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Fairy-Max is a free and open source
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 wit ...
which can play orthodox chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...
as well as chess variant
A chess variant is a game related to, derived from, or inspired by chess. Such variants can differ from chess in many different ways.
"International" or "Western" chess itself is one of a family of games which have related origins and could be co ...
s. Among its features is the ability of users to define and use their own custom variant chess pieces for use in games.
Fairy-Max was derived from micro-Max (also developed by H.G. Muller), one of the smallest programs to play complete FIDE chess. Therefore, Fairy-Max versioning started with version number 4.8, the version of micro-Max used.
Description
The Fairy-Max module is a chess engine only, but is packaged with WinBoard/XBoard, which serves as the graphical user interface. Users can play against the Fairy-Max engine, or play the engine against other engines. It can also be set up to play two armies against each other, both using the Fairy-Max engine, for the purpose of analyzing chess moves, chess variants, or variant chess pieces.
Capabilities
Besides classical FIDEchess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...
, Fairy-Max is provided with a large selection of pre-defined games using fairy chess pieces, including shatranj (ancient Arabic chess), xiangqi
''Xiangqi'' (; ), also called Chinese chess or elephant chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is the most popular board game in China. ''Xiangqi'' is in the same family of games as '' shogi'', '' janggi'', Western chess, '' ...
(Chinese chess), shogi
, also known as Japanese chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is one of the most popular board games in Japan and is in the same family of games as Western chess, '' chaturanga, Xiangqi'', Indian chess, and ''janggi''. ''Shōgi ...
(Japanese chess), makruk (Thai chess), King of the Hill
''King of the Hill'' is an American animated sitcom created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It aired its original non-syndicated run from January 12, 1997, to September 13, 2009, and centers on the Hills, an Am ...
, Capablanca Chess, Courier chess, Berolina chess
Berolina chess is a chess variant using a popular fairy chess piece called the Berolina pawn (also known as ''Berlin pawn'', ''Anti-pawn'', or simply ''Berolina''). The Berolina pawn was invented by Edmund Nebermann in 1926''Funkschach'', August ...
, Seirawan chess
Capablanca chess (or Capablanca's chess) is a chess variant invented in the 1920s by World Chess Champion José Raúl Capablanca. It incorporates two new pieces and is played on a 10×8 board. Capablanca believed that chess would be played ou ...
and other chess variants. Users are also able to specify their own board sizes, and define custom chess pieces, so that user-defined chess variants can also be played. Chessboards can be defined with a maximum size of 14 files in width, and 16 ranks in depth.
Playing strength
The engine'sElo
Elo or ELO may refer to:
Music
* Electric Light Orchestra, a British rock music group
** ''The Electric Light Orchestra'' (album), the group's debut album
** ''ELO 2'', the group's second album
* ELO Part II, an offshoot band of Electric Light ...
rating fluctuates at around 1900 when playing orthodox chess in CCRL 40/40 chess engine tournament, which roughly corresponds to class A human player.
The author of the program has said "the goal of Fairy-Max is to make an entertaining but beatable opponent to play against in all kind of chess variants."
See also
*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 wit ...
* ChessV (also plays chess variants)
* Variant chess piece
* Chess variants
A chess variant is a game related to, derived from, or inspired by chess. Such variants can differ from chess in many different ways.
"International" or "Western" chess itself is one of a family of games which have related origins and could be c ...
* List of chess software
References
{{Chess variants, state=collapsed Chess engines Chess variants Free chess software Windows games Windows-only free software