Ever wondered what it's like to play chess against a silicon grandmaster?
If yes, AI Chess engines can make it happen, the AI chess engines, where algorithms and neural networks have mastered the game of kings. These digital prodigies can calculate millions of moves per second, leaving even the strongest human players in awe.
But it's not just raw computing power – modern AI engines have learned to "think" about chess in ways that sometimes seem almost human.
In this guide, we'll go through the top AI chess engines available online, revealing their unique strengths, features, and how they can elevate your chess experience.
What is AI Chess? Your Guide to Silicon Strategists
AI chess refers to chess games played against computer programs known as chess engines. These chess engines, powered by advanced artificial intelligence algorithms, can analyze millions of positions per second, providing formidable opponents for players of all skill levels.
Beyond gameplay, AI chess engines serve as powerful analytical tools. They can dissect games move-by-move, identifying weaknesses and suggesting improvements with a level of precision that surpasses most human coaches. This accessibility to world-class analysis, available through various websites and apps, has democratized high-level chess training.
13+ Big Brainer AI Chess Bots to Battle
AI Chess Engines & Platforms Online | PRICING |
---|---|
Lichess | Free |
Apha Zero | Free |
FreeInternetChessServer | Free |
Stockfish | Free |
Komodo Chess | $59/month |
Shredder Chess | $3.99/month |
Hiarcs | $54.59/month |
Rybka | $99.90/month |
Chessable | Free |
Leela Chess Zero | Free |
Houdini Chess | $59.90/month |
FIDE Online Arena | Free |
PlayChess | Free |
Red Hot Pawn | Free |
1. Lichess
Lichess is a free, open-source online chess platform founded in 2010 by French programmer Thibault Duplessis. With over 5 million games played daily by its millions of users, Lichess has grown to become the second most popular chess website after Chess.com.
Beyond playing games, Lichess offers users a full suite of tools to analyze games, solve puzzles, and improve their chess. These educational features, combined with a vibrant user community and commitment to accessibility, are key reasons for Lichess's immense popularity.
Lichess is 100% free to use with no paid subscriptions or features. All tools and services are available for free.
2. Alpha Zero
Listed at #2, AlphaZero is an artificial intelligence system developed by DeepMind that mastered the games of chess, shogi, and Go.
First introduced in 2017, it uses a novel combination of reinforcement learning and neural networks to learn superhuman gameplay purely by playing against itself, starting tabula rasa with no domain knowledge except the rules.
Within just a few hours of self-play, AlphaZero achieved a superhuman level of play, handily defeating the world's best chess engine Stockfish, and Go engine AlphaGo Lee. It represents a major advance in artificial intelligence and the ability for systems to acquire complex game mastery through self-supervised learning.
3. FreeInternetChessServer
FreeInternetChessServer, commonly known as FICS, is a popular online chess platform that has been a staple in the chess community for over two decades. Established in 1995, FICS is a free, open-source, and community-driven server that provides a virtual space for chess enthusiasts from around the world to connect, compete, and improve their skills.
Powered by a dedicated team of volunteers, FICS offers a wide range of features and services, including real-time multiplayer games, tournaments, puzzles, and analysis tools.
4. Stockfish
Stockfish is an open-source chess engine developed by a community of programmers. First released in 2008, it has grown to become the strongest chess-playing entity in the world, reaching a peak Elo rating of over 3500.
Stockfish utilizes advanced chess algorithms like alpha-beta pruning and bitboard representation to efficiently search possible moves.
Stockfish is highly customizable and supports up to 512 CPU threads for increased analysis power. It can integrate opening books, endgame tablebases, and neural networks to further boost its gameplay strength. Stockfish excels at tactics, calculation, and exploiting small advantages thanks to its aggressive playing style.
5. Komodo Chess
Komodo is a commercial chess engine developed by Don Dailey and Mark Lefler, with support from chess grandmaster Larry Kaufman. First released in 2010, Komodo has grown to become one of the strongest chess engines in the world, winning multiple world computer chess championships.
Komodo utilizes advanced search techniques like alpha-beta pruning and bitboard representation. It excels at tactical calculations but also has a strong positional understanding thanks to its balanced evaluation function, refined by GM Kaufman.
In 2020, Komodo introduced a new engine called Dragon that incorporates efficient neural networks (NNUE) for enhanced evaluations. Dragon has achieved dramatic rating increases over Komodo, exceeding 3500 Elo on some measures. The Dragon 3 is available for a cost of $59.90 whereas the Komodo 14 is available at a cost of $99.90.
6. Shredder Chess
Shredder Chess is a commercial chess engine and user interface developed by German programmer Stefan Meyer-Kahlen in 1993. It has won numerous computer chess championships over the years, establishing itself as one of the strongest chess-playing entities.
Shredder Chess combines advanced search techniques like alpha-beta pruning with a balanced evaluation function refined by grandmaster Larry Kaufman. It excels at tactical calculations but also has a strong positional understanding.
Shredder Chess offers various pricing options to suit different needs. The Windows versions range from €39.99 for Shredder Classic to €79.99 for Deep Shredder 13, with Shredder 13 priced at €49.99. For mobile users, iOS and Android apps are available at a more accessible $3.99.
7. Hiarcs
Hiarcs is a commercial chess engine and software suite developed by Mark Uniacke in 1993. It excels at deep positional understanding and tactical calculations, renowned for its aggressive yet natural playing style. Hiarcs has won multiple World Computer Chess Championships over three decades of development.
The Hiarcs software suite includes the main Hiarcs chess engine which can integrate with popular GUI interfaces. It also offers the Hiarcs Chess Explorer, an integrated database, analysis, training, and playing interface. This allows users to play against Hiarcs, analyze games with computer evaluations, study openings/endgames, solve puzzles, run matches, and customize parameters.
Hiarcs Chess Explorer has a clean intuitive layout and supports PGN databases. Recently released Hiarcs Chess Explorer Pro offers advanced multi-engine analysis and access to large online databases. Hiarcs Chess Explorer is available at a cost of just $54.95/month.
8. Rybka
Rybka is a commercial chess engine developed by International Master Vasik Rajlich in the early 2000s. It dominated top computer chess championships between 2007-2010, widely regarded as the strongest chess-playing entity during that period.
Rybka combines advanced search techniques like alpha-beta pruning with a highly optimized evaluation function refined by GM Larry Kaufman. It excels at deep tactical calculations but also demonstrates strong positional understanding.
Earlier versions were sold via ChessBase and integrated with their Fritz interface. After a controversy where Rybka was accused of plagiarism and banned from computer chess events, Rajlich has continued developing new versions independently. The latest edition Rybka 5 was released in 2020. The Rybka 5 is available for $99.90/month.
9. Chessable
Chessable is an online chess training platform, founded in 2014, that leverages spaced repetition software to help players master openings, tactics, endgames, and strategy. Its key innovation is a MoveTrainer feature that quizzes users on chess variations, automatically scheduling reviews based on an algorithm to boost long-term retention.
Over 300 instructors have published chess courses on the site across beginner and advanced levels. Courses integrate text, visual arrows/highlights, variations with computer analysis, and community discussion forums. Chessable also offers a tactics trainer, endgame practice, and videos.
The platform follows a freemium model with free access to some basic courses and features, but a Chessable Premium membership unlocks additional content like unlimited offline access. The premium membership is available for $11.90/month.
10. Leela Chess Zero
Leela Chess Zero (LCZero or lc0) is a free open-source neural network-based chess engine adapted from the Leela Zero Go engine. LCZero was created in 2018 by programmer Gary Linscott and a community of open source developers to showcase the potential of neural networks and self-play reinforcement learning for mastering chess.
Like AlphaZero before it, LCZero starts with no chess knowledge except the rules. It trains itself from scratch by playing over 300 million games against itself in an ongoing distributed computing project. This self-play enables LCZero to build intuition about chess strategy akin to human learning.
As of 2023, LCZero plays at a super Grandmaster level, even defeating world champion Stockfish in major computer chess championships.
11. Houdini Chess
Houdini is a commercial chess engine developed by Belgian programmer Robert Houdart since 2010. It combines advanced search techniques like alpha-beta pruning with a refined evaluation function to achieve strong tactical and positional play. Houdini excels at making use of extended search depth and has a very high tactical accuracy.
Earlier versions up to Houdini 1.5a were available free for non-commercial use. But from Houdini 2.0 onwards, it became commercial software. The latest major release is Houdini 6 in 2017.
Houdini is renowned for its creativity, flexibility, and "romantic" attacking style of play. It has dominated computer chess championships over the years, defeating rivals like Stockfish and Komodo. Houdini has integrated Syzygy endgame tablebases since version 4 for enhanced endgame play. The Houdini 6 Standard is available at a cost of $59.90, whereas the Houdini 6 Pro is available at $99.90.
12. FIDE Online Arena
The FIDE Online Arena is the official online chess gaming platform of the International Chess Federation (FIDE). It is the only platform recognized by FIDE where players can compete for an official online rating and earn FIDE Online Arena (FOA) titles.
Operated by World Chess, the organizers of the prestigious World Chess Championships, the Arena aims to provide a tournament-like experience for online chess players. It offers a range of time controls, including rapid, blitz, and bullet, allowing players to participate in rated games and tournaments.
One of the unique features of the FIDE Online Arena is the ability to earn official online titles recognized by FIDE. These titles, ranging from Arena Candidate Master (ACM) to Arena Grandmaster (AGM), are awarded based on the player's performance rating and the number of games played at a specific time control. The FIDM offers the pro membership available for €5.99/month to €49.99/year.
13. Playchess
Playchess is an online chess server launched in 2001 and managed by ChessBase. It enables users to play chess games, watch broadcasts of top tournaments, solve puzzles, analyze games, join discussions, and improve their skills with lessons.
Playchess utilizes a freemium model - core features like playing games are free but a Premium membership unlocks additional content. There are over 20,000 daily players across various ratings and time controls. Along with online play, Playchess is known for its live commentary on tournaments by grandmasters.
Playchess also offers simultaneous exhibitions, tactical training, blogs, and global chat rooms to foster a community. The premium membership starts at €4.99/month with free plans available as well.
14. Red Hot Pawn
Red Hot Pawn is an online correspondence chess site established in 2001. It enables users to play daily chess games with time controls from 1 day per move up to 30 days per move. Players are matched based on their rating, and can compete in tournaments and join "clans".
As of 2023, Red Hot Pawn has over 300,000 members and averages 15,000 games played daily. It aims to provide a friendly community for players of all levels to enjoy correspondence chess.
Red Hot Pawn is accessible via web browser on desktop and mobile devices. Native mobile apps are also available. The interface allows for easy game management and highlights conditional moves. Community features include public and private chat rooms, forums, teams, and blogs. The paid membership is available at a cost of $44.99 yearly.
Achievements of AI Chess Engines & Algorithms
- In 1997, IBM's Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game match! This was the first time a computer beat a reigning world champion in classical chess under regular time controls. It demonstrated AI's ability to surpass human chess skills.
- In 2017, DeepMind's AlphaZero AI taught itself chess in just 4 hours by playing games against itself and went on to decisively beat champion chess engine Stockfish. This highlighted the potential of AI self-play learning without human knowledge!
- Modern top chess engines like Stockfish, Leela Chess Zero, and AlphaZero have Elo ratings exceeding 3200, higher than the peak ratings of any human chess player in history!
- Chess has been an important testbed for AI developments like search algorithms, reinforcement learning, and neural networks that have later been applied successfully to other complex problems.
Quenching Common Queries on AI Chess Engines
Will AIs Make Human Chess Tournaments Obsolete?
No, the complexity of chess means AIs cannot yet fully "solve" the game. Human creativity and intuition still play a big role at the top level.
How do Chess AIs Train and Improve?
By playing against updated versions of themselves millions of times in a process of reinforcement learning and neural network training.
What Hardware is Required to Run the Top Chess AIs?
Very powerful, specialized hardware like multi-GPU servers.
Can Chess AIs Explain their Moves and Analysis?
Not extensively yet. They can provide evaluations and principal variations but lack generalized reasoning abilities beyond chess.
What are the Key Algorithms Used in Chess AIs?
Neural networks, Monte Carlo tree search, alpha-beta pruning search, and reinforcement learning.
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Let’s Sum it up
So, what are your thoughts?
Behind the code, sophisticated algorithms like neural networks and Monte Carlo tree searches fuel their creative and strategic play.
Yet their role is not to replace human players but to augment them. By studying master games from engines like Stockfish, Komodo and Leela Chess Zero, chess enthusiasts like you can keep improving!
Online platforms now grant anyone access to these engines as training tools or opponents.
They transform the meaning of talent and preparation in chess, they also make the game more engaging, opening up ideas no unaided human could conceive!
The future of chess will see man and machine push each other to new heights together!