Software for playing chess against
Fritz 5.32
See
Fritz
5.32.
Chess Assistant 7 Light
See
CA7 Light.
Mayura Chess Board 2.1
A Universal Chess Interface without the analysis display, this is one
of the most
attractive and easiest to use programs for playing against. I
particularly like the beautifully designed piece set (and interface in
general) and the soothing board sounds!
Version 2.1 is a major upgrade, with the introduction of some UCI
and
PGN support, customisable time limits, a GUI opening book, and a larger
board. It's not possible to change the UCI options for an engine,
apart from the "limit ELO strength", but this shouldn't matter most of
the time. When
playing a game against an engine, I recommend using a low fixed depth
time limit (you can experiment), as most engines are dishearteningly
strong even with only 1 second a move. And don't try to play
as
fast as the engine! The 30Mb download
(perhaps unnecessarily) includes the Net 2 framework.
http://www.mayura.com/chess/
Arena 1.99
This small and elegant Universal Chess
Interface (
screenshot)
is
ideal for firing up your latest UCI engine. Perfect for
engine
tournaments, it's also good for a quick game! It is built
around
UCI
(/winboard) engines, and so gives quick and easy access to
engine
management in an attractive and customisable interface.
Features
I particularly like are the
ability to define keyboard shortcuts, the colour schemes,
analysis
arrows, show attacked pieces and game overview.
There are
other
downloads on the site, such as an opening book and Arena 1.1, the last
non-beta version, which has some internet server support but doesn't
look so good.
http://www.playwitharena.com
Shredder Classic
This Universal Chess Interface with the shredder classic
engine is available as a 30 day demo; however, there's nothing to stop
you
uninstalling and reinstalling it after 30 days (this may not work after
version 2.0 - but older versions can be downloaded from the
Internet Archive)!
It has a
clean, easily customisable,
interface, with several piece sets, board
designs, and layouts. It's well designed and straightforward
to use. There are a couple of unique and useful
tablebase functions -
the endgame oracle and wildcard analysis, for which you can
also use
the online Nalimov
tablesbases. It comes with the
Shredder Classic Engine
(a
weaker version of Shredder 11), which has an adjustable ELO playing
strength, and can also be used in other GUIs (such as Mayura). This is
useful as it plays at a lower strength without playing moves
instantaneously (very disconcerting!). I particularly like using
Shredder Classic for engine matches. Recommended!
http://www.shredderchess.com/download.html
José 1.4.4
For an added dimension to your games, this gorgeous-looking java-based
Universal
Chess Interface has an excellent 3d board (
screenshot),
as well as many
ways to adjust the appearance to your liking. With its own
database format and pgn support, you can also replay and analyse other
people's games. Don't miss the bonus textures, opening books
and
large databases on the download page. There does appear to be
the
odd glitch in the
program, and it can occasionally freeze or give an error message (but
that may just be me);
nevertheless, a great download!
http://jose-chess.sourceforge.net/
Rebel (for
DOS)
This is a great, fully functioned chess program with many unique
features I'd like to see in the current commercial programs.
The
Rebel engine is renowned for it's human-like playing style, and is my
favourite for playing against. The downside is that this
program
doesn't run in windows XP. If you have windows XP, it's
possible to run
the versions before Rebel12 in
DOSBox.
A better approach if you don't mind getting your hands dirty
is to use the free
VirtualPC 2007, with
FreeDOS
and
ISO Recorder, when it will run
close to full speed. Instructions
here.
The latest version of Rebel is now available as
the free UCI engine,
Pro Deo.
Highly recommended if you like DOS software!
http://web.archive.org/...http://members.home.nl/matador/chess810.htm
http://www.top-5000.nl/cp.htm
Delfi GUI
With an attractive "2.5d" board, the demo
version of this program attempts to simulate a 1000 ELO player (but is
often much stronger), making
it ideal for beginners or those of us who want to beat the computer
once in a while (although this is not guaranteed!). A nice
feature is that it actually takes time to think between moves.
Delfi is also available as a free UCI engine.
http://www.msbsoftware.it/delfi/delfigui.htm
Fritz 2.51 / Chess Genius 3
If you find the latest version of Fritz a bit hard to beat, why not try
the 1993 version,
Fritz 2.51? Or how about the Kasparov beating Chess Genius from 1994
(which I prefer to the latest windows version!)? Despite being old DOS
programs, they both run very
smoothly in windows XP!
http://www.gambitchess.com/progr.htm
EG Chess
This unique program is fun to play against late at
night, while you finish off your whisky! With its swivelling 3d pieces
and atmospheric music and sounds, it's like playing chess
with
something supernatural! The help file has a good (if slightly
inaccurate) description of the
rules of chess, how the pieces move, and chess notation, which
make it a good starting place for the beginner.
http://www.earthgaming.com/chess/chess.html
Smirf FullChess GUI
As well as traditional 8x8 chess, you can also play 8x8 and 10x8
variants in this chess GUI. Fortunately, when you come to the fairy
pieces (and perhaps also for beginners of standard chess), when you
select a piece, all the legal moves are clearly displayed. I
quite like the scrunchy feel to this interface!
http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachsmirf_e.html
Nagaskaki 5
One of the few programs not designed solely to
humiliate you (and any other passing grandmaster) over the board!
The program has a number of personalities that play in the
range
from hopeless beginner (who thinks he's playing giveaway chess!)
to strong club player (or so) strength. The
interface looks
a bit rudimentary, but functions well enough.
http://www.mayothi.com/nagaskaki.html
Der Bringer 1.9
An older program with adjustable playing stength and a neat
interface.
http://chess.kearman.com/bringer/bringer-index.html
Chess Genius Classic 7.1 Demo
Although this is fairly ugly program, reminiscent of windows 95, it
does have some redeeming features, such as being a very small download!
After 20 moves, it reverts to 1 second per move - although
this
is quite stong enough! Worth a look.
http://www.chessgenius.com/pc/index.html
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