java programmers
2011/07/25 ChessMaude 1.34 Chess GUI (WB/UCI) - play against any Winboard or UCI compatible engine or play against included 1600-1700 Elo engine named Tyrell)
2011/06/05 Charlotte 1.0 - Dr. Wael Deeb Opening Book for ChessGUI
2011/05/12 FSTM 1.0.8 Beta - Fermin Serrano's Tournament Manager for Winboard
2011/05/11 Bitboards' Little Helper - by Julien Marcel, written in C++ & used for debugging a chess engine
2011/05/11 Thief 1.25 - open source chess GUI for FICS chess servers; supports variants
2011/04/15 UFTE 1.0 (WB/UCI) - UFTE - Ultra Fast Tournament Environment by Onno Garms; command line interface for playing high-speed games
2011/03/31 ChessBin GUI - simple WB chess GUI; requires .NET Framework 2.0 or higher
2011/03/29 JavaScript Chess Library - JavaScript source code by Jeff Hlywa
2011/03/11 Gaviota Endgame Tablebases Probing Code 0.4 - Miguel Ballicora's open source probing code for engine programmers (in C language)
2011/03/08 ChessTiger for iPhone/iPad/iPod - commercial; chess GUI and engine
2011/02/14 EPD Endgame Suite - by Martin Wyngaarden direct link
2011/02/14 FRCPerft - fast Fischer Random Chess perft; C++ source; Win32/64, Linux32/64 & Mac32/64
2011/02/05 ChessPartner 6.0.4 - Commercial chess GUI (WB/UCI); opening book database, online play, analysis, etc.
2011/01/03 Harry Schnapp books - Opening Books for Arena, ChessBase, Aquarium & Shredder Classic; the 'Suite' downloads contain pgn files
2010/12/17 MaterUCI 3.2 - mate-solver from Franz Huber; “modified and improved version of Valentin Albillo's matesolver 'Mater'”
2010/11/20 Chess Coach - commercial; includes Naum mp engine; free evaluation version has limited functionality
2010/11/15 Stockfish 2.2 for iPad/iPhone - iPad/iPhone chess program, source code available; old Glaurung link
2010/09/20 Jon Dart 4500 opening positions - 4500 opening positions in pgn format
2010/09/09 ChessMind 0.9.6.2 - play chess online for free
2010/09/01 Mayura Chess Board 2.3 (UCI) - UCI chess GUI with Toga & Easy Peasey engines; requires .NET version 2.0 or better
2010/08/24 Pavel Háse testsets - Starting position testsets by Pavel Háse
2010/07/02 Ajax Chess 3.0 - online Javascript chess opponent by Gary Linscott (GarboChess); it only plays as Black
2010/07/02 PocketGrandmaster 4.3 - commercial chess program (shareware); for Windows Mobile
2010/06/24 Maro's EPD2diag JavaScript - create html code from epd/fen diagram or by setting up a position
2010/06/14 Toledo Javascript Chess - another on-line Javascript chess opponent
2010/04/02 Chess Game Report - by Jack Welbourne; Win64 only; calculates Elo performance for a single pgn game; uses Stockfish engine; direct link ReadMe.txt
2010/04/01 Salvo's Opening Suite - PGN file by Salvo Spitaleri of 50 opening positions deemed to be “equal”
2010/03/16 Awit 09MH1.5 - old chess engine with AlgolW source by Tony Marsland (*not* WB, *not* UCI!); implements selective search (forward pruning); Jim Ablett build
2010/02/25 David Dahlem Logos - Chess engine logos
2010/01/28 Thematic books - abk & ctg books by Patrick Buchmann
2010/01/22 iNemisis 5.0 - Chess GUI for human FICS online play
2010/01/07 Gaviota Endgame Tablebases - for 3-4-5 man in bzip2 format; hosted by Joshua Shriver
2009/12/21 iGranMaster 1.0 - commercial engine for iPod/iPhone/iTouch
2009/12/10 Huo Chess - open source native chess engine for didactic purposes, also available in C#, Visual Basic, or XNA GUI
2009/12/05 PGN Viewer for iPhone - Free app by Stefano Malloggi (Chaturanga)
2009/11/25 OliThink - play against this engine online
2009/10/04 Endgame Testsuite - 180 endgame test positions in PGN & cbv(Chessbase) format.
2009/09/17 Game Analyser 1.6 - by Thomas McBurney. Analyzes annotated pgn games and Winboard debug files.
2009/08/20 BremboCE - Humans can play on-line against this Java chess engine by Gianluca Cisana
2009/07/24 ChesUCI 5.1 - Probably the world´s best and fastest matesolver by Franz Huber
2009/06/14 Mobile ThinkerBoard 0.2.0028 - play chess on a PocketPC
2009/06/14 Mainsworthy GUI - Chess GUI for Mainsworthy engine(s) by Mark Ainsworth. Alternate download
2009/06/10 BayesElo - Elo-rating program by Rémi Coulom
2009/05/15 Bit functions for Delphi/Pascal - source code for chess engines by Andreas Herrmann
2009/05/13 ToledoChess 2 - by Óscar Toledo Gutiérrez, a tiny engine with GUI using X11 library
2009/05/04 Endgame Testsuite - by Ludovic Didierlaurent; in PGN and CBV formats
2009/04/03 Scorpio bitbases egbbdll 3.3 - by Daniel Shawul; also known as egbbs
2009/03/10 XECTool - free utility by Andres Valverde to play at the ICCF web server and others by Andres Valverde
2009/03/10 ECTool 7.01 - free utility by Andres Valverde to help with the management of playing correspondence or email chess
2009/03/09 HaQiKiD 0.1 - Winboard engine from HG Muller that only plays variant xiangqi
2009/03/09 Tiny Seal 0.5 - a very small implementation of the TimeSeal utility for FICS (Free Internet Chess Server)
2009/03/05 OmniPerft - Perft utility, a chess engine debugging tool for 8×8 and 10×8 variants
2009/03/03 Aquarium GUI - commercial product
2009/02/20 Chess Openings Wizard - Commercial opening book database & teacher formerly known as Bookup; free limited-time download
2009/01/04 REGO - A java based live chess game viewer by Andrew Fan that uses the Tom's Live Chess Server/Viewer (TLCS/TLCV) protocol.
2009/01/04 WBRGO - Winboard Remote Games Observer by Andrew Fan that uses the Tom's Live Chess Server/Viewer (TLCS/TLCV) protocol.
2008/12/22 UltraFast-WB-0.4 - Marc Lacrosse package to play super-fast time control games in Winboard.
2008/12/06 Mobi for mobile phones/Palm - free download; FICS/ICC client for mobile phones/Palm
2008/12/06 ChesBd and Slics - free download; chess viewer and ICS client
2008/12/06 ChessClient for Palm - free download; FICS/ICC Chess client for Palm OS
2008/12/06 Chess4Net - free download; online chess server/client system; supports random chess (PP random); can be a plugin service with selected IM systems
2008/12/01 TLCS 1.72b - Tom's Live Chess Server by Thomas McBurney – for viewing live games
2008/12/01 Naum Chess Engine for Palm - free download
2008/12/01 Chessic - chess client for Mac; supports ICC.
2008/12/01 Fixation - chess client for Mac; supports ICC, FICS, USCL, and ChessNet(limited support for Chessnet).
2008/11/23 JChess - (also known as 'Little Chess Partner') for human play against a chess engine on-line.
2008/11/17 Chess programs under Linux - original article in German, translated via Google
2008/11/16 Omniperft 1.0 - perft utility for 8×8 and 10×8 variants by Ilari Pihlajisto (C source)
2008/11/15 RWBC download page - RWBC (Guenther Simon) opening books updated
2008/11/15 Polyglot - Polyglot was written by Fabien Letouzey. This is the bug-fixed Jaap Weidemann modification. source code
2008/11/15 WinMan 1.3e - by Alex Guerrero, new version; also Polyglot GUI
2008/11/14 Polyglot opening book - by Denis P Mendoza
2008/11/12 ChessCube - play chess on the Internet
2008/11/12 Reptor 2 - free chess opening repertoire trainer by Bill Forster
2008/11/12 PGN to text tool - cross-table creator by Norm Pollock
2008/11/11 PSWBTM - a Winboard tournament manager by Pradu Kannan
2008/11/11 Polyglot opening book specification - by Michel Vandenbergh
2008/11/11 PGN to html tool - cross-table creator by Fermin Serrano (Spanish language table)
2008/11/09 ChessGenius - new version for iPhone and iPod touch (not free)
2008/11/02 Relogeco chess clock - not so easy to install: requires python interpreter, PyQt, and Qt3
2008/10/22 OliPow 2.2.e - This is an old version of Oliver Brausch's OliThink
2008/10/18 Chess Tiger 2009 for Palm - by Christophe Théron
2008/10/18 Deep Sjeng 3 - Engine upgrade announced (UCI protocol)
2008/09/10 Cray Blitz source code (Fortran) - On Bob Hyatt's ftp site

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