Engine Updates

Critter 0.42 (UCI)
Win32 with Object Pascal source code (Delphi)
- New eval terms: knight and bishop outposts
- Candidate passed pawns, distant passer, pawn races, pawn storms
- Passed pawns: bonus/penalty for friendly/enemy king proximity
- Toned down king safety term
- Added some endgame evaluators (KPK, KBNK, KRKP, ...)
- Internal KPK bitbase
- Bugfixed and enabled razoring
- En passant capture now clears 50 move rule counter
- fixed SEE for en passant capture
- fixed discovered checks in qsearch
http://sourceforge.net/projects/critterchess/

Protector 1.2.8 (UCI)
silent update: all exe files (Win32/64, Linux32/64) updated, no version change
http://sourceforge.net/projects/protector/ (project site)
latest builds are here (updated often):
http://protector.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/protector/bin/ (bin files)

Stockfish 1.5.1 (UCI)
C++ source code & Jim Ablett build
- Chess960 is now fully functional
- Fix of a rare crash that could occur at long time controls, but also at shorter ones if you are very unlucky
- Less prone to lose on time especially at very fast games
http://www.mediafire.com/?5jx12zdyygw (source)
http://www.mediafire.com/?mhztmwj5tmq (Win32/64 from Jim Ablett)

Jim Ablett Win builds
- Stockfish 1.5.1 JA (UCI) for Win32/64
http://homepages.tesco.net/henry.ablett/jims.html

Down chess websites
Averno geocities site down permanently, no more homepage
DanChess geocities site down permanently, no more homepage
BlackBishop site down today
Crafty Chess Interface down again for exceeding bandwidth limits
Frenzee site has no content today
Zebra Chess down today
Alex site back up
TSCP site back up

NOTE: GEOCITIES is closing on October 26, 2009. There are a lot of free engines hosted there!

Wiki Changes

FACE Tournament
- several updated pages, including the downloads page
http://computer-chess.org/doku.php?id=computer_chess:tournaments:face

Private Engine List
- added ChessMind
http://computer-chess.org/doku.php?id=computer_chess:wiki:lists:private_engine_list

Chess News

ChessX GUI & PGN database program
3 code commits to the source repository today (rev# = 983)
no build for this version
http://sourceforge.net/projects/chessx/

Patrick Buchmann Thematic books
pre-announcement of new books on Oct 12, 2009
- D00 GBD.abk
- D00 GBD.ctg
http://americanfoot.free.fr/echecs/ctg-thematique.htm

Bonus Notifications (recent releases of free stuff)

Advanced SystemCare 3.3.4
free; (not new); one of the best anti-spyware & registry optimization programs
http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html (homepage)
http://download.cnet.com/Advanced-SystemCare-Free/3000-2086_4-10407614.html (CNet)

Firebird 1.5.6
open source SQL database
back-port of enhancements and bugfixes from 2.1.3 for those running an older version of the database
http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php

Meaning of Colors

Red = New
Green = Updated
Gray = Info Only

Engine List: http://computer-chess.org/doku.php?id=computer_chess:wiki:lists:chess_engine_list
Chess News: http://computer-chess.org/doku.php?id=computer_chess:wiki:lists:chess_news_list