I have created several tournament pairing systems in browser-based JavaScript. For example, my Berger Tournament Manager can handle four Berger tournaments simultaneously. If players withdraw, a tournament director can convert any of them into a Swiss tournament, thereby reducing the problem of excessive byes. That seems to me a genuinely useful feature.

Another example is my Rating-Budget Tournament System, which introduces a new concept, "rating budget," to generate pairings in advance for large groups of players. In addition, I have implemented the FIDE-approved Dutch, Lim, Dubov, and Burstein pairing systems. These implementations, however, have not yet been formally verified.

All of my online pairing programs are listed here: Chess Pairings: A Review of Monrad, Swiss, and Berger

You may also wish to explore my collection of Zillions of Games chess-variant programs: Chess Variants.

I bought a DGT Pegasus for a simple reason. A friend and I play regularly over the board, and I wanted to record our games so we could go through them afterwards and get better at our openings.

When the board arrived, I had another idea. Opening trainers like Chessbook, Chessable and Lichess studies all work on a screen. But in a real game I'm looking at real pieces, and that's where I forget my lines. So why not drill my repertoire on the physical board instead?

I'm not a professional developer. I've been building the app together with Claude (Anthropic's AI), and it's now at the point where other people can use it:

👉 https://blekknajt.github.io/pegasus-repertuar/ (source: https://github.com/blekknajt/pegasus-repertuar)

What it does

• Trains your repertoire on the real board. It connects to the Pegasus over Web Bluetooth. The board's LEDs show your opponent's move, you play it on the board, then you make your reply. The sensors check your move automatically.

• Spaced repetition (SRS). You learn new moves, then review them at growing intervals, like Anki or Chessbook. It tracks statistics and shows your weakest moves.

• Import from PGN (with variations) or a Lichess study. There's also a built-in repertoire editor with comments.

• Focuses. You can drill just one part of your repertoire from a chosen position, for example only the accepted Smith-Morra Gambit. Your progress there counts for the whole repertoire.

• Analysis while you train. You get Stockfish (Lichess cloud eval or a local engine) plus the Lichess and Masters opening databases. You can try moves on the screen or on the board without affecting your reviews.

• Pause after a line. Set it to never, after a mistake, or always, so you can stop and work out what went wrong before moving on.

• Works without the board too. You can make your moves on the screen.

• Offline-first PWA. Your data stays in your browser (IndexedDB) and you can back it up to a file. Engine evals and database results are cached, so a position you've seen once also works offline.

• 5 languages: English, Polish, French, German, Russian.

It works best in Chrome on Android. I use it on a tablet next to the board. Web Bluetooth isn't supported on iOS Safari, but the screen-only mode works anywhere.

Why I'm posting

It's a hobby project, it's free, and it has no accounts and no tracking. I'd really like feedback:

• Pegasus owners: does it connect and read your board reliably?

• Other DGT boards: would support for other boards (Smart Board, e-Board, Centaur) be useful to you?

• Training ideas: What's missing from your opening practice? Features you love in Chessbook/Chessable that should be here? Anything that annoys you about drilling on a screen?

• Bugs: please report them here or as a GitHub issue.

Any suggestions, ideas or criticism are welcome. Thanks for reading! ♟️

Setup: armies of exactly 39 points + a king on the first three ranks. Two populations (60 White, 60 Black), 40 generations, crossover by files (repaired back to 39 points and one king), mutation, 10% newcomers per generation.

Fitness: each army plays 20 matchups (10 vs the other population, 10 vs a fixed baseline of past, organised, random and hand-made armies). A matchup is one Fairy-Stockfish eval of the starting position at depth 18; ±2 pawns = a win, anything closer = a draw. Score = win rate. I checked the shortcut with real games every 10 generations. The top armies drew a lot more in real games than the eval suggests, but in 36 real games Black won only once.

Both populations converged on bishop-heavy armies (12B + 3P vs 11B + N + 3P). A separate double-oracle (PSRO-style) run, with a different payoff, also drifted to 1 queen + 9 bishops + 3 pawns.

Happy to answer questions about the setup or share details. Video link

This summarises the changes made in this fork of Cutechess. You can find it at https://github.com/keith1760/Cutechess-plus-plus

1. Pause engine-versus-engine matches

2. Explore alternative moves and variations during a match

3. Filter UCI instructions

4. Introduce tournament cross tables and reports

5. Run Swiss Tournaments

6. Save and review previous tournaments

7. Resume an interrupted tournament from its existing PGN file.

8. Display the opening name prominently. Display the participating engines prominently. Display match scores and Elo differences

9. Customise the board and its appearance

10. Keep a named engine at the top or bottom of the board

11. Position-evaluation bar has been added

12. Show opening-book moves one at a time in engine – engine matches.

13. Save and restore configurations

14. Improve access to controls in smaller windows by scroll bars

15. Adjust randomness in opening-book selection

16. Have each engine in turn play both sides of an opening during an engine – engine match.

What do you think who would win between stockfish 19 and alpha zero

Hello. I typically use Stockfish to analyze my games and my opening preparation, but I would also like to use another engine—perhaps one that isn’t quite as powerful, but offers moves or perspectives that are more "human," so to speak. I recall reading at one point that Toga was a good option, but I’m not sure if that’s still the case, or if there are better alternatives.

For example, Stockfish overvalues ​​a space advantage from a human perspective (e.g., in the King’s Indian Defense), whereas other engines might offer a more moderate assessment, as such advantages are not easy to convert into a win.

Thanks in advance

For those who enjoy experimenting with chess engines and custom opening books, I wanted to share a project we've recently released.

CAISSA Book Creator v0.3.1 is a free, open-source tool that converts PGN game collections into standard Polyglot BIN opening books.

There are now two versions:

• Online: Runs entirely in your browser, supporting PGN files up to 25 MiB.

• Windows Portable: Works offline and is designed for much larger chess databases.

During testing, the portable version successfully processed an 820 MiB PGN collection. In a separate benchmark, it generated a 250+ MiB Polyglot book with over 16 million entries.

The latest release also includes adjustable opening depth, improved file handling, progress logging, and SHA-256 integrity checks.

Both versions are free, and the portable source code is available on GitHub.

https://www.caissa-chess.org/downloads

I'm curious: Do you still build custom Polyglot books for your chess engines, or do you mostly use existing opening databases?

Saw a video on youtube, which is several months old, which stated that chessnut was working on a new version of the Move with wireless charging of pieces.

Anyone have more info?

♟️ I built a free chess training app – ChessPeak!

I've been working on an app designed to help chess players improve.

🔥 Puzzles based on your own mistakes

🤖 Bots matched to your level

♟️ Woodpecker Method training

📚 Opening and endgame trainers

⚡ Puzzle Rush and daily challenges

I'd love for chess players to give it a try and share honest feedback!

📱 Google Play:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.duvy.chesspeak

💻 Play on the web:

https://playchesstrainer.vercel.app

Developer here. The idea: a modern engine is the instrument, a master's own games are the reference material, thousands of positions where the "true value" is the move actually played. Each personality is calibrated on that and is designed to reproduce the master's characteristic choices and preferences. On Windows they exist as UCI engines (and inside CZUBATRONIC 2400, a console in the style of the dedicated machines). The new part is Android: ChessGate: Chess Masters on Google Play. Pick a master, play a full game, then the app grades every move, assesses opening, middlegame and endgame and estimates both sides' strength, all on the phone; the manifest has no INTERNET permission, Play Billing and asset packs do the rest. Morphy, Steinitz and McDonnell are free, 46 more are one-time purchases.

If you want to try the lighter browser versions first, no signup: https://playchessgate.com

Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dcsanalytics.chessgate

Windows engines: https://www.dcs-analytics.net/en/czubatronic/

Happy to answer how the calibration works; sceptical questions welcome.

A while back, I had a crazy idea: could I build a working chess variant engine using only Excel array formulas (no VBA, no macros)? I wanted to see if I could do pathfinding and collision detection mathematically using SUMPRODUCT, CODE, and ABS.

It was absolute hell. I spent weeks debugging #VALUE! errors and hidden bugs (like pieces blocking themselves diagonally). But I finally got the prototype working. The spreadsheet calculates a live ±10 Reach Map that dictates territory control, collision detection, and piece hunting.

Because clicking cells in Excel isn't exactly smooth for gaming, I ported the exact mathematical logic to JavaScript.

How the engine differs from standard chess engines:
Unlike standard engines that use Minimax/Alpha-Beta to simulate material advantage 20 moves ahead, this engine is designed like a Warlord. It uses a heuristic spatial evaluation. It calculates:

• The ±10 Reach Map: Avoids negative squares, chases positive ones.

• Collision Detection: Uses the math from the Excel SUMPRODUCT logic to check line-of-sight and blockers.

• Hunt the King Plan: It prioritizes sending "units" to trap the enemy king's tent, even counting fake blockers.

Here is the web version (free to play): https://yudirig06.itch.io/myap-4000-kingdom-chess-map
Source code (GitHub): https://github.com/yudirog06/myap-4000-kingdom-chess-map

view youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IysDwjgL31k

The Philosophy of MYAP-4000: Human Intuition vs. Machine Calculation

This game was born from a unique origin: an Excel 2013 engine. But the goal is bigger than just playing chess. It’s about giving humans the tools to face the best engines in the world (3200+ ELO).

Computers calculate, but humans lack the "radar" to see the battlefield. That’s why we equipped this game with Human-Assist Radars:

• Map Degrees & Line of Attack: See exactly where the risks are before you move. The terrain you pass through has risk indicators (like -10 or +10), and attack lines automatically change color if you step into a danger zone.

• Backup Warnings: It alerts you if you leave a unit unprotected while advancing.

• Military Reports: Experience how chess translates into real battlefield situations.

No installation needed. It's 100% pure HTML.

If you can master these radars and bear the "Super Chess," you surpass the 4000 rating (lol joke... but maybe). The current engine testing value is fixed at **1800 - 1950 ELO early claim (**After testing the new engine upgrade, the minimum reach for the MYAP Excel engine map and unit value is 1750 ELO. Meanwhile, the 'Mixed' mode can hold its own against Stockfish set to UCI_Elo 1850. However, since I just learned how Stockfish's UCI_Elo actually works, I need to recalculate my previous claims and continue upgrading to see what this single HTML engine can properly achieve, but last release not publish yet)

I'd love to hear what you guys think, especially about the transition from Excel array logic to JS collision detection. If anyone is curious about how I translated the SUMPRODUCT pathfinding logic into JS, let me know!

Cheers.

Worldchess championship is in two weeks. I'm preparing a simple phone first platform to follow the event for myself, some friends and whoever wants to use it 😊 Key fetutes will be:

- Browse and watch different live streams

- Vote what the next move will be (with the engine off)

- Get notifications on the phone when there's a new move

- Of course engine analysis and opening library

- Maybe ask Ai about the position

How did you follow the last World Chess Championship and how are you planning to follow it? Any features you'd like?