Update

chess.md

@@ -8,8 +8,8 @@ Chess (from Persian *shah*, *king*) is a very [old](old.md) two-player board [ga
 
 **At [LRS](lrs.md) we consider chess to be one of the best games** for the following reasons:
 
-- It is just a greatly [interesting](interesting.md) and deep game in which luck plays minimal role.
-- **It is greatly [suckless](suckless.md)**, the rules are very simple, it can be implemented on simple 8bit computers. Of course the game doesn't even require a computer, just a board and a few men -- chess masters don't even need a board to play (they can completely visualize the games in memory). In the end one can in theory just play against himself in his head, achieving the ultimate freedom: the only dependency of the game is one's brain, i.e. it becomes a [brain software](brain_software.md). Chess is extremely inexpensive, doesn't discriminate against poor people and will survive even the most extreme technological [collapse](collapse.md).
+- It's just a deeply [interesting](interesting.md), profound game in which luck plays minimal role.
+- **It is greatly [suckless](suckless.md)**, the rules are truly simple, it can be implemented on simple 8bit computers. Of course the game doesn't even require a computer, just a board and a few men -- chess masters don't even need a board to play (they can completely visualize the games in memory). In the end one can in theory just play against himself in his head, achieving the ultimate [freedom](freedom.md): the only [dependency](dependency.md) of the game is one's brain, i.e. it becomes a [brain software](brain_software.md). Chess is extremely inexpensive, doesn't discriminate against poor people and will survive even the most extreme technological [collapse](collapse.md).
 - **No one owns chess**, the game is hundreds of years old and many books about it are also already in the [public domain](public_domain.md). It is extremely free.
 - It is a basis for other derived games, for example many different chess variants or chess puzzles which can be considered a "singleplayer chess game".
 - It is a source of many interesting [mathematical](math.md) and programming challenges.
@@ -17,11 +17,11 @@ Chess (from Persian *shah*, *king*) is a very [old](old.md) two-player board [ga
 
 Many however see [go](go.md) as yet a more [beautiful](beauty.md) game: a more minimal, yet more difficult one, with a completely unique experience.
 
-**Where to play chess online?** There exist many servers such as https://chess.com or https://chess24.com -- however these ones are proprietary and toxic, NEVER use them. { The cocsuckers from chess.com just started to hardcore spam my mail when I registered there lol. ~drummyfish } A much better one is **Lichess** ([libre](libre.md) chess) at https://lichess.org which is not only [FOSS](foss.md), but also gratis, without [ads](marketing.md) and is actually superior in all ways even to the proprietary sites, allowing users to run their own bots, offering [public domain](public_domain.md) database of all the games and positions, [API](api.md), analysis board, puzzles, chess variants, minigames, TV and much more -- however it requires [JavaScript](js.md). Another server, a more [suckless](suckless.md) one, is **Free Internet Chess Server** (FICS) at https://www.freechess.org/ -- on this one you can play through telnet (`telnet freechess.org 5000`) or with graphical clients like pychess. Online servers usually rate players with Elo/Glicko just like FIDE, sometimes there are computer opponents available, chess puzzles, variants, analysis tools etc.
+**Where to play chess online?** There exist many [servers](server.md) such as https://chess.com or https://chess24.com -- however these ones are proprietary and toxic, NEVER use them. { The cocsuckers from chess.com just started to hardcore spam my mail when I registered there lol. ~drummyfish } A much better one is **Lichess** ([libre](libre.md) chess) at https://lichess.org which is not only [FOSS](foss.md), but also gratis, without [ads](marketing.md) and is actually superior in all ways even to the proprietary sites, allowing users to run their own bots, offering [public domain](public_domain.md) database of all the games and positions, [API](api.md), analysis board, puzzles, chess variants, minigames, TV and much more -- however it requires [JavaScript](js.md). Another server, a more [suckless](suckless.md) one, is **Free Internet Chess Server** (FICS) at https://www.freechess.org/ -- on this one you can play through telnet (`telnet freechess.org 5000`) or with graphical clients like pychess. Online servers usually rate players with Elo/Glicko just like FIDE, sometimes there are computer opponents available, chess puzzles, variants, analysis tools etc.
 
 Chess as a game is not and cannot be [copyrighted](copyright.md), but **can chess games (moves played in a match) be copyrighted?** Thankfully there is a pretty strong consensus and precedence that say this is not the case, even though [capital worshippers](capitalism.md) try to play the intellectual property card from time to time (e.g. 2016 tournament organizers tried to stop chess websites from broadcasting the match moves under "trade secret protection", unsuccessfully).
 
-**Chess and [IQ](iq.md)/intelligence** (a quite comprehensive summary of the topic is available here: http://www.billwallchess.com/articles/IQ.htm): there is a debate about how much of a weight general vs specialized intelligence, IQ, memory and pure practice have in becoming good at chess. It's not clear at all, everyone's opinion differs. A popular formula (Levitt equation) states that *highest achievable Elo = 1000 + 10 * IQ*, though its accuracy and validity are of course highly questionable. All in all this is probably very similar to language learning: obviously some kind of intelligence/talent is needed to excel, however chess is extremely similar to any other sport in that putting HUGE amounts of time and effort into practice (preferably from young age) is what really makes you good -- without practice even the biggest genius in the world will be easily beaten by a casual chess amateur, and even a relatively dumb man can learn chess very well under the right conditions (just like any dumbass can learn at least one language well); many highest level chess players admit they sucked at math and hated it. As one starts playing chess, he seems to more and more discover that it's really all about studying and practice more than anything else, at least up until the highest master levels where the genius gives a player the tiny nudge needed for the win -- at the grandmaster level intelligence seems to start to matter more. Intelligence is perhaps more of an accelerator of learning, not any hard limit on what can be achieved, however also just having fun and liking chess (which may be just given by upbringing etc.) may have similar accelerating effects on learning. Really the very basics can be learned by literally ANYONE, then it's just about learning TONS of concepts and principles (and automatizing them), be it tactical patterns (forks, pins, double check, discovery checks, sacrifices, smothered mates, ...), good habits, positional principles (pawn structure, king safety, square control, piece activity, ...), opening theory (this alone takes many years and can never end), endgame and mating patterns, time management etcetc.
+**Chess and [IQ](iq.md)/intelligence** (a quite comprehensive summary of the topic is available here: http://www.billwallchess.com/articles/IQ.htm): there is a debate about how much of a weight general vs specialized intelligence, IQ, memory and pure practice have in becoming good at chess. It's not clear at all, everyone's opinion differs. A popular formula (Levitt equation) states that *highest achievable Elo = 1000 + 10 * IQ*, though its accuracy and validity are of course highly questionable. All in all this is probably very similar to language learning: obviously some kind of intelligence/talent is needed to excel, however chess is extremely similar to any other sport in that putting HUGE amounts of time and effort into practice (preferably from young age) is what really makes you good -- without practice even the biggest genius in the world will be easily beaten by a casual chess amateur, and even a relatively dumb man can learn chess very well under the right conditions (just like any dumbass can learn at least one language well); many highest level chess players admit they sucked at math and hated it. As one starts playing chess, he seems to more and more discover that it's really all about studying and practice more than anything else, at least up until the highest master levels where the genius gifts a player the tiny nudge needed for the win -- at the grandmaster level intelligence seems to start to matter more. Intelligence is perhaps more of an accelerator of learning, not any hard limit on what can be achieved, however also just having fun and liking chess (which may be just given by upbringing etc.) may have similar accelerating effects on learning. Really the very basics can be learned by literally ANYONE, then it's just about learning TONS of concepts and principles (and automatizing them), be it tactical patterns (forks, pins, double check, discovery checks, sacrifices, smothered mates, ...), good habits, positional principles (pawn structure, king safety, square control, piece activity, ...), opening theory (this alone takes many years and can never end), endgame and mating patterns, time management etcetc.
 
 { NOTE (speculative): I think I've heard some research suggested that it's not so much the spatial/visual part of the brain that's responsible for playing chess but rather the language part, it really seems like learning chess might be more similar to learning a foreign language -- it takes about the same time to become "fluent" at chess and the key to being good at it is starting at young age. I.e. the relationship of chess and intelligence is probably similar to that of language learning and intelligence. ~drummyfish }
 
@@ -29,13 +29,13 @@ Chess as a game is not and cannot be [copyrighted](copyright.md), but **can ches
 
 Fun fact 2: in 2022 a chess playing robot took and broke a finger of a 7 year old opponent lol.
 
-**How to play chess with yourself?** If you have no computer or humans to play against, you may try playing against yourself, however playing a single game against yourself doesn't really work, you know what the opponent is trying to do -- not that it's not interesting, but it's more of a search for general strategies in specific situations rather than actually playing a game. One way around this could be to play many games at once (you can use multiple boards but also just noting the positions on paper as you probably won't be able to set up 100 boards); every day you can make one move in some selected games -- randomize the order and games you play e.g. with dice rolls. The number of games along with the randomized order should make it difficult for you to remember what the opponent (you) was thinking on his turn. Of course you can record the games by noting the moves, but you may want to cover the moves (in which case you'll have to be keeping the whole positions noted) until the game is finished, so that you can't cheat by looking at the game history while playing. If this method doesn't work for you because you can keep up with all the games, at least you know you got real good at chess :) { This is an idea I haven't tried yet, I'm leaving it here as a note, will probably try it one day. ~drummyfish } Also check out single player chess variants.
+**How to play chess with yourself?** Should you lack a computer or humans to play against, you may try playing against yourself, however playing a single game against oneself doesn't really work, you know what the opponent is trying to do -- not that it's not interesting, but it's more of a search for general strategies in specific situations rather than actually playing a game. One way around this could be to play many games at once (you can use multiple boards but also just noting the positions on paper as you probably won't be able to set up 100 boards); every day you can make one move in some selected games -- randomize the order and games you play e.g. with dice rolls. The number of games along with the randomized order should make it difficult for you to remember what the opponent (you) was thinking on his turn. Of course you can record the games by noting the moves, but you may want to cover the moves (in which case you'll have to be keeping the whole positions noted) until the game is finished, so that you can't cheat by looking at the game history while playing. If this method doesn't work for you because you can keep up with all the games, at least you know you got real good at chess :) { This is an idea I haven't tried yet, I'm leaving it here as a note, will probably try it one day. ~drummyfish } Also check out single player chess variants.
 
 **Is there any luck or [randomness](randomness.md) in chess?** Not in the rules of game itself of course, there is no dice rolling and there is no hidden information, however luck and randomness is present in the meta game (playing as white vs black may be decided randomly, your opponent may be assigned to you randomly etc.) and then [de facto](de_facto.md) in the fact that although no information is hidden, no one can ever have a complete information due to the sheer complexity of the game, so in practice playing chess involves risk, intuition and educated guessing at any human and superhuman (computer) level. So chess players do commonly talk about luck, outcome of a game is always a matter of probability which is however given by the relative skill of both players. Probability of a hobbyist beating professional in a fair game, unlike e.g. in some card games, can effectively be considered [zero](zero.md).
 
 ## Chess In General
 
-Chess evolved from ancient board games in India (most notably Chaturanga) in about 6th century -- some sources say that in chess predecessor games dice was used to determine which man a player was allowed to move but that once dice were banned because of hazard games, we got the variant without any element of chance. Nowadays the game is internationally governed by **FIDE** which has taken the on role of an authority that defines the official rules: FIDE rules are considered to be the standard chess rules. FIDE also organizes tournaments, promotes the game and keeps a list of registered players whose performance it rates with so called **[Elo](elo.md)** system --⁠ based on the performance it also grants titles such as **Grandmaster** (GM, strongest, around 2000 in the world), **International Master** (IM, second strongest, roughly 4000 in the world), **FIDE Master** (FM, roughly 8000 in the world) or **Candidate Master** (CM). A game of chess is so interesting in itself that chess is usually not played for money like many other games ([poker](poker.md), [backgammon](backgammon.md), ...).
+Chess evolved from ancient board games in India (most notably Chaturanga) in about 6th century -- some sources proclaim that in chess predecessor games dice was used to determine which man a player was allowed to move but that once dice were banned because of hazard games, we got the variant without any element of chance. Nowadays the game is internationally governed by **FIDE** which has taken the on role of an authority defining the official rules: FIDE rules are considered to be the standard chess rules. FIDE also organizes tournaments, promotes the game and keeps a list of registered players whose performance it rates with so called **[Elo](elo.md)** system --⁠ based on the performance it also grants titles such as **Grandmaster** (GM, strongest, around 2000 in the world), **International Master** (IM, second strongest, roughly 4000 in the world), **FIDE Master** (FM, roughly 8000 in the world) or **Candidate Master** (CM). A game of chess is so interesting in itself that chess is usually not played for money like many other games ([poker](poker.md), [backgammon](backgammon.md), ...).
 
 The mastery of chess is often divided into two main areas (it is also common to divide strong players into these two categories depending on where their main strength lies):
 
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ A single game of chess is seen as consisting of three stages: **opening** (start
 
 The study of chess openings is called **opening theory** or just *theory*. Playing the opening stage is special by being based on memorization of this theory, i.e. hundreds or even thousands of existing opening lines that have been studied and analyzed by computers, rather than by performing mental calculation (logical "thinking ahead" present in middlegame and endgame). Some see this as weakness of chess that makes players spend extreme energy on pure memorization. One of the best and most famous players, Bobby Fischer, was of this opinion and has created a chess variant with randomized starting position that prevents such memorization, so called *chess 960*.
 
-**[Elo](elo.md) rating** is a mathematical system of numerically rating the performance of players (it is used in many sports, not just chess); Elo basically assigns players a rating number that says how skilled the player is. Given two players with Elo rating it is possible to compute the probability of the game's outcome (e.g. white has 70% chance of winning etc.). The FIDE set the parameters so that the rating is roughly this: < 1000: beginner, 1000-2000: intermediate, 2000-3000: master (currently best humans rate close to 3000). More advanced systems have also been created, namely the Glicko system, however these are often quite [bloated](bloat.md) and complicated, so Elo stays the most commonly used rating system. **Alternative ways** of determining player skills also exist, for example so called accuracy, which says how closely one played to the perfect play according to some strong engine such as stockfish. The advantage here is that to rate a player we don't need too much data like with Elo (which needs to see many games of the player against other already rated players) -- it may be enough to let the player play a few games against a computer to determine his skill. A disadvantage however lies in how exactly to compute accuracy because that gets a little complicated by other factors, for example many times finding the best move is trivial (like retaking a queen in an exchange) while in others gets much more difficult, or the fact that humans often DON'T want to play the mathematically best move but rather a bit weaker, more comfortable one, so even grandmasters often choose a weaker move even though they know the theoretically best move. Another idea may be to use a standard set of puzzles, basically like an [IQ](iq.md) test. Yet another idea is for example to compute so called [Erdos number](erdos_number.md), i.e. the minimum length of a chain of victories from the world's best player, i.e. for example rating player A with number 3 says he defeated someone who defeated someone who defeated the world's best. A guy called tom7 devised a method for measuring performance of weak chess engines by basically mixing stockfish (the strongest chess engine) with a random move bot in certain ratios -- i.e. making an engine that with certain probability (given by the mixture ratio) plays either a move by stockfish or a random move -- and then determining the mixture ratio at which this monstrosity becomes indistinguishable from the tested engine (i.e. we can say "the tested engine is a mixture of stockfish and random moves in this ratio"). Along these lines we may similarly try to compute how much of a different kind of handicap -- let's say material or time (or, with humans, amount of alcohol) -- we have to give to the strong engine for it to become on par with the tested entity (i.e. the ratio of wins and losses is about 1).
+**[Elo](elo.md) rating** is a [mathematical](math.md) system of numerically rating the performance of players (it is used in many sports, not just chess); Elo basically assigns players a rating number that says how skilled the player is. Given two players with Elo rating it is possible to compute the probability of the game's outcome (e.g. white has 70% chance of winning etc.). The FIDE set the parameters so that the rating is roughly this: < 1000: beginner, 1000-2000: intermediate, 2000-3000: master (currently best humans rate close to 3000). More advanced systems have also been created, namely the Glicko system, however these are often quite [bloated](bloat.md) and complicated, so Elo stays the most commonly used rating system. **Alternative ways** of determining player skills also exist, for example so called accuracy, which says how closely one played to the perfect play according to some strong engine such as stockfish. The advantage here is that to rate a player we don't need too much data like with Elo (which needs to see many games of the player against other already rated players) -- it may be enough to let the player play a few games against a computer to determine his skill. A disadvantage however lies in how exactly to compute accuracy because that gets a little complicated by other factors, for example many times finding the best move is trivial (like retaking a queen in an exchange) while in others gets much more difficult, or the fact that humans often DON'T want to play the mathematically best move but rather a bit weaker, more comfortable one, so even grandmasters often choose a weaker move even though they know the theoretically best move. Another idea may be to use a standard set of puzzles, basically like an [IQ](iq.md) test. Yet another idea is for example to compute so called [Erdos number](erdos_number.md), i.e. the minimum length of a chain of victories from the world's best player, i.e. for example rating player A with number 3 says he defeated someone who defeated someone who defeated the world's best. A guy called tom7 devised a method for measuring performance of weak chess engines by basically mixing stockfish (the strongest chess engine) with a random move bot in certain ratios -- i.e. making an engine that with certain probability (given by the mixture ratio) plays either a move by stockfish or a random move -- and then determining the mixture ratio at which this monstrosity becomes indistinguishable from the tested engine (i.e. we can say "the tested engine is a mixture of stockfish and random moves in this ratio"). Along these lines we may similarly try to compute how much of a different kind of handicap -- let's say material or time (or, with humans, amount of alcohol) -- we have to give to the strong engine for it to become on par with the tested entity (i.e. the ratio of wins and losses is about 1).
 
 The rules of chess are quite simple ([easy to learn, hard to master](easy_to_learn_hard_to_master.md)) and can be found anywhere on the Internet. In short, the game is played on a 8x8 board by two players: one with **[white](white.md)** men, one with **[black](black.md)** (LOL IT'S [RACIST](racism.md) :D). Each man has a way of moving and capturing (eliminating) enemy men, for example bishops move diagonally while pawns move one square forward and take diagonally. The goal is to **checkmate** the opponent's king, i.e. make the king attacked by a man while giving him no way to escape this attack. There are also lesser known rules that noobs often miss and ignore, e.g. so called en-passant or the 50 move rule that declares a draw if there has been no significant move for 50 moves.
 
@@ -56,9 +56,9 @@ At the competitive level **clock** (so called *time control*) is used to give ea
 
 Currently the best player in the world -- and probably best player of all time -- is pretty clearly Magnus Carlsen (born 1990), a [white](white.md) man from Norway with Elo rating 2800+. He just keeps beating all the other top players effortlessly, he was winning the world championship over and over before giving up the title out of boredom.
 
-During [covid](covid.md) chess has experienced a small boom among normies and [YouTube](youtube.md) chess channels have gained considerable popularity. This gave rise to [memes](meme.md) such as the bong cloud opening popularized by a top player and streamer Hikaru Nakamura; the bong cloud is an intentionally shitty opening that's supposed to taunt the opponent (it's been even played in serious tournaments lol).
+During the [covid](covid.md) pandemic (circa 2020) chess has experienced a small boom among normies and [YouTube](youtube.md) chess channels have gained considerable popularity. This boosted chess as such and gave rise to [memes](meme.md) such as the bong cloud opening popularized by a top player and streamer Hikaru Nakamura; the bong cloud is an intentionally [shitty](shit.md) opening that's supposed to taunt the opponent (it's been even played in serious tournaments [lol](lol.md)).
 
-**White is generally seen as having a slight advantage over black** (just like in [real life](irl.md) lol). It is because he always has the first move -- statistics confirm this as white on average wins a little more often (even in the world of computers which is spared of psychological factors). The advantage is very small, estimated by engines to be around a very small fraction of a pawn, and this slight imbalance doesn't play such as big role in beginner and intermediate games but starts to become apparent in master games where the play can be very equal. How big the advantages is exactly is a matter of ongoing debate, most people are of the opinion there exists a small advantage for the white (with imperfect, human play, i.e. that white plays easier, has more choices, tolerates slightly less accurate play), though most experts think chess is a draw with perfect play (pro players can usually quite safely play for a draw and secure it if they don't intend to win; world championships mostly consist of drawn games as really one player has to make a mistake to allow the other one to win). Minority of experts think white has theoretical forced win. Probably only very tiny minority of people think white doesn't have any advantage or even that black is in a better overall position. Some argue that even if black doesn't have an overall advantage, he still has a number of smaller advantages over white, as it's true that sometimes the obligation to make a move may be a disadvantage (this is called [zugzwang](zugzwang.md)). It's for example true that the theoretical fastest possible checkmate is delivered by black, not white. Probably no one thinks black has a forced win though, but as that's not disproved yet so maybe someone actually believes it.
+**White is generally seen as having a slight advantage over black** (just like in [real life](irl.md) lol). This is because he always has the first move -- statistics confirm the claim as white on average wins a little more often (even in the world of computers which is spared of psychological factors). The advantage is very small, estimated by engines to be around a very small fraction of a pawn, and this slight imbalance doesn't play such as big role in beginner and intermediate games but starts to become apparent in master games where the play can be very equal. How big the advantages is exactly is a matter of ongoing debate, most people are of the opinion there exists a small advantage for the white (with imperfect, human play, i.e. that white plays easier, has more choices, tolerates slightly less accurate play), though most experts think chess is a draw with perfect play (pro players can usually quite safely play for a draw and secure it if they don't intend to win; world championships mostly consist of drawn games as really one player has to make a mistake to allow the other one to win). Minority of experts think white has theoretical forced win. Probably only very tiny minority of people think white doesn't have any advantage or even that black is in a better overall position. Some argue that even if black doesn't have an overall advantage, he still has a number of smaller advantages over white, as it's true that sometimes the obligation to make a move may be a disadvantage (this is called [zugzwang](zugzwang.md)). It's for example true that the theoretical fastest possible checkmate is delivered by black, not white. Probably no one thinks black has a forced win though, but as that's not disproved yet so maybe someone actually believes it.
 
 **Blindfold play**: it's quite impressive that very good players can play completely blindfold, without any actual chessboard, and some can even play many games simultaneously this way. This is indeed not easy to do and playing blindfold naturally decreases one's strength a bit (it seems this is more of a case on lower level of play though). It is however not the case that only an exceptional genius could play this way, probably anyone can learn it, it's just a matter of training (it's a matter of developing an efficient mental representation of the board rather than actually exactly remembering the whole board -- in psychology called *chunking*). Probably all masters (above FIDE ELO 2000) can play blindfold. They say the ability comes naturally just by playing countless games. How to learn playing blindfold then? Just play a lot of chess, it will come naturally -- this is the advice probably most often given. However if you specifically wish to learn blindfold play, you may focus on it, e.g. by training blindfold against very weak computer. Some software chess boards offer a mode in which one can see the position and color of all men but not which type they are -- this may perhaps be a good start. It may possibly also be done very gradually -- for example start by covering just part of the board and every week cover yet more squares; eventually you'll have them all covered.
 
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ Fun fact: there seem to be **almost no black people in [chess](chess.md)** :D th
 
 Computers have already surpassed the best humans in their playing strength (we can't exactly compute an engine's [Elo](elo.md) as it depends on hardware used, but generally the strongest would rate high above 3000 FIDE). As of 2023 the strongest chess engine is widely agreed to be the [FOSS](foss.md) engine **[Stockfish](stockfish.md)**, with other strong engines being e.g. Leela Chess Zero (also FOSS), AlphaZero ([proprietary](proprietary.md) by [Google](google.md)) or Komodo Dragon (proprietary). [GNU Chess](gnu_chess.md) is a pretty strong [free software](free_software.md) engine by [GNU](gnu.md). There are world championships for chess engines such as the *Top Chess Engine Championship* or *World Computer Chess Championship*. [CCRL](https://ccrl.chessdom.com/ccrl/4040/) is a list of chess engines along with their Elo ratings deduced from tournaments they run. Despite the immense strength of modern engines, there are still some specific artificial situations in which a human beats the computer (shown e.g. in [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9IZWgArWUE) video); this probably won't last long though.
 
-The first chess computer that beat the world champion (at the time Gary Kasparov) was famously [Deep Blue](deep_blue.md) in 1997. [Alan Turing](turing.md) himself has written a chess playing algorithm but at his time there were no computers to run it, so he executed it by hand -- nowadays the algorithm has been implemented on computers (there are bots playing this algorithm e.g. on lichess).
+The first chess computer that beat the world champion (at the time Gary Kasparov) was famously [Deep Blue](deep_blue.md) in 1997. [Alan Turing](turing.md) himself has written a chess playing [algorithm](algorithm.md) but at his time there were no computers to run it, so he executed it by hand -- nowadays the algorithm has been implemented on computers (there are bots playing this algorithm e.g. on lichess).
 
 Playing strength is not the only possible measure of chess engine quality, of course -- for example there are people who try to make the **smallest chess programs** (see [countercomplex](countercomplex.md) and [golfing](golf.md)). As of 2022 the leading programmer of smallest chess programs seems to be Oscar Toledo G. (https://nanochess.org/chess.html). Unfortunately his programs are [proprietary](proprietary.md), even though their source code is public. The programs include Toledo Atomchess (392 [x86](x86.md) instructions), Toledo Nanochess (world's smallest [C](c.md) chess program, 1257 non-blank C characters) and Toledo Javascript chess (world's smallest [Javascript](javascript.md) chess program). He won the [IOCCC](ioccc.md). Another small chess program is micro-Max by H. G. Muller (https://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/max-src2.html, 1433 C characters, Toledo claims it is weaker than his program). Other engines try to be strong while imitating human play (making human moves, even mistakes), most notably Maia which trains several neural networks that play like different rated human players.