PyTuroChamp

The PyTuroChamp, Plankalkül, SOMA, Bernstein, and El Ajedrecista Python chess engines

Python implementations of Alan Turing's TUROCHAMP (1950), John Maynard Smith's SOMA (1961), The Bernstein Chess Program (1957), Leonardo Torres y Quevedo's El Ajedrecista (1912), and some related engines

Prerequisites

• PyPy 3 is best, but regular Python 3 or 2 also works
• python-chess (Note that since v0.24, python-chess is for Python 3 only.)

Quick start

Install python-chess and then either run one of the chess engines with the UCI/XBoard interface (mainly for chess GUIs), e.g.:

$ pypy3 ptc_xboard.py soma

The parameter to ptc_xboard.py, in this case "soma", selects the engine to use; if you leave it out, PTC is selected.

| Parameter | Engine | Notes | | --- | --- | --- | | adapt | Simple Adaptive Engine | Needs an UCI engine with MultiPV (Stockfish by default) | | bare | Bare-bones engine | Has piece-square tables for positional play; is the strongest engine here (with all engines on default settings) except adapt | | bern | The Bernstein chess program | Selects plausible moves to prune search tree | | newt | Newt | Includes an opening book and other experimental features | | plan | Plankalkül | Is set to a search depth of four plies rather than a single ply by default to bring playing strength more in line with the other engines | | ptc | TUROCHAMP (Default) | The Turing/Champernowne engine after which this repo is named | | rmove | Random Mover | All other engines should win or draw against this | | shannon | Shannon chess engine | Pretty much an engine that maximizes mobility | | soma | The Smith One-Move Analyzer | Swap-off instead of tree search-based engine | | torres | El Ajedrecista by Torres y Quevedo | Plays only as White like the real machine! (Random moves as Black.) |

Or run an engine with the console interface (Unicode output; enter your moves as e.g. "e2e4"; use black on white text in the terminal for correct piece colors):

$ pypy3 pyturochamp.py

See the chess GUI page for details on how to set up the chess engines in e.g. Cute Chess or Arena.

Documentation

Full documentation at mdoege.github.io/PyTuroChamp/

Related projects

• nimTUROCHAMP: Nim port of pyturochamp.py; also includes an HTML/JS version for web browsers
• TUROjs: PyTuroChamp as a Flask web app with server-side Python engines

License

• Public Domain
• The opening book is licensed under the GPL.