Pixelpusher
Nowadays, you can buy many very strong computer programs for your PC. The
newest version of Rebel is challenging grandmaster and nearly world-champion
Anand. Programs have ELO-ratings, much higher than most of us can even dream
to get close to. The Pixelpusher program takes a step in the other direction: it
is might well the weakest playing chess program in the world!
If you are again beaten up badly by your
commercial chess playing program, try Pixelpusher!
There are now webpages for chess, and some variants of chess:
How to use the applets
- To make a move, first (left) click on a piece, and then on
its destination square.
- To deselect a piece, (left) click again on the selected piece.
- To castle, (left) click on the king and then on its destination square.
The rook moves automatically with it.
- To go back to the original setup, double-click with the right mouse button
on the board.
- To take back your last move, click once with the right mouse button.
- The applet checks legality of the moves, including check. It follows the
chess moves precisely, except that it does not allow you to promote a piece to
something different from a queen, and:
- The applet does not determine stalemate or mate, draw by
repetition, or draw by the 50 moves rule.
Pixelpusher plays variants of chess
There are actually two versions of the applet: one that plays chess, and one
that plays chess or its variants.
By calling the applet with choices of parameters, the applet can play variants
of chess:
- boards of different sizes. The columns parameter is used to give the
number of colums. The rows parameter is used to give the number of rows.
- Different setups. These are given in FFEN (with limitations.)
- squares that may not be used or passed (except by knights). These are
given in the FFEN as a -.
- Chancellors: pieces that move like bishop or rook.
- Bishops with the Bishops Conversion
Rule.
- Marshalls: pieces that move like bishop or knight.
Known bugs
- Promotion is automatically to a queen. Promotion to different pieces
is not possible.
- Counterplay of the computer is very weak.
- The computer only plays black.
The name
I named it Pixelpusher, after the name `woodpusher' for a chess player that
actually do not think when they play a game of chess.
Comments?
Comments are appreciated. Send email to hansb@cs.uu.nl.
You can download all files from this directory, as of May 14, 1998:
See the chess-only applet
for downloading the files of a version that plays
only normal chess.
Version
This is version 0.3. Version 0.1 was made by Hans Bodlaender. Improvements on
it were made by Eli Bachmupski. It uses the event model of JDK 1.1, which
means you probably need
Netscape version 4 or higher or Internet Explorer version 4 or higher.
WWW page and applet made by Hans Bodlaender and Eli Bachmupsky.
WWW page created: May 14, 1998. Last modified: December Z, 1998.