Cadence 0.6.0
Cadence is an open-source UCI chess engine, for standard chess, Chess960 and double Chess960, with an alpha-beta search and a hand-written evaluation. There is no network file: each binary runs on its own.
github.com/grounzero/cadence
It also plays on Lichess as the bot
Mithandros.
0.6.0 is the last release with only a hand-written evaluation. From the next release, Cadence adds an NNUE trained purely on its own self-play, with the hand-written evaluation kept as an option.
Strength
About
2796 +/- 9 (95%) on the CCRL Blitz scale. This is my own estimate, calibrated against CCRL ratings, and not a CCRL rating: a gauntlet of 0.6.0-rc.3 at CCRL Blitz conditions, anchored to seven engines on that list (0.6.0 differs from rc.3 only by a draw-scoring fix that passed a non-regression test). An eighth, Reckless 0.4.0, was played and left out under an anchor-spread limit set before the run; with all eight the figure is 2806.
Method, engines and every game:
strength page
Every SPRT, passed or failed:
test log
Download
Cadence 0.6.0 release
Take the AVX2 build, for x86-64 machines from about 2015 on, and the generic build if it won't start. There are builds for Windows, Linux (x86-64 and aarch64) and macOS (Apple silicon and Intel), with SHA256SUMS and build attestations on the release page.
macOS: the binaries are not notarized. After downloading, run chmod +x <file>, then xattr -d com.apple.quarantine <file>, or build from source.
Or use an install script, which checks the binary's checksum and bench, and its build attestation when gh is installed.
Linux, macOS, Git Bash or WSL:
Code: Select all
curl -fsSLO https://github.com/grounzero/cadence/releases/latest/download/install.sh
bash install.sh
Windows PowerShell:
Code: Select all
Invoke-WebRequest https://github.com/grounzero/cadence/releases/latest/download/install.ps1 -OutFile install.ps1
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File install.ps1
Threads 1 and Ponder off, both the defaults; Hash as your tests use (16 MB by default); no book needed; SyzygyPath optional, empty by default, which turns probing off; everything else at its default. The UCI id is "Cadence 0.6.0", and its bench reads 34,686,410 nodes.
I'd be grateful if Cadence could be considered for testing on the CCRL lists.
Bug reports are welcome on
GitHub issues.
