New engine releases & news H1 2026

[Gabor Szots]

New engine: Revolver

Deshawn Mohan (Canada)
https://github.com/GoldenRare/Revolver

[Frank Quisinsky]

pawnocchio 1.9
https://github.com/JonathanHallstrom/pawnocchio
by Jonathan Hallström, Sweden

Grail 1.0.3
https://github.com/jorgenhanssen/grail
by Jørgen Hanssen, Norway

Viridithas 19.0.0
https://github.com/cosmobobak/viridithas/
by Cosmo Bobak, Scotland

Amira 1.8.2
https://github.com/FauziAkram/amira
by Fauzi Akram Dabat, Jordan

Raphael 2.1.0.0
https://github.com/Orbital-Web/Raphael
by Rei Meguro, Japan / USA

Rusty Rival 1.0.9
https://github.com/chris-moreton/rusty-rival
by Chris Moreton, England

THANKS to the authors, developers, programmers ...
I wish all readers a good start in 2026

[Krzysztof Grzelak]

I have a question about pawnocchio v1.9. What version to download for AVX2.

[Frank Quisinsky]

Hi Krzysztof,

I think v3 for Windows OS.

Best
Frank

[Krzysztof Grzelak]

Thank you for the information Frank.

[Frank Quisinsky]

c4ke 3.0
https://github.com/citrus610/c4ke
Programmer, country = unknown for me

Leorik 3.2
https://github.com/lithander/Leorik/
by Thomas Jan, Germany

[Sylwy]

A new Romanian chess engine: Porcupine-1.0.0_x64 (NNUE) written in Rust. Author: Chiriac Theodor.

https://github.com/TheChii/Porcupine-Chess-Engine

[Sylwy]

Amira 1.8.2
https://github.com/FauziAkram/amira
by Fauzi Akram Dabat, Jordan

A nice GitHub banner (present from me and ChatGPT):

[Andres Valverde]

Caligula 3.1 released

https://sites.google.com/view/dirtychess/dirtychess

Mostly a bugfix version, 10/15 ELO improvement at long TC

[GyatsoYT]

Gyatso v1.1.0 is now available.
https://github.com/GyatsoYT/GyatsoChess/releases

Estimated strength around ~2500 Elo based on current testing, though further evaluation is appreciated.

— Gyatso