I want to see what it looks like to analyze a game with a program.
Can you recommend me one? It has to run on Linux and be free ( open-source would be a plus ;)
in fact I want to add analysis feature to lichess. Something very simple like:
1. d4 -- book move
....
12. a5 -- ok
12... e3 -- less than ideal, Nb6 was better
13. a6 -- blunder, Be3 was better
you got the point. For each move, evaluate the position, tell if the move was good and if not tell what was better.
So... I'm looking for a software I could integrate to lichess. Ideally crafty, but it does not that natively.
I'm searching around. Let me know if you know anything about that stuff
Sorry but what you're asking for is too particular. You might find yourself sticking with Crafty.
By far among all, the best known free chess engine is Houdini 1.5a. It plays more romantically than Rybka 4, which you have to pay to get.
Neither are open-source.
Neither are ported to Linux, but they will run on Linux.
The author of Houdini recommends using WINE to execute the engine on non-Windows operating systems without any significant performance loss.
Shredder is handheld, portable, and ported between various operating systems, but it is not free (shareware) or open-source.
Actually, after doing a little research, if you are not happy with using Crafty here you might consider doing a serious upgrade to Stockfish:
http://www.stockfishchess.com/It is competent against both Rybka and Houdini, open-source, free, and cross-platform.
If for whatever reason you cannot decide for Stockfish, the most fundamental alternative for you to Crafty appears to be GNU Chess:
http://www.gnu.org/software/chess/But I hate that fucking cow.
I've used scid with stockfish a little and they seem to have worked nicely.
In scid you open up a game from a PGN, go to Tools -> Analysis Engine to set up and start stockfish and if you want annotations for blunders etc., click the annotation button at the bottom of the analysis screen.
I used pychess on when i dual-booted fedora, and I had installed stockfish to play against. But i'm not sure if pychess allows for engine analysis of games (probably does).
I think the analysis features in pychess are actually very limited; afaik it only has a hint mode where it can show you the best engine move for the current position in an ongoing game.
links for scid:
http://scid.sourceforge.net/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane's_Chess_Information_DatabaseI'm not sure if its analysis features can be easily integrated with anything though; I don't find a reference to them being accessible through a command line interface or somesuch.
But for one's personal GUI needs at least it does the job.
Meng, I want an engine, but I can't run it on my weak and only laptops for school. :I Share ze wealth
