Critter (chess)

Critter is a cross-platform UCI chess engine by Slovakian programmer Richard Vida which is free for non-commercial use. The engine has achieved top five on most official chess engine Elo rating lists.^[1][2][3][4]

History

Richard started working on Critter in late 2008. The first version was originally written in Delphi but the code was later converted to C++ using Bitboard technology because Delphi did not perform well under 64-bit processors.^[5][6] In January 2013, Richard released a compressed binary of a single threaded engine dubbed Robodini,^[7] compiled from the sources of his re-engineering attempts of Houdini 3, to win a bet and prove that he could do it within a few weeks with the Robbolito source code-base available.^[8] Critter had its over-the-board (OTB) debut at the ICT 2012, where it became a strong runner-up behind the Rybka cluster.^[9]

Notable games

Tornado vs Critter, nTCEC S2, Stage 2, 3.6

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

16...Ng4! Critter sacrifices a rook for a fearsome attack.

• Tornado vs Critter, nTCEC S2, Stage 2, 3.7, 0-1 Critter sacs two pawns and the exchange to build up a fearsome attack.^[10]
• Toga vs Critter, nTCEC S2, Stage 2, 4.6, 0-1 Another attacking demonstration from Critter.^[10]

References