Engine Updates

Update: Chenard 2009.05.02
- Made WinChen.exe pondering algorithm work more like XChenard's: favor moving faster over thinking longer when it correctly predicts the opponent's move.
- Fixed a bug where Chenard would report a draw by repetition when the position had repeated only 2 times, not the required 3.
http://cosinekitty.com/chenard/

Info Only: Crimson
added build of old 0.2 version, still no source to newest 1.0 version
http://www.cyclonechess.com/crimson.html

Update: Critter Chess 0.37
- Opening book support
- New commands "makebook" and "mergebook" for book creation from pgn files
http://sourceforge.net/projects/critterchess/

New: Dika 0.4208 RC1
new engine by Sylvain Ladoux
separately downloadable plugin to implement your own search function (with French language tutorial)
http://dikachess.emenace.com/index.html (in French language)
http://72.14.205.132/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http://di... (translated to English)

Update: FireFly 2.5.6
http://fireflychess.dyndns.org/firefly/ (homepage is not always available)
http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/details1/FireFly.html (Leo download)

Update: Frittle 0.2
- Added Perft component to test move generation
- Rewritten major part of the source to optimize performance
--- Nodes per second of search increased 10-fold
--- Transposition Table can hold 4 times as many positions
- Using smaller book (only about 5MB)
- Basic time controls
--- Tournament mode
--- Fischer mode [UNSTABLE]
- Multi-threaded the program
--- Support for '?' (move now!) command
--- Pondering on opponent's time [UNSTABLE]
- Improved evaluation function slightly
--- Simple endgame detection and change only in positional value
--- Improved checkmate detection, resign if forced to mate in N
--- Static exchange evaluation
- New and original move ordering and move hashing technique
- Friendly command line interface
--- Useful commands such as 'moves' and 'history'
--- 'help' displays list of commands
http://sourceforge.net/projects/frittle/

Info Only: RedQueen
3 commits to the source code (commits= 63)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/redqueenchess

Update: Stockfish 1.3
based on Glaurung by Tord Romstad
doesn't seem to work with Glaurung books
http://www.mediafire.com/?nxsmb9xjlrd (source code only)
http://homepages.tesco.net/henry.ablett/jims.html (Jim Ablett build)

Info Only: Down engine websites
ColChess down for 3 days (webpage removed)
Natwarlal down for 14 days (webpage removed)
Yoda down for 6 days (download file removed)
Vicki down for 1 day: can't establish a connection to the server

Chess News

Update:Cutechess-cli 0.1.7
- Fixed an omission in the help text
- Tell engines to stop thinking when the game ends (if they are thinking)
- Put Xboard engines in force mode before sending them a move that ends the game. This is to make sure that the engine doesn't respond to a move when the game is over.
- New option (-wait) for setting a time delay between games. This is rarely needed because Cute Chess is pretty good at deciding when it's safe to start a new game.
http://koti.mbnet.fi/~ilaripih/bin/cutechess-cli-win32.zip (Windows 32-bit)
http://koti.mbnet.fi/~ilaripih/bin/cutechess-cli-osx.zip (Mac)
http://koti.mbnet.fi/~ilaripih/bin/cutechess-cli-linux64.tar.gz (Linux 64-bit)

Info Only: SCID
2 commits to the source code (commits = 425)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/scid