Chess Engine with parameters / Chessmaster

Hello,

I've been wanting to play around with a chess engine on Arena for quite some time. I tried Zappa but the original version which is free doesn't have that many things to play around with compared to what I've seen of Chessmaster. However I can't find a (reliable - there are jerks out there) website to download Chessmaster from for PC, there are places to download it for PS4 or something else.

Does anyone know of any such engine which has adjustable parameters (besides playing strength) that I can play with in Arena? Would enjoy it a lot.
Thanks in advance.

There hasn't been a chessmaster release since 2007 (and every instalment was premium). It was/is fun. Besides playing with different personalities, there were a lot of parameters to play around with.

They say Lucas Chess is also pretty interesting, and 100% free last I checked. I could never get used to the setup though.

Chessmaster GM Edition boasts some powerful lessons, namely the Josh Waitzkin series, but I found the playing engine a little weak or unstable. For that reason I prefer 9000. But they say you can plug in different engines into CM, such as stockfish for example, or komodo, etc. 

You can't buy Chessmaster anymore, except on the used markets like Amazon and eBay. Chessmaster is getting harder to install into modern Windows operating systems, and it was only designed to import Winboard engines. You can only install UCI engines like Stockfish if you get fancy using adapters.

I remember that the old Fruit engine had a million settings, although I didn't understand what most of them did. The Rodent engine has a lot of personalities and configurable settings - you might want to check that one out.

http://www.pkoziol.cal24.pl/rodent/rodent.htm

That probably explains why I couldn't find anything for Chessmaster.

I tried Lucas Chess but it's not really one where you can configure chess engines. I have Zappa for Arena, which has some parameters you can play around with but far fewer compared to the priced Zappa II. I'm looking for something similar but with as many parameters as someone has found in the configuration screen.

I checked the link you gave me, the download link that was on that page was reported by my computer as a fishy site. Are you sure it is safe to visit and safe to download? I know of the dangers that are out there.

I have installed the Fruit engine, besides Stockfish 12 and the free Zappa together with the engines that came with Arena 3.5.1.

If there are any further suggestions on (free) chess engines which have a lot of parameters to tweak with, let me know.

I've downloaded rodent from that link with no problem.

I've used that link in the past with no problems, and Pawel Koziol is well known in the chess programming community:

https://www.chessprogramming.org/Pawel_Koziol

https://www.chessprogramming.org/Rodent

However, I just now checked his site with Zscaler, VirusTotal, and SSL Labs. Of course, the link isn't https. The only issue found was a certificate mismatch. I don't view that as a problem, as long as you don't give up any personal information on the site. (But then, he doesn't ask for any. ;-))

I downloaded it, but turns out I don't have an application that can unzip .7z files. I'll probably not use it then.

But the Fruit engine suggestion is a bop!

When I'm in Windows, I use 7-Zip. It's great!

https://www.7-zip.org/

Have a look at this https://banksiagui.com/

"Playing around" with a chess engine in arena? If you're saying what I think you're saying, this is completely against the rules and would constitute cheating. If you get caught, you get banned; and it's very likely that you will get caught. Hardly a week passes where I don't receive a rating adjustment because some moron used an engine against me in a tournament, was caught, and subsequently banned. Please don't be part of the problem.

There's no indication that he's doing what you think he's doing. Your paranoia is showing...

Hmm, how many games have I played here? Ah yes. Zero.

By Arena, I meant the Arena Chess GUI, an application which allows you to install engines to a GUI interface and let them play against each other, or play against them yourselves, or do pre-game/post-game analysis.

You're a new level of paranoid. It was pretty clear what I was asking for has nothing to do with cheating. This attitude is the same as walking around thinking everyone wants to rob your wallet. And you could've checked your suspicions by IDK, check if I played any games yet, or something like that, so you're being rude for no reason.