Engine

An engine is a go playing program. Mostly it has no own graphical user interface (GUI), but can be connected to a GUI via GTP. Widely used is GNU Go, which is open source and fairly strong. Most engines are freeware, some engines are built into commercial, nice looking programs.

You can observe strong engines in KGS's room "Computer Go" (rooms list: "Social").

Table of contents View of an Engine Without GUI Examples For Pure Engines Examples For Engines With Own GUI (all Windows) Old/obsolete Examples For GUIs to Connect Engines See also Links

View of an Engine Without GUI

To get an idea of an engine's ASCII interface, here is an example:

GNU Go is thinking...
white(124): E9

   White (O) has captured 0 pieces
   Black (X) has captured 0 pieces

   A B C D E F G H J K L M N O P Q R S T        Last move: White E9
19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . . . 19
18 . . . . O . . X O X X O O O X X . . . 18
17 . . O O X X X X O X O O . X X . X . . 17
16 . O X O . . . . X O O . . O . X . X . 16
15 . O X X X . . . X X O X X O . . X O . 15
14 . X X . . . . . . . . O O . O X O . . 14
13 . . . . . . . . . O . O . X . X O . . 13
12 . . . . . . X . . . X X . X . X O . . 12
11 . . . . . O X . . . . . . . X O . . . 11
10 . . . X O X O X X X X O O O X O . . . 10
 9 . . X .(O)X O O O . O . O X O O . . .  9
 8 . O . . . . . . . O . O O X X . . . .  8
 7 . . . . . . . . X O . . O X . O . . .  7
 6 . O X X . . . . . X O . . X . O . . .  6
 5 . . O X . . . . . X . . . . X . . . .  5
 4 . . O + . . . . . + X . . . . + O . .  4
 3 . . . O . O . . O X . . . X . O . . .  3
 2 . . . . . . . . O X . . . . . . . . .  2
 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  1
   A B C D E F G H J K L M N O P Q R S T

black(125):

(to stop the engine just use ctrl-c)

To get an impression of the configuration possibilities of an engine start GNU Go in a Terminal (Windows: shortcut win-r and enter cmd) and in the console enter PathToYour/gnugo --help | more

Examples For Pure Engines

No GUI; often available for all systems; if there is no binary for your OS, it is usually easy to compile it from source.

• Fuego
• GNU Go
• KataGo
• Pachi
• Ray

Examples For Engines With Own GUI (all Windows)

• Aya
• Crazy Stone
• Leela
• Many Faces of Go
• Smart Go

Old/obsolete

• Augos
• Dariush
• Go++
• MyGoFriend
• Peter's Go

Examples For GUIs to Connect Engines

• Red Carpet Goban
• GoGui
• Sabaki
• q5go
• KaTrain
• MultiGo

See also

Many engines are named on the Computer Go Server page.

The KGS-bots page has info about the playing strength of a few engines.

Computer Go covers history, algorithms and more.

Links

(last updated in 2008) For further infos about available engines for your OS look onto the Dariush homepage: ricoh51.free.fr/go.