Anyone who has known me for any significant length of time will will know that I have this quirky hobby. In reality it’s more than a hobby – it’s an addiction. I really like and enjoy computer chess and to a certain extent computer Reversi / Othello. It all started when my Grandad bought me my first chess computer (a Morphy Encore) back in 1982. I initially really wanted a chess computer to improve my chess. But I started to become intrigues with the algorithms that powered these silicon brains. Over the years I’ve read just about every published book about computer chess theory.
In 1997 I started to write a Reversi program in Delphi – this became Edge Reversi. I learnt a lot at this time but computer chess is my first love and Reversi isn’t chess. So in 2002 I wrote the first version of Monarch Chess. Take a look at the page on Monarch Chess. Due to work commitments and family fun I haven’t worked on Monarch Chess since about 2007 – but some interesting new techniques (such as “Late Move Reduction“) have surface in the meantime.
In March 2013 I started to develop Maverick, a new chess engine. This is much more advanced than Monarch. It uses magic bitboards and late-move-reduction. It’s playing strength is approximately 2500 ELO on the CCRL scale.