GNU Chess is a

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

chess engine In computer chess, a chess engine is a computer program that analyzes chess or List of chess variants, chess variant positions, and generates a move or list of moves that it regards as strongest. A chess software engine, engine is usually a Front ...

and

command-line interface A command-line interface (CLI) is a means of interacting with software via command (computing), commands each formatted as a line of text. Command-line interfaces emerged in the mid-1960s, on computer terminals, as an interactive and more user ...

chessboard A chessboard is a game board used to play chess. It consists of 64 squares, 8 rows by 8 columns, on which the chess pieces are placed. It is square in shape and uses two colours of squares, one light and one dark, in a chequered pattern. During p ...

. The goal of GNU Chess is to serve as a basis for research, and as such it has been used in numerous contexts. GNU Chess is free software, licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 or any later version, and is maintained by collaborating developers. As one of the earliest

computer chess Computer chess includes both hardware (dedicated computers) and software capable of playing chess. Computer chess provides opportunities for players to practice even in the absence of human opponents, and also provides opportunities for analysi ...

programs with full

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

available, it is one of the oldest for

Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

-based systems and has since been ported to many other platforms.

Features

GNU Chess 6.2.5 is rated at 2661 Elo points on CCRL's 40-moves-in-2-minutes list. For comparison, the strongest human player,

Magnus Carlsen Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster. Carlsen is a five-time World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion, five-time World Rapid Chess Championship, World Rapid Chess Champio ...

, has achieved an Elo rating of 2882. On the same list, Fritz 8 was rated at 2665 Elo, and that program in the 2004 Man vs Machine World Team Championship beat grandmasters Sergey Karjakin,

Veselin Topalov Veselin Aleksandrov Topalov (pronounced ; ; born 15 March 1975) is a Bulgarian Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster and former FIDE World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion. Topalov became FIDE World Chess Champion by winning the FIDE ...

and reached a draw with Ruslan Ponomariov. It is often used in conjunction with a GUI program such as

XBoard XBoard is a graphical user interface chessboard for chess engines under the X Window System. It is developed and maintained as free software by the GNU project. WinBoard is a port of XBoard to run natively on Microsoft Windows. Overview Original ...

or GNOME Chess, where it is included as the default engine. Initial versions of XBoard's Chess Engine Communication Protocol were based on GNU Chess's

. Version 6 also supports the

Universal Chess Interface The Universal Chess Interface (UCI) is an open communication protocol that enables chess engines to communicate with user interfaces. History In November 2000, the UCI protocol was released. Designed by Rudolf Huber and Stefan Meyer-Kahlen, the ...

(UCI). Since version 6.1 GNU chess supports a graphical mode for terminal emulators. Gnuchess-terminal

History

The first version of GNU Chess was written by Stuart Cracraft. Having started in 1984 in collaboration with

Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman ( ; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...

prior to his founding of the

GNU Project The GNU Project ( ) is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and Computer hardware, computing dev ...

, GNU Chess became one of the first parts of GNU. GNU Chess has been enhanced and expanded since. Versions from 2 to 4 were written by John Stanback. Version 5 of GNU Chess was based on the Cobalt chess engine written by Chua Kong-Sian. In 2011, GNU Chess transitioned to version 6, which is based on Fabien Letouzey's Fruit 2.1 chess engine. According to CEGT version 5.60 of this code base is stronger than Fruit 2.3, the latest version of that chess engine.

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gnu Chess 1984 software Chess engines DOS games Free chess software Free educational software

Chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

GP2X games Linux games Unix games Video games developed in the United States Windows games

Features

History

See also

Notes

References

External links