Guys,

I've never been far from you. I've been reading every comment and all your shares all the time.

Indeed i'm late recovering from the hiatus of the blog. But note that i'll be coming back very soon. I'm alive and kicking!

Keep up following.

The return will be good enough for you to forgive the long lasting silence.

Best wishes to all.

Android UCI engine update: armFish 2018.02.11 to 2018.02.19

ArmFish is a project based on the assembly code to achieve the highest speed with Stockfish engine. A lot of updates have rained during February, so frequently that i thought it would be easier to share them all together, in a single post.

ArmFish and MateFish are provided side by side, bearing in mind that MateFish is a specific version of ArmFish, dedicated to find mating attacks quicker rather than breaking ELO records.

GET armFish 2018.02.11.LA for arm8
GET armFish 2018.02.11.CP for arm8
GET mateFish 2018.02.11.LA for arm8
GET mateFish 2018.02.11.CP for arm8

GET armFish 2018.02.13 for arm8
GET mateFish 2018.02.13 for arm8

GET armFish 2018.02.14 for arm8
GET mateFish 2018.02.14 for arm8
GET armFish 2018.02.15 for arm8
GET mateFish 2018.02.15 for arm8

GET armFish 2018.02.19 for arm8
GET mateFish 2018.02.19 for arm8

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

Android UCI engine update: CT800 1.20

CT800 is an average level engine released by Ratmus Althoff who recently concentrated on compiling for Android and finally managed to obtain working binaries.

CT800, in fact, was born as a dedicated chess computer idea and it was designed by Rasmus Althoff.  The original CT800 featured an ARM Cortex M4 microcontroller of an Olimex H405 board that operates up to 168 Mhz, with 1 MB of flash memory, 192+4 kB of SRAM, and multiple I/O and USB connectors, with a 4x20 character text display, two leds, and a 4x4 + 1 keypad as peripherals aka user interface. Voltage source is due to four NiMH rechargeable AA batteries or external 5 V DC power supply.

The "chess computer" CT800

CT800's firmware is developed by Rasmus Althoff, released under the GPL Version 3. The chess playing software is an ARM port of George Georgopoulos' open source engine NG-play including a KPK bitbase by Marcel van Kervinck.

GET CT800 1.20 for arm7 and arm8

Previous stable version was:
GET CT800 1.12 for arm7

Development versions from 1.12 to 1.20 were:
GET CT800 1.20p11 for arm7 and arm8
GET CT800 1.20p13 for arm7 and arm8
GET CT800 1.20p14 for arm7 and arm8
GET CT800 1.20p15 for arm7 and arm8

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

Android UCI engine update: Cheese 1.9.2

Another bugfix update by the author, Patrice Duhamel. No ELO change expected.

WHAT'S NEW (17-Feb-2018):
Version 1.9.2
- fix engine not responding in pondering mode since version 1.9
- fix illegal moves in pondering when the search ends before receiving message from the interface
- fix an error with Arena/UCI when pondering is enable, always return a move to ponder (if possible)
- fix a problem when starting next tournament game in Fritz GUI

GET Cheese 1.9.2 for arm7 and arm8

You can also visit CHEESE HOMEPAGE for more info.

Android UCI engine update: Cichess 2.0.2018021.ACH

For the followers of the Stockfish derivatives.

GET Cichess 2.0.20180216.ACH for arm7 and arm8

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

Android UCI engine update: Cfish 2018.02.15

I fear that the day when SF and Cfish will get hourly updates that we will try to share in time. We would probably be dying of hunger because no time would be left to eat.

GET Cfish 9.0.2018.02.15.ACH for arm7 and arm8

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

Android UCI engine update: Stockfish Matefinder 9.0.ACH

Matefinder is a Stockfish fork maintained by Joseph Ellis and dedicated to solve puzzles rather than hitting the highest possible ELO. Like many other derivatives, Matefinder is now updated to a new version based on Stockfish 9 code too. Enjoy!

Joseph Ellis

GET Stockfish Matefinder 9.0 for arm7 and arm8

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

Android UCI engine update: Cfish 2018.02.13

Cfish keeps going... thanks to Alexei for regularly compiling it for Android.

GET Cfish 9.0.2018.02.13.ACH for arm7 and arm8

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

Chess Tactics & Strategy aka PbChess

This is nothing but PBchess ported to Android by the developers. As per a comment sent to Chesstroid, i came back to analyze what engines they embedded. There's nothing new. Two engines out of three are previously shared builds of Fruit and Toga. Regarding Stockfish, although it looks like different, smaller in size, doesn't bring too much attraction after SF9. Therefore, the app is only recommended for its basic features, not the provided engines.

The app description from Google Play says:

"Chess training program. Includes chess puzzles, chess tactics, chess openings, endings training, playing with computer, computer analysis ...

IMPORTANT:

1. PLEASE, WATCH DEMO VIDEO FIRST

2. TO REGISTER THIS PROGRAM YOU CAN CLICK THE "BUY" BUTTON OF THE NAG SCREEN

3. IF YOU CAN'T BUY THIS PROGRAM VIA GOOGLE PLAY, YOU CAN FIND MORE PAYMENT OPTIONS AT MY SITE (http://pbchess.vlasovsoft.net/en/register.html).

Program site: http://pbchess.vlasovsoft.net/en

We have a lot of chess training materials ( tactics, endings, classic games ) for "chess - tactics and strategy" at our site: http://pbchess.vlasovsoft.net/files/catalog/2014.11/contents.php?lng=en

Please contact me if any questions! http://pbchess.vlasovsoft.net/en/contacts.html

(*) This is demo version of pbchess program.

Limitations:

1. Displays registration messages

2. Can open only demo training databases. The registered version can open all the training bases.

3. All the opening books are limited to the 3 first moves.

You should register to get rid of these limitations."

WHAT'S NEW (23-Feb-2018)
- "Night" UI theme

GET latest version of Chess Tactics & Strategy from Google Play

Android UCI engine update: McBrain 9.0.ACH

McBrain is a tweaked Stockfish, maintained by Micheal Byrne. You can read more about it HERE. As the name suggests, this version is based on Stockfish 9.0.

GET McBrain 9.0.ACH for arm7 and arm8

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

Chess Engines Collection 1.2 by APE Studios

Another engine collection by APE Studios brings yummy updates. The builds are OEX compatible, so they will be automatically recognized by all compatible GUIs, like CfA and Droidfish.

WHAT'S NEW (10-Feb-2018):
- Senpai updated to version 2.0.
- Stockfish updated to version 9.
- New engine: asmFish (an assembler port of Stockfish, available for ARM64 and x86-64).
- New engine: Rodent III.

The app is available for download at GOOGLE PLAY.

Android UCI engine update: Cfish 2018.02.10

2nd Cfish ported to Android by Alexei after SF9 official. For archivers, because others already followed.

GET Cfish 9.0.2018.02.10.ACH for arm7 and arm8

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

Android XB engine update: Scorpio 2.7.9.20180206.APE

Here they are: New Scorpios bundled with Acid APE Chess Beta 16.8. I didn't test these but i guess they are compatible with CfA and other GUIs.

GET Scorpio 2.7.9.20180206.APE for arm7, arm8, x86_32 and x86_64

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

Android UCI engine update: Arasan 20.4.1.APE

These are the builds taken from Beta 16.8 of Acid APE Chess GUI.

GET Arasan 20.4.1APE for arm7, arm8, x86 32 and 64 bits

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

Acid APE Chess Beta 16.8

APE is a challenging chess GUI's for Android, a serious competitor to Chess for Android by Aart Bik and Chess Tournament by Javiolo.

WHAT'S NEW (10-Feb-2018):

- If your Lichess username is "Anonymous", it is now replaced client-side by the player name you have defined in the app settings, for extra clarity.

- First-class support for engine personalities has been added.

- Arasan has been updated to 20.4.1

- Scorpio has been updated to 2.7.9-20180206

- The flip button of the DGT page now flips the idea that Acid Ape Chess has of the physical board orientation.

- Miscellaneous fixes and optimizations have been applied.

Download latest version from GOOGLE PLAY.

Chess Free AI 2.61

WHAT'S NEW (07-Feb-2018):

2.61: Adds options on exiting a multiplayer match

Download latest version from GOOGLE PLAY.

Droidfish 1.72 ft Stockfish 9

Droidfish with the new Stockfish 9!

WHAT'S NEW (6-Feb-2017):

Version 1.72
- Update to stockfish 9.
- Show selective search depth in the status area when the engine is thinking.

GET latest Droidfish from Google Play
GET Droidfish 1.72 apk in case you need to keep a copy in your archive
GET The engine binaries in case you want to install them manually under other GUIs

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

Android UCI engine update: Cfish 2018.02.06

After Stockfish, that's the turn for Cfish. This should be the first development version ported to Android following the 9.0 official. Thanks to Alexei.

GET Cfish 9.0.2018.02.06.ACH for arm7 and arm8

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

Android UCI engine update: Stockfish dev't 2018.02.06.ACH

This should be the first development version ported to Android following the 9.0 official. Thanks to Alexei.

GET Stockfish 9.0.2018.02.06.ACH for arm7 and arm8

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

Android UCI engine update: Zevra 20180131.ACH

Zevra is a weak engine written by Oleg Smirnov, around 1700 in Rapidroid scale. The Android build still causes issues on my devices, like the previous 1.4 version: A remarkable % of the games played with black by Zevra needs to be replayed after a division. I keep hoping Alexei 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 2018.01.31.ACH for arm7 and arm8

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