1. Joined
    03 Feb '07
    Moves
    193201
    16 Feb '08 17:24
    I don't want anything fancy. Just a simple free chess playing software download for my kids to practice on. It doesn't have to be rated grandmaster or anything, just enough to give my kids a challenge.

    Any recommendations?

    I'd also like to find a checkers program.
  2. Standard memberivan2908
    SelfProclaimedTitler
    Joined
    06 Feb '06
    Moves
    23543
    16 Feb '08 18:24
    Eh, play with them ! Isnt that better ?
  3. Joined
    19 Jun '06
    Moves
    847
    16 Feb '08 19:37
    Originally posted by Kunsoo
    I don't want anything fancy. Just a simple free chess playing software download for my kids to practice on. It doesn't have to be rated grandmaster or anything, just enough to give my kids a challenge.

    Any recommendations?

    I'd also like to find a checkers program.
    You have lots of choices. Do the programs have to play at beginner levels, or can they be fairly strong?

    For chess programs: Are you familiar with the Arena graphical user interface (GUI)? You can download it from the Arena site. And if you can find the Ufim engine to install into the Arena GUI, the Ufim engine can be set to play down to about the 800 elo level or so. I can get you links, but I wasn't sure exactly what you're looking for in terms of strength and difficulty of installation. Of course, there are stronger free engines you can load into Arena if that's your goal.

    And if you don't want the difficulty of installing a chess GUI, there are simpler all-in-one chess programs you can try.

    For checkers: If you're looking for a checkers program that can play a fairly weak game, Checkers 1.3 is pretty good, if it will run on your system. Here's the link:

    http://www.magicwandsoft.com/games/index.html

    For stronger checkers programs, try searching Bob Newell's checker program reviews at this link:

    http://www.bobnewell.net/checkers/checkerprograms.html

    And here's some miscellaneous checkers links that you might search:

    http://www.bobnewell.net/nucleus/checkers.php
    http://www.fierz.ch/checkers.htm
    http://www.jimloy.com/checkers/checkers.htm
    http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Thinktank/7379/checkers.html

    I hope that helped.
  4. Joined
    03 Feb '07
    Moves
    193201
    16 Feb '08 20:05
    Originally posted by ivan2908
    Eh, play with them ! Isnt that better ?
    I already do that. But their interest exceeds the time I have for them.
  5. Joined
    03 Feb '07
    Moves
    193201
    16 Feb '08 20:05
    Originally posted by Mad Rook
    You have lots of choices. Do the programs have to play at beginner levels, or can they be fairly strong?

    For chess programs: Are you familiar with the Arena graphical user interface (GUI)? You can download it from the Arena site. And if you can find the Ufim engine to install into the Arena GUI, the Ufim engine can be set to play down to about the 800 el ...[text shortened]... //www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Thinktank/7379/checkers.html

    I hope that helped.
    Thanks!
  6. Joined
    19 Jun '06
    Moves
    847
    16 Feb '08 21:09
    Originally posted by Kunsoo
    Thanks!
    Also, the link for the Arena GUI:

    http://www.playwitharena.com/

    Click on the "Arena Downloads" link on the left side of the page. I recommend using the stable Arena version 1.1 rather than the beta versions. The Arena 1.1 Setup 1 choice will give you the Arena 1.1 GUI and the SOS 5.1 engine.

    And here's the link for the latest Ufim engine:

    http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/download/ufim/ufim_802.zip

    Hopefully you can figure out how to install the Ufim engine into Arena.
  7. Parallel Universe
    Joined
    03 Mar '06
    Moves
    1599
    16 Feb '08 22:42
    Originally posted by Mad Rook
    Also, the link for the Arena GUI:

    http://www.playwitharena.com/

    Click on the "Arena Downloads" link on the left side of the page. I recommend using the stable Arena version 1.1 rather than the beta versions. The Arena 1.1 Setup 1 choice will give you the Arena 1.1 GUI and the SOS 5.1 engine.

    And here's the link for the latest Ufim engine:

    http:/ ...[text shortened]... /ufim/ufim_802.zip

    Hopefully you can figure out how to install the Ufim engine into Arena.
    some free engines:

    Free Chess Engines

    * Crafty 20.1 (~2526 elo)
    * Glaurung 1.02 (~2673 elo)
    * Fruit 2.1 (~2754 elo ; also the base package of Gambit Fruit and Toga II)
    * Gambit Fruit 1.0 Beta 4bx (~2790 elo)
    * Toga II (~2810 elo)
    * Others: http://www.uciengines.de/UCI-Engines/uci-engines.html
  8. Joined
    31 Jan '07
    Moves
    93899
    17 Feb '08 04:30
    If the kids are small, try these:

    http://www.chesskids.com/
    http://www.chessforkids.com/
  9. London
    Joined
    04 Nov '05
    Moves
    12606
    17 Feb '08 10:59
    Don't know what age your kids are but I reckon Chessmaster has good kid friendly features ...although it's not free. Have you thought about setting them up with their own account on here?
  10. Joined
    19 Jun '06
    Moves
    847
    17 Feb '08 18:051 edit
    I'm not sure how simple you want the chess program to be. Here's a VERY simple chess program called Pawn ver 1.73. You can set the level so that it play absolutely terrible chess. 🙂

    http://www.tucows.com/preview/312219


    Edit - Here's a better, updated version of Pawn (ver 2.86)

    http://www.download.com/Pawn/3000-7562_4-10487833.html
  11. Joined
    17 Dec '07
    Moves
    3766
    28 Jul '08 12:03
    I'm hoping to run fruit or toga II on a debian linux machine, but can only seem to find arena in german. Is this a normal problem or am i exceptionally retardededed at the moment. Hopefully if it works i can run rybka on wine with arena. Right now I am trying to download the arena 1.1 from the playwitharena site.
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