Here's a link. Lucas Chess is free and the part that I use has a couple dozen different chess engines with progressively higher ratings. Hey, it's a place to start:
http://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com
Chess Program with Variable Difficulty
Sort:
Apr 17, 2014
0
#3
In the free chess programs, it's really the chess engine that determines whether variable difficulty is an option. So you usually have to find a chess engine that has this feature, then install that engine into your Chess GUI.
Some chess GUIs like Lucas Chess come with some of these engines preinstalled, so that makes it an easier task. A few other GUIs come with one or two preinstalled variable-difficulty engines: Arena has Rybka, Scid vs. PC has Stockfish and Phalanx, and the Crafty Chess Interface has Crafty.
Some of these variable-difficulty engines have elo ranges, but most only have skill level ranges, such as 0-20 or 0-100. I don't know of any elo ranges that go all the way down to zero. If you do find an engine with a variable elo range, I'd assume that the engine probably hasn't been calibrated to real-life elos and that the engine's elo value could be off by quite a bit.
I've never bothered to make an exhaustive list of variable-difficulty engines. Some that use elo ranges are Ufim 8.02, Arasan 17.0, MadChess 1.4, Rybka 2.3.2a, Amyan 1.72, and Hamsters 0.7.1.
A few engines using skill levels that might be worth trying are Stockfish, Phalanx, Beowulf 2.4a, Pupsi2 0.09, and Crafty.
A few engines using personalities are Pro Deo, Rodent, and Glass 2.0.
Apr 17, 2014
0
#4
Links to engines:
Ufim 8.02
http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/details1/Ufim.html
Arasan 17.0
http://www.arasanchess.org/downld.shtml
MadChess 1.4
http://www.madchess.net/Page/Downloads
Rybka 2.3.2a
http://www.rybkachess.com/index.php?auswahl=Demo+version
Amyan 1.72
http://www.pincha.cl/amyan/amyane.html
Hamsters 0.7.1
https://web.archive.org/web/20130127073337/http://www.ascotti.org/programming/chess/hamsters.htm
Stockfish DD
http://stockfishchess.org/download/
Phalanx
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phalanx/
http://phalanx.sourceforge.net/
http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/details1/Phalanx.html
http://kirr.homeunix.org/chess/engines/Jim%20Ablett/PHALANX/
http://kirr.homeunix.org/chess/engines/Jim%20Ablett/PHALANX/ARCHIVE/PHALANX%20REBORN/
Beowulf 2.4a
http://www.frayn.net/beowulf/
http://kirr.homeunix.org/chess/engines/Jim%20Ablett/BEOWULF/
Pupsi2 0.09
http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/details1/Pupsi.html
Crafty
http://kirr.homeunix.org/chess/engines/Jim%20Ablett/CRAFTY/ARCHIVE/
(I had problems with skill settings on versions 23.6 and later, therefore I'd recommend using versions 23.5 or older.)
Pro Deo
http://www.top-5000.nl/prodeo187.htm
Rodent
http://www.pkoziol.cal24.pl/rodent/rodent_download.htm
Glass 2.0
http://www.pkoziol.cal24.pl/glass/download.htm
Links to GUIs:
Crafty Chess Interface: http://nightmarechess.com/crafty/
Arena: http://www.playwitharena.com/
Scid vs. PC: http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/index.html
Hi,
I'm just curious to know what programs are out there for free download that have a variable difficulty, ie. I can set the computer's rating anywhere I want between 0-2500.