Do you want to play with an engine that supports different varieties of chess?
Fairy-Stockfish is the answer to such a need.
It's an engine developed from Stockfish that can play probably all known chess variants.
Chess variants
Capablanca, Janus, Modern, Chancellor, Embassy, Gothic, Capablanca random chess
Grand, Shako, Centaur, Tencubed, Opulent
Chess960, Placement/Pre-Chess
Crazyhouse, Loop, Chessgi, Pocket Knight, Capablanca-Crazyhouse
Bughouse, Koedem
...,
As if that weren't enough, Fairy-Stockfish supports regional and historical games:
Xiangqi, Manchu, Minixiangqi, Supply chess
Shogi, Shogi variants
Janggi
Makruk, ASEAN, Makpong, Ai-Wok
Ouk Chatrang, Kar Ouk
...,
And even it can also play user-defined variants loaded via a variant configuration file.
Fairy-Stockfish, by Mr. Fabian Fichter, is a free open source chess engine under the GNU GPL 3.0 license. Without a doubt, the development of this engine would not have been as extensive in terms of chess variants supported if it were not for the numerous contributors listed here.
Interested? The developers provide an opportunity to try the engine online using a web browser.
In order to play with Fairy-Stockfish on your computer, you need to use a program that supports the game of the chess variety you are interested in. A good choice is the Cute Chess program described recently on chessengeria.com. The author also recommends other free GUIs.
To make the game more interesting, you can determine the strength of the engine's play with the UCI Elo parameter (the UCI_LimitStrenght parameter must be enabled).
The available parameters are described in detail on the engine's GitHub page.
Here are some screenshots from the Cute Chess program; Crazyhouse variant, Fairy-Stockfish strength 1000 Elo.
Playing with Fairy-Stockfish is really a lot of fun!
Especially for engine skirmish enthusiasts, Fairy-Stockfish has dedicated neural networks for specific chess variants, which will significantly increase power.
Fairy-Stockfish is a very well-documented chess engine worth having in your collection.
All you need to enjoy it is any computer, even the oldest one. And that's why, in addition to compilations for contemporary computers, I've prepared downloadable binaries, also for 32-bit machines, whose glory years are long behind them.
All files are in widely compatible versions.
Linux arm32 & arm64 & x64 – Compiled by Darius
Mac Apple Silicon & Intel – Compiled by Darius
Windows x32 & x64 – Compiled by Darius
You can still find other and older versions of this chess engine here.
In the Files area you will find free chess engines for download.
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