Chess software Chess is a board game for two players. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to distinguish it from related games such as (Chinese chess) and (Japanese chess). Chess is an abstract strategy game that involves no hidd ...

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 (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

video game consoles A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to a ...

smartphones A smartphone is a Mobile device, portable computer device that combines Mobile phone, mobile telephone and Mobile computing, computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities ...

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 comput ...

mainframes A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...

supercomputers A supercomputer is a 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 instructions ...

. A

chess engine In computer chess, a chess engine is a computer program that analyzes chess or chess variant positions, and generates a move or list of moves that it regards as strongest. A chess engine is usually a back end with a command-line interface with ...

generates moves, but is accessed via a command-line interface with no graphics. A dedicated chess computer has been purpose built solely to play chess. A

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows User (computing), users to Human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through graphical icon (comp ...

(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 * Shane's Chess Information Database

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. This algorithm uses an approach similar to AlphaGo Zero. On December 5, 2017, the DeepMind team r ...

* Chess (Northwestern University) * CilkChess *

Kaissa Kaissa (russian: Каисса) was a chess program developed in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. It was named so after Caissa, the goddess of chess. Kaissa became the first world computer chess champion in 1974 in Stockholm. History By 1967, a c ...

* 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, and en passant, including a computer opponent. ...

Microchess ''Microchess'', by Peter R. Jennings, was the first commercially successful chess program for microcomputers. Originally designed for the MOS Technology KIM-1 it was released on December 18, 1976. ''Microchess'', as small as it was in terms o ...

* Toledo Nanochess

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chess software Video game lists by genre

Software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

Lists of software * *