August 11, 2015

New Android UCI engine: Superpawn b108 JA

The logo is full of humor. It says all our moves are invalid. Well, we must try and see about that.

Superpawn is a new generation engine giving hope for the future, if not with its increasing chess skills, be it with increasing humor by the author. It took a while to see it falling into Android platform before JA prepared a compile.

The engine is written by John Byrd and plays around 1950 ELO on a PC, meaning that 1750 ELO on Android can be expected.

Regarding compatibility, no issues with Chess for Android for me. However, the time management showed some problems after first games. Superpawn uses excessive time when fixed time per move is set. I've already forgot fixed time mode because 25 seconds used vs 5 seconds are way too much beyond tolerance.

When it comes to Fischer clock, Superpawn was not flagged in 120"+1" test games. That sounds good but the way it uses the total time looked strange to me. The first moves took most of the allotted time and from the mid game on, moves were played too fast. Just my first impression, to be confirmed. It even lost to internal Java engine of Chess for Android probably due to weird time usage.

I hope time usage of Superpawn gets validated with further tests so that i can introduce it into Rapidroid rankings as soon as possible.

Download Superpawn: HERE

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