Senior Chess 1.95

After frequent updates from 1.89, Senior Chess has seen 1.92, 1.93, 1.94 and finally 1.95. I hereby repeat that adding time controls to this beatiful app would make it much more attractive.

WHAT'S NEW (26-Jun-2017):
- Bug fixes to prevent strange crashes.

- Fixes for better usage of online tablebases

Download last version of Senior Chess from GOOGLE PLAY.

Android UCI engine update: Corchess 1.5.20170622.ACH

Thanks to Alexei for porting a newer version of CorChess to Android:

GET Corchess 1.5.20170622.ACH for arm7

Below description of the engine is taken from its homepage:

"Corchess is a clone of Stockfish source code maintained by Ivan Ivec for better performance on long time controls, trying at least partially to fill the gap between regular tests and demands of correspondence players.

The idea is to improve the following scalability of Stockfish 8.

Starting from version b3, all patches are first tested at 200+2 time control (1 thread, 64 MB hash, 1000-2000 games) and then tested with 10000 games at 40+0.4 time control (1 thread, 16 MB hash). To minimize statistical errors, all patches will be tested against Stockfish rather than against previous version."

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: Aristides 1.1.20170622.ACH

Aristides is a C port of the Stockfish chess engine, forked from Cfish by Michael Byrne. It includes play by UCI_LimitStrength (play by ELO rating), UCI Move Delay, Fast Play when mate is found, Study option (from Matefinder), Hide Info ( some information output may be skipped to reduce output) and various search tweaks.

GET Aristides 1.1.20170622.ACH for arm7 32-bit

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: Cfish 2017.06.22.ACH

HERE is Alexei's build of the Cfish source dated 22th of June. Only PGO, thus only for pie devices. Enjoy!

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: Aristides 1.0.20170619.ACH

THIS is a new build of Aristides for arm7 by Alexei, using PGO optimizations, typically faster by 5% to 10% approx than a standard compile. There's already a more recent build available, so take it for collecting purposes only.

Aristides is a C port of the Stockfish chess engine, forked from Cfish by Michael Byrne. It includes play by UCI_LimitStrength (play by ELO rating), UCI Move Delay, Fast Play when mate is found, Study option (from Matefinder), Hide Info ( some information output may be skipped to reduce output) and various search tweaks.

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: Cfish 2017.06.19.ACH

HERE is Alexei's build of the Cfish source dated 19th of June. Only PGO, thus only for pie devices. Enjoy!

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: McBrain 2017.2.5.20170615.ACH

I assume this build is more recent than v2.5b that i've just shared in the previous post. Thanks to Alexei for compiling.

McBrain is a tweaked Stockfish, maintained by Micheal Byrne. You can read more about it HERE.

GET McBrain 2017.2.5.20170615.ACH for arm7

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Chess Tournament 0.6.7 by Javiolo

Javiolo's app has become popular, especially in gauntlets between updated engines and their previous versions, as far as i notice in forums. The latest version of the app is available for download at GOOGLE PLAY.

WHAT'S NEW (14-Jun-2017)
v0.6.7
- Save Match 1sec free
- minor adjustments

Lichess 4.14

GET latest Lichess for Android at GOOGLE PLAY.

WHAT'S NEW (14-Jun-2017):
New features:
- hyperbullet 15'' new time setting
Bug fixes/improvements:
- fix app hang at startup bug when switching language to hebrew
- cancelling draw offer is now disallowed like in the website
- show last training rating in rating graph
- display piece ghost when dragging piece
- account creation now require email confirmation
- it is now possible to continue against local AI/OTB from crazyhouse and three-check analysis positions

Android UCI engine update: McBrain 2017.2.5b.ACH

Thanks to Alexei for compiling this McBrain version. McBrain is a tweaked Stockfish, maintained by Micheal Byrne. You can read more about it HERE.

GET McBrain 2017.2.5b.ACH for arm7

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: Brainfish 2017.06.09.ACH compatible with Cerebellum book

Alexei Chernakoff has succeeded to make the Brainfish engine work with the mighty Cerebellum book. That's good news because Brainfish without Cerebellum is nothing but the official Stockfish.

To use the book with Chess for Android, you should place the bin file in the following path on your device: /sdcard/book/Cerebellum_Light.bin

GET Brainfish 2017.06.09.ACH fro arm7

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Cfish 2017.06.09 OEX installer by Javiolo

Thanks to Javiolo for keeping the Cfish updated for Android.

WHAT'S NEW (9-Jun-2017):
Cfish 8 20170609 Open Exchange protocol
old Cfish 8 20170403
this chess engine app need a chess board, see app description

You can download the latest version from GOOGLE PLAY.

Users who want to install the builds without OEX or want to keep a copy of the builds in case the app gets future updates may refer to this ARCHIVE.

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: Sayuri 2017.06.05

Another update of Sayuri by the author Hironori Ishibashi. Anyone able to get these builds of Sayuri running well, please comment here about your hardware / software environment.

GET Sayuri 2017.06.05 for arm5

In case of trouble downloading from box, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: Stockfish dev't 2017.06.06.ACH (fixed PGO)

Alexei's fix of the PGO build. You'd better switch to this one.

GET Stockfish 8.0.2017.06.06.ACH fixed for arm7 pie

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

New Android UCI engine: Demolito 1.0

If you know Doublecheck and Discocheck engines, you must be familiar with Lucas Braesch's contribution to chess engines development. Since the beginning of this year, he went on to write a new engine from scratch, taking small parts of Discocheck.

Although he'd written he wouldn't be interested in delivering executables in order to better concentrate on the code, some builds are already out for testing.

One of them is made by Lucas himself and it will only work with 64-bit devices. So, meet the son of Discocheck.

GET Demolito 1.0 for arm8

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

New Android UCI engine: Pedone 1.6

I wish Pedone could run on my arm7 devices because it's very good news to receive a new 3000+ ELO engine ported to Android. At present there's at least one user who reports that Pedone works well with CfA using quad core arm7 cpu with Android Kitkat.

It's highly surprising that this 32-bit build made for arm7, works fine on my 64-bit MTK6742 octa core cpu under Lollipop while it just exits after tapping to UCI on my Exynos 4412 cpu. That's weird to me because one of the Exynos cpu's is on Kitkat already. So, nothing can explain the issue so far and missing a strong engine is sad for Rapidroid ranking.

Pedone is a UCI compliant chess engine by Fabio Gobbato from Italy written in C. The download from its site includes Windows 32/64-bit, Linux 32/64-bit and Android executables.

During its early development stages, Pedone had its over the board tournament debut at the IGT 2013 with 1½/4. It progressed rapidly, and already won the IGT 2014 with 6/7, and the IGT 2015 with 7/6!

Pedone has a compact quad-bitboard board representation, suited for a copy-make approach and further applies magic bitboards for sliding piece attacks and move generation. Its search is PVS with transposition table, IID and quiescence search inside an iterative deepening framework. The evaluation function was tuned with a similar approach to the Texel's Tuning Method until version 1.0.

Some evaluation bonuses of versions 1.3 and 1.4 were tuned with TD Learning. Since 1.0, released in December 2014, Pedone performs a parallel search using multiple threads, with 1.4 in April 2016, dubbed Lazy SMP.

The further improved Pedone 1.6 released in June 2017 can use up to 128 threads and comes with an executable for Android.

GET Pedone for arm7 pie and don't forget to comment about your experience with your hardware & software info.

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

New Android UCI engine: CiChess 1.3.20170610.ACH

Yet another Stockfish derivative. I don't know who's responsible of it. As i couldn't find any trustable info anywhere, i assume it should be nothing but another tweaked Stockfish referring to the engine ID which displays Marco Costalba and fellas as authors, during the installation process.

GET CiChess 1.3.20170610.ACH for arm7

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: Cfish 2017.06.09.ACH

HERE is Alexei's build of the Cfish source dated 9th of June. Enjoy!

It's often claimed by the visitors why Alexei doesn't compile for arm8. Now let me state possible replies to give an end to the discussion:
A) He does not like 64-bit and wishes to torture 64-bit owners with extremely slow arm7 builds.
B) He's using a very old compiler which can't do arm8 builds.
C) Repetitive demands caused reluctance on him. When demands will cease, he'll do it.
T) He needs an arm8 device to do it.

Why T and not D above? T because truth starts with T...

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Droidfish 1.69

The new version just reminded me that i must have skipped 1.68. So, two updates to be notified in a single post. Unless you're on Android Nougat, these updates may not be crucial. Meanwhile, the Stockfish engine version remains unchanged.

WHAT'S NEW (10-Jun-2017):

Version 1.69
- Fixed crash in Android 7 when handling large PGN games.

Version 1.68
- Support for multi windows in Android 7.
- Various crash fixes.

GET latest Droidfish from Google Play
GET Droidfish 1.69 in case you need to keep a copy in your archive

GET Droidfish 1.68 in case you need to keep a copy in your archive

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: Stockfish dev't 2017.06.06.ACH

The development versions of the mighty fish don't (...won't) stop falling on our devices. There are already 25 to 30 ELO improvement over the last official release in about 7 months. Thanks to Alexei for preparing the Android build.

GET Stockfish 8.0.2017.06.06.ACH for arm7

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: SugaR 2017.05.28.ACH

This is the latest SugaR build compiled by Alexei.

GET SugaR 2017.05.28.ACH for arm7

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

New Android UCI/XB engine: Wyldchess 1.5

Wyldchess is a UCI and Chess Engine Communication Protocol compliant open source chess engine by Manik Charan, licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0, written in C/C++, first released in October 2016. Origin of ideas and implementations are documented inside the source code, e.g. tapered eval SIMD score or SEE from Stockfish. Since version 1.5, released in June 2017, WyldChess supports Syzygy Bases.

The engine is now ported to Android twice, first by the author and secondly by Alexei. At present i'm not able to get what i need from either. Manik's crashes on load and Alexei's thinks for ever without sending any move to Chess for Android.

If you can run Wyldchess on your device without issues, share the recipe here.

GET Wyldchess 1.5.MC for arm7

GET Wyldchess 1.5.ACH for arm7

In case of trouble downloading from  PC, use your mobile or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: Stockfish Matefinder 2017.06.05.ACH

Please welcome Alexei's build of Matefinder update. Matefinder is a Stockfish fork maintained by Joseph Ellis and dedicated to solve puzzles.

GET Stockfish Matefinder 2017.06.05 for arm7

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: McBrain 2017.2.4b.ACH

A minor update from 2.4a to 2.4b. Thanks to Alexei for compiling this latest McBrain. McBrain is a tweaked Stockfish, maintained by Micheal Byrne. You can read more about it HERE.

GET McBrain 2017.2.4b.ACH for arm7

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

New Android UCI engine: RuyDos 1.0.3.ACH

A new engine with few info about it. Here's below what i could find about the author Álvaro Begué:

"A Spanish computer checkers and computer chess programmer with expertise in machine learning and automated tuning, along with José Manuel Morán author of the Spanish Checkers program Torquemada and the chess program Ruy Lopez.

Since 2013, Álvaro is in the process to write a new chess engine. In November 2016, he published the open source tuning code RuyTune, an instance of a logistic regression performing limited-memory BFGS along with reverse-mode automatic differentiation and in June 2017 he published the open source engine RuyDos, co-authored by José Manuel Morán."

What surprises me is the strength which is around 2500 ELO easily. Besides, the build by Alexei works well so far. Unless i find out this is a derivative or clone (i don't think so, after reading more), it's really worth introducing into Rapidroid, which is what i'm doing now.

More about the engine can be read: HERE

GET RuyDOS 1.0.3.ACH for arm7

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: Komodo 11.01

Komodo 11 for Android is available on GOOGLE PLAY, a few weeks after Chessbase and standalone editions for Windows. However, no serious ELO increase is expected from this version. I fear even Stockfish 8 will cope with this lizard.

As there's a new version sold as separate app, Komodo 9.42 becomes free on GOOGLE PLAY. That what makes more sense for many users.

Chess Tournament 0.6.5 by Javiolo

Getting better and better with each new version. The latest version is available for download at GOOGLE PLAY.

Test it with your tourneys and share your opinions with Javiolo on Google Play and with me here.

WHAT'S NEW (02-Jun-2017)
v0.6.3-v0.6.5
- new option clear rating list
- more options depth opening
- fix bad start because of default engine SF6
- fix bug control time tag
- fix bug rating list when an engine was updated
- others littel changes

New Android UCI engine: Zevra 1.4.ACH

Zevra is a weak engine written by Oleg Smirnov. Its playing strength in Rapidroid scale should be around 1650 ELO. Unfortunately, i had to stop introducing Zevra because same hanging on move behaviour as it was the case with GreKo 2016 and Protector 1.90.AP happened today.

About 50% of the games played with black by Zevra needs to be replayed after a division. I hope Alexei and Aprijal can find the trick behind this problem with Chess for Android.

However, you can always try Zevra with Droidfish or for human vs machine games in CfA.

GET Zevra 1.4.ACH for arm7

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android XB engine update: GreKo 2016.ACH

GreKo was stuck on v2015 in Rapidroid since a while and i would be more than happy to test an update.

First tests of Alexei's build have caused no problem in bullets played on MTK6752 but when i started the first 900+1 gauntlets for Rapidroid on Exynos 4412, i noticed that GreKo often hangs in the middle game until flag, in positions that i can't adjudicate. It's bizarre that the problem randomly occurs, only when GreKo plays black vs an opponent, in the second game of the opening. This issue is exactly the same as Aprijal's Protector build. To analyze deeper by an expert's eye...

For the moment i've gone back to 2015.JA but it's possible to run GreKo with other GUIs.

GET GreKo 2016.ACH for arm7

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: Ethereal 8.16

Ethereal 8.16 should perform way better than 8.15 according to the author Andy Grant. The school period just ended for him, so we can expect further boosts too, soon.

Once again, there are builds made by Andy and by Alexei. You'll choose your favorite...

GET Ethereal 8.16.AG for arm7 32-bit pie
GET Ethereal 8.16.ACH for arm7 32 bit pie/nopie

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: Ethereal 8.15

Ethereal 8.15 is just a cleanup over 8.13. As there's already 8.16 available today, this version is for collectors only. What's interesting here, is that both the author Andy Grant and our dear building machine Alexei Chernakoff compiled this one. Alexei's delivers about 15% more NPS.

GET Ethereal 8.15.AG for arm7 32-bit pie
GET Ethereal 8.15.ACH for arm7 32 bit pie/nopie

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: SugaR XPro1c.ACH / Xpro1d.ACH (pgo builds)

PGO (Profile Guided Optimization) versions of two SugaR builds by Alexei, optimized for a little bit more NPS perfromance. Only 32-bit.

GET SugaR XPro1c.ACH for arm7
GET SugaR XPro1d.ACH for arm7

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: Galjoen 0.35.6.ACH

Very good news that Alexei's build of Galjoen works without issues. After first tests, it's certified for Chess for Android tournaments, therefore Rapidroid. Long after Jim Ablett's build failed to run stable, now it's time to verify whether Galjoen can sail away toward 2000 ELO barrier.

GET Galjoen 0.35.6.ACH for arm7

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: CorCfish Extended 1.3.20170525.ACH

Another update of CorCfish by Alexei.

Description: "CorCfish is an attempt to improve Cfish, in a similar way to what was done with Stockfish to obtain CorChess. Even though the aim may be not extactly the same in detail, the method looks similar. I don't know what the outcome is but you can test it to reveal your opinion."

GET CorCfish Extended 1.3.20170525.ACH for arm7

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Stockfish dev't 2017.05.26 OEX installer by Javiolo

Javiolo's update of the Stockfish OEX installer app with recent builds made from source code of May,26th.

WHAT'S NEW (28-May-2017):

new release Stockfish 8 20170526 Open Exchange protocol
old release Stockfish 8 20170510
this chess engine app need a chess board, see app description
Other Stockfish derivatives
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.packs.chessenginesotherfishpack
for more engines see Chess Engines app

You can download Stockfish OEX installer PIE for modern devices from GOOGLE PLAY.

You can also install these builds manually from this ARCHIVE, in case you don't need OEX feature or you wish to keep backups available after a future update of this app.

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: Hakkapeliitta 3.0.APE

It's about the recompiled builds of Hakkapeliitta 3.0, bundled in the Chess Engines Collection app by Acid Ape Studios.

I guess these may perform better than last JA build because Jim's arm7 had issues and i'm still running arm5 for Rapidroid. A test is worth trying to confirm the progress done by APE. For 64 bit users, these APE builds must be the best option already.

GET Hakkapeliitta 3.0.APE for arm5,7,8 and x86 32/64 bit versions.

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST

Android UCI engine update: Stockfish 8.0.APE

Recompiled builds of Stockfish 8.0, bundled in the Chess Engines Collection app by Acid Ape Studios.

GET Stockfish 8.0.APE for arm5,7,8 and x86 32/64 bit versions.

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Android UCI engine update: Senpai 1.0.APE

THIS is a package containing recompiled builds of Senpai 1.0, bundled in the Chess Engines Collection app by Acid Ape Studios. I don't have any idea how stronger it would play compared to the JA version but the variety of architectures is attracting: arm5,7,8 and also x64, with 32 and 64 bits.

Further tests will decide it this is the best version to play in Rapidroid.

In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.

Aurora Chess Clock

Finally a free chess clock which delivers more than standard Android fonts, something really nice to look at, very comparable to the official DGT.

Regarding the time control settings, it's way beyond simplicity. The only thing i would mention can be the small pause button. 

Download the latest version from GOOGLE PLAY.