Archive for the 'Games' Category

I recently came across this cool Flash game site called Kongregate. This is a Web 2.0 style site with no annoying popup or ads. It is still in alpha stage. You need to register using mail address to start playing, but that is a quick process.

From the site,

Kongregate operates with an understanding of how difficult it can be for talented game developers - from the aspiring gamesmith to the independent studio - to get the recognition and compensation that they deserve. That’s why Kongregate shares microtransaction and advertising revenue with contributing developers, who retain the full rights to their games.

I found some of the games featured very addictive! For example, Scribble. Also the site gives a community feeling by attaching a chat window to the game you are playing. This allows you to contact people with similar interests and is pretty cool. So if you like playing games on the Web, do give this a try.

Scribble game on Kongregate - The idea is to connect the dots using the mouse.

Looking for free chess software to play chess? Well you have come to right page. In this article I will cover all the major free chess programs available for PC. Please note that I haven’t included any demo or limited version chess programs even if it is free. Also very old chess programs(which are no longer maintained) are also excluded. May be I write another post for them.

Some of these programs are chess engines which will work with third party chess GUI software such as Xboard.

1. Xboard and WinBoard - These are graphical user interfaces for chess engines. They don’t have any built in intelligence but offers an API for displaying and moving pieces on a chess board. Chess engines such as GNU chess can use these as the front end.

2. GNU Chess - This is one of the oldest free chess game available. It was written for Linux operating system and later ported to other platforms. You can download the Windows version here.

3. Brutal Chess - Brutal Chess is an open source chess engine and is targeted for multiple operating systems. It was developed recently and is still in the alpha stage. Brutal Chess features full 3D graphics, an advanced particle engine, and several different levels of intelligent AI. You download source code or a binary version for Windows here.

4. Crafty - Crafty is a chess program written by Robert Hyatt. Source code also is available. You can download crafty from here.

5. ChessV - ChessV is an open-source Universal Chess program with graphical user-interface, sophisticated AI, support for opening books, and other features of traditional Chess programs. You can download windows version of ChessV here.

6. Arasan Chess - Arasan is a free chess program for Windows and Linux. Arasan has Windows GUI but can also work with Arena or Winboard GUI softwares. Arasan also has huge opening book of about 75,000 moves! You can download arasanchess here.

7. Alpha Chess 3 - It is a compact and free chess game for Windows. Board and chess pieces can be customized and the program includes 5 built in themes. Works on Windows 98+. You can download alphachess here.

8. Lord of the Chess - This is free chess program with a clean interface. You can download lord of the chess here.

9. Jester - This is a free Java based online program. This means that there is no need to download anything! You can directly play the game by visiting here. You can also download (128KB) it here.

10. Der Bringer - This is a chess program written by Gerritt Reubold. You can freely download Der Bringer and use it. Der Bringer works in Windows 98, ME, 2000 and XP. It has an ELO rating of about 2150.

If you know of any good free chess playing software not included in this list, please do let me know. I plan to keep this list updated regularly.

Eight matchsticks are arranged to form a fish swimming to the left as shown on the right. Can you make it swim to the right by moving 3 sticks?Â

Click here if you are unable to solve it! You can also download a printable PDF version here. This puzzle was probably first devised by the famous puzzle guru in Japan - Kobon Fujimura

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The six game chess match between Vladimir Kramnik and Deep Fritz, ended yesterday in victory for the computer, which won the final game and took the match, 4 games to 2. Kramnik is still a happy man since he earned about 500,000 euros from the match!

The highlight of the series was Kramnik’s biggest blunder in the second game when he was checkmated by Fritz! Following is the position where Kramnik blundered.

This was the position after the 34th move of Deep fritz playing as white. In this position, Kramnik played 34.. Qe3???

Deep fritz didn’t waste even a second and checkmated Kramnik by playing 35.Qh7+.

A possible line which could have ended the game in draw is 34…Kg8 35.Ng6 Bxb2 36.Qd5+ Kh7 37.Nf8+ Kh8 38.Ng6+.
Kramnik is not Kasparov, agreed. But of late computers are becoming more and more efficient and clever in Chess. This is mainly due to faster processors and improved algorithms. Soon there won’t be any significance for such games simply because defeating a computer program will be impossible.

Further Reading
Complete Kramnik vs Fritz games coverage at Chessbase