Crafty 23.4 is now available. This release includes some code clean-up, a few bug fixes including a timing bug, and small strength increase.
Crafty
Crafty is a free, open-source computer chess program developed by
Dr. Robert M. Hyatt. Crafty
is constantly being improved by a small team of contributors, including Dr. Hyatt. To
learn more about Crafty, visit Dr. Hyatt's home page.
News
Rybka Dethroned
The king of chess, Rybka, has been booted out of World Competitions.
Crafty recently finished in 2nd place in
the 2010 Fifth Annual ACCA Americas' Computer Chess Championships. Crafty lost only 1 game to the 1st place winner Thinker.
Crafty also finished in 2nd place in
the 2010 World Computer Rapid Chess Championships. Crafty won 7 out of 9 games, finishing just behind
the 1st place winner Rybka by only 1/2 point.
GUI
A freeware Graphical User Interface for Crafty has been written by Valters Baumanis, using his on-line chess client “Nightmare Online”.
This thing is pretty cool. It even uses the new SKILL option to adjust Crafty's strength.
Just download and play.
Visit Valters Baumanis's web site for details.
Downloads
Crafty 23.4 source files can be downloaded here
or on Dr. Hyatt's ftp site.
Windows executables are available on Peter Skinner's web site.
A book.bin file compatible with Crafty 23.4 is available here.
Usage
Crafty can be compiled and executed from a terminal window on a Macintosh, Windows or Linux computer. Crafty
can also be run with a GUI interface such as Winboard (Windows) or
Xboard (Linux).
Configuration
Crafty can be configured for a stronger game by setting some optional parameters (examples below). These
parameters can be put into the crafty.rc file, or used as start-up parameters from the terminal. A
more thorough explanations of Crafty's parameters can be found here.
ponder on (Allows Crafty to think on your time)
hash=256m (Increases Crafty's position hash to 256MB)
hashp=64m (Increases Crafty's pawn hash to 64MB)
egtb (Tells Crafty to use Nalimov Endgame Tables (up to 6-Men))
cache=32m (Increases Crafty's Endgame Table Cache to 32MB)
swindle on (Allows Crafty to try to win drawn games (according to Endgame Tables))
mt=2 (Increases Crafty's MaxThreads to 2 for a dual CPU computer)
This is a personal page managed by Mr. Tracy Riegle, Hershey Pennsylvania, ICC Regal1.
I can be contacted via e-mail at tracy@pacyber.com. The subject line MUST contain the word 'Crafty' or my spam filter will trash it. Please allow a day or three for a response.
This page was last updated on September 24th, 2011.
Hits since June 20th, 2008.