It seems like it’s partially based on LeanChess [1], which is 288 bytes long. I’d be curious to know whether this program was AI-assisted or written entirely from scratch, since Lean Chess was written at a time predating the era of LLMs.
Another thing that amuses me is that these tiny programs often claim to be “complete” chess engines while not actually implementing all the rules. This one doesn’t appear to support en passant, and likely doesn't have pawn promotion either.
If you’re allowed to arbitrarily redefine the scope of chess, then code size stops being as impressive a metric.
Yeah, I don't understand why the metric isn't "complete chess engine that achieves X ELO" in yyy bytes or something.
Instead it seems to have been "minimal thing that kinda looks like chess in yyy bytes"
reilly3000 42 minutes ago [-]
I found some correctness issues that leave me a little unimpressed, although it’s a pretty phenomenal piece of code golf in general. For example, on my second move I mistakenly entered f1a1 instead of f1a6. It accepted this and then suddenly I had a bishop where the rook should be and no idea if my rook still exists.
wat10000 41 minutes ago [-]
It's intentionally rather limited. There's no validation of the input moves, and it leaves out some important rules.
> Moves are trusted and given in plain coordinates: no click-to-move, no castling, en passant, or promotion.
semitones 54 minutes ago [-]
I was able to capture the opponent's pawn on H4 by moving my pawn from H2 to H4. Huge and unacceptable bug, this is a joke.
jcoder 40 minutes ago [-]
> Moves are trusted
Indeed, you can just play e1e8 and capture the opponents king (which doesn’t end the game). It’s a digital chessboard, not a chess engine.
tzal3x 26 minutes ago [-]
Doesn’t work. Played p2p5 and it just accepted it.
dwheeler 58 minutes ago [-]
Impressive, but no castling or en passent, so it's not really chess.
TMWNN 56 minutes ago [-]
Highly relevant:
Great Moments in PCMR History: A chess game published in 1982 includes a computer opponent but only uses 672 bytes of RAM. 1K ZX Chess has been described as "wizardry", "history's greatest game programming feat", and "the greatest program ever written". By comparison, this headline uses 298 bytes. <https://np.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/3s9riy/great_m...>
anematode 27 minutes ago [-]
Slop.
Rendered at 21:36:51 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Another thing that amuses me is that these tiny programs often claim to be “complete” chess engines while not actually implementing all the rules. This one doesn’t appear to support en passant, and likely doesn't have pawn promotion either.
If you’re allowed to arbitrarily redefine the scope of chess, then code size stops being as impressive a metric.
[1] - https://leanchess.github.io
Instead it seems to have been "minimal thing that kinda looks like chess in yyy bytes"
> Moves are trusted and given in plain coordinates: no click-to-move, no castling, en passant, or promotion.
Indeed, you can just play e1e8 and capture the opponents king (which doesn’t end the game). It’s a digital chessboard, not a chess engine.
Great Moments in PCMR History: A chess game published in 1982 includes a computer opponent but only uses 672 bytes of RAM. 1K ZX Chess has been described as "wizardry", "history's greatest game programming feat", and "the greatest program ever written". By comparison, this headline uses 298 bytes. <https://np.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/3s9riy/great_m...>