Retro engine broadcasts on xyzzy.me.uk

[op12no2]

The idea behind

https://xyzzy.me.uk

is to broadcast tournaments between retro/old/novel/interesting/artisan engines for fun, including replicas of some engines based on the available literature.

I'm using Martin's Myracle chess GUI to run the games and Andres's Myracle Broadcast Server to publish them. Myracle is running on Windows and the broadcast server is running in WSL. It literally took minutes to set up thanks to Andres's README.md, which Fable 5.1 read and said 'no problem, just need to tweak a few things because of WSL'.

Currently it's just running a Lozza match as a test run.

I'll update this thread when I have something running for real.

Thanks Martin and Andres; absolutely incredible work. I love the setup.

[op12no2]

Still practicing but currently playing:-

Sargon I (1978) - fixed depth of 6
Sargon I + ID (1978) - but no TT
Psion 2.13

watch here: https://xyzzy.me.uk

https://github.com/billforsternz/retro-sargon
https://github.com/vdbergh/psion-chess

No adjudication.

If anybody has any retro/interesting Windows executables they'd like to contribute, please feel free to email me: op12no2@gmail.com.

Planning on creating engines for the original Shannon algorithms(s).

[op12no2]

Added 2 engines with Shannon Type-A and Type-B searches implementing his 1950 paper.

Watch here: https://xyzzy.me.uk/

Engine repo: https://github.com/op12no2/shannon

[op12no2]

11 round swiss "its all shannons fault" with 28 engines now running.

watch here: https://xyzzy.me.uk/

#,engine,year,group,protocol,notes

1,Turochamp,1948,retro,uci,"Turing and Champernowne, recreated"
2,Shannon A,1950,retro,uci,full-width Type A
3,Shannon B,1950,retro,uci,"plausible-move Type B, width 4"
4,Bernstein,1957,retro,uci,"IBM 704 programme, recreated"
5,SOMA,1961,retro,uci,"Michie's paper algorithm, recreated"
6,Kotok,1962,retro,uci,"Kotok-McCarthy, recreated"
7,Tech,1971,retro,uci,"Gillogly's material-only engine, recreated"
8,Chess VI,1973,oldies,xboard,"Ken Thompson, PDP-11"
9,Microchess,1976,oldies,xboard,"KIM-1, Forster's translation"
10,Sargon I,1978,oldies,uci,"original Z80 code, Forster's port"
11,CHEKMO-II,1978,oldies,xboard,PDP-8
12,Psion 2.13,1985,oldies,uci,Richard Lang
13,GNU Chess 4.0,1992,oldies,xboard,built from source
14,Kaissa,1992,oldies,xboard,PC version of the 1974 champion
15,Beal,1994,retro,uci,random evaluation
16,Rebel 6.0,1994,oldies,uci,from Ed Schroder
17,TSCP 1.81,1997,oldies,xboard,"CCRL 1600, the anchor"
18,Phalanx XXV,1997,oldies,uci,CCRL 2610
19,micro-Max 4.8,2007,oldies,xboard,1950 characters of C
20,Toledo Nanochess,2009,oldies,xboard,1257 characters of C
21,Iota,2012,oldies,uci,"1788 characters of C, never castles"
22,N.E.G. 1.3,2014,oldies,xboard,no evaluation
23,Pasteque,2018,oldies,uci,self-taught random weights
24,Rodent IV,2019,oldies,uci,personalities available
25,PeSTO 2.210,2020,oldies,uci,piece-square tables only
26,Random Mover,2020,oldies,uci,the floor
27,MinimalChess 0.6,2021,oldies,uci,
28,Fairy-Random,2021,oldies,uci,Fairy-Stockfish as random mover

[op12no2]

Removed Ivan Bychkov's random mover as essentially the same as Fairy-Random.

Added Crafty 11.13 - same era as Rebel 6 and first verison that played in world chamionship, WMCCC Jakarta 1996.

Restarted.

Watch here: https://xyzzy.me.uk/

[op12no2]

Added a new event - Dice Against the Clock.

Four engines based on randomness, but, play better moves with more time...

Event info: https://claude.ai/artifact/Ukt4GmTBHhMesRChf8vsfS

Watch here: https://xyzzy.me.uk/#e=dice-against-the-clock

All four engines randomise via the clock when loaded so playing from 'startpos' should be OK, pretty crazy stuff anyway

[Michel]

Great event! Thanks!

[op12no2]

"Dice Against the Clock" results.

Code: Select all

# Name            Points   %      Elo     +/-    W-L-D      1          2          3          4          
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Roller 2026     30.0/30  100.0    +inf         +30-0=0               1111111111 1111111111 1111111111 
2 UCT 2006        15.5/30   51.7   +11.6  122.9  +14-13=3   0000000000            011101101= 1==1111111 
3 Beal 1994       11.5/30   38.3   -82.6  132.7  +11-18=1   0000000000 100010010=            1110101111 
4 Abramson 1987    3.0/30   10.0  -381.7  379.5  +2-26=2    0000000000 0==0000000 0001010000            

60/60 games, 5% draws, time control:720+8, event: Dice Against the Clock

Tournament start: 2026-11-07 12:09:32
Last update: 2026-11-08 12:35:03
GUI: Myracle v1.0 build 167

Roller was on a single thread and about 1500 Elo - random game rollouts/playouts - no search - root move with most wins chosen - was achieving 30k-40k rollouts per sec. It would be interesting to see how Roller does on more threads.

"It's all Shannon's Fault" still going: https://xyzzy.me.uk

[op12no2]

New event running "The Naughties" - 14 engines from 2003 to 2008.

https://xyzzy.me.uk/

Delfi 5.4 2008
Yace Paderborn 2003
Crafty 20.14 2006
Fruit 2.1 2005
Gandalf 6.0 2003
Glaurung 2.2 2008
Pharaon 3.5.1 2006
ProDeo 1.2 2006
Ruffian 1.0.5 2003
Rybka 1.0 Beta 2005
Spike 1.2 Turin 2006
Stockfish 1.0 2008
Toga II 1.2.1a 2006
Zappa 1.1 2005

[op12no2]

Added an events page, with in-progress/completed results/PGNs as well as a list of up-coming events.

https://xyzzy.me.uk/events