Chess software 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 ...

comes in different forms. A chess playing program provides a graphical chessboard on which one can play a chess game against a computer. Such programs are available for

personal computers A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...

, video game consoles,

smartphones A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as mult ...

tablet computers A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being computers ...

or mainframes/

supercomputers A supercomputer is a type of computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instru ...

. A

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 ...

generates moves, but is accessed via a

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 ...

with no graphics. A dedicated chess computer has been purpose built solely to play chess. A

graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...

(GUI) allows one to import and load an engine, and play against it. A chess database allows one to import, edit, and analyze a large archive of past games.

Chess-playing programs for personal computers

Chess engines

This list contains only chess engines for which Wikipedia articles exist yet and therefore is very incomplete. It does not reflect or imply current or historic play strength as this characteristic in itself usually does not warrant an entry on Wikipedia.

Chess graphical user interfaces

Chess-playing programs for video game consoles

Chess apps for phones/tablets

Chess computers

The following are special-purpose hardware/software combinations that are inextricably connected:

Programs for reading and editing chess databases

* Chess Assistant * Chess Informant Expert *

ChessBase ChessBase is a German company that develops and sells chess software, maintains a chess news site, and operates an internet chess server for online chess. Founded in 1986, it maintains and sells large-scale databases containing the moves of recor ...

* Shane's Chess Information Database
pgnutil

Chess-playing programs for mainframes/supercomputers

AlphaZero AlphaZero is a computer program developed by artificial intelligence research company DeepMind to master the games of chess, shogi and Go (game), go. This algorithm uses an approach similar to AlphaGo Zero. On December 5, 2017, the DeepMind ...

Chess (Northwestern University) Chess was a pioneering chess engine, chess program from the 1970s, written by Larry Atkin, David Slate and Keith Gorlen at Northwestern University. Chess ran on Control Data Corporation's line of supercomputers. Work on the program began in 1968 wh ...

* CilkChess * Kaissa * Kotok-McCarthy * Mac Hack

Tiniest chess programs

1K ZX Chess ''1K ZX Chess'' is a 1982 chess program for the unexpanded Sinclair ZX81. Description ''1K ZX Chesss code takes up only 672 bytes in memory, but implements chess rules except for castling, promotion (chess), promotion, and en passant, including ...

* Microchess * Toledo Nanochess

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chess software Lists of video games by genre

Software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

Lists of software * *