Chess Engine

Chess Programs

The term chess engine refers to a chess playing program that implements a standard user interface protocol, allowing it to be loaded into a common chess user interface. (GUI). Most such programs can only be run within a O/S such as XBoard under Linux as well as Arena, WinBoard, Chessbase, and Rebel under Dos. These not only allow engines to play against human opponents but also another engines on a single computer, a local area network and over the internet. It uses a number of techniques to improve its performance, such as an opening book (generated by studying grand-master games) to help it start well and hash tables storing previously-analyzed positions to prevent wasting time re-analyzing already analyzed positions.

GNU Chess is a computer program for playing chess. GNU Chess is one of the oldest computer chess programs for Unix-based computers and has been ported to several other platforms. The GNU Chess project is one of the older parts of the GNU package of software, having started in 1984. GNU Chess is free software, licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, and is maintained by collaborating developers. It is often used in conjunction with a GUI program such as XBoard. Or on a Linux platform.

Battle Chess
Is one of the most advanced chess programs ever developed. It features vivid 3D animation and great sound effects. Play against the computer or another person, or simply let the computer play against itself. Quite a different way to play chess.

PRO DEO is the freeware version of the former commercial REBEL chess program series, which was succesfully sold during the 80's and 90's. It is now freely available under the name Pro Deo which in Dutch means for free. It has a rating of approximately 2700 ELO . As PRO DEO is the last in the series, it will now run under winXP. A somewhat stronger chess engine, is now available.
Rebel itself is available in Versions 8.0 – 11.0, all of which should be run under DOS.
Rebel Century 3.0 the freeware version of Rebel 10.0. Century runs extremely well and in a very stable fashion. The setup is designed very thoughtfully and considerately – you can elect to install only the basic opening books, EOC (encyclopedia of chess) and CAT (computer analysis tool) files and Rebel database to minimize hard drive space. If you have space to spare, then you can install the optional and huge opening book, EOC, CAT and database files. I do strongly recommend you copy the optional rebelcen.hlp (help) files from the Zip file to your Century 3 directory for fast access, and since the file is in windows help format, it is a complement to the default online help files.

Fritz 6.0
The latest version is one of the best chess programs in the world. The previous versions Fritz 5.32 and Fritz 5 were also extraordinary and indicated the full indepandance, because the earlier versions were connected with Chess Base. Fritz 6 is easy to operate, for playing as well as for analysis. The analysis can be saved and occasionally supplemented. It is estimated that its chess power is over 2700, and it is enough to mention that at the last-year-tournament it was ahead of Leko, Topalov, Svidler, Morozevich and Adams. It is necessary to load the book of opening which is ordered separately, mainly because it has continually being supplemented.

WinChess 2, is the new 3D version of WinChess. It can use the latest functionalities of modern video cards. The computer brain is faster and more powerful offering a greater and more challenging opposition.WinChess a shareware. You can test this fully functional demo version for 15 days. After this period, some features will become inactive (as saving, printing functions and setting of the searching process.) RealChess 3D is a freeware edition, in which the board can be rotated by the mouse. This is handy when you play black.