slow64-avx2.exe - Use this if possible. For newer CPUS with AVX2 instruction set.
slow64-sse.exe - For older CPUS. Slower but otherwise the same. Also doesn't use hardware popcount since it doesn't matter with the neural net evals.
If it's your turn and you click on one of your pieces, it will be selected,
and a white box appears around it. Then just click where you want to move it, or drag and release on the destination square.
Castling is done by clicking the king, then the square where he would end up
after castling. (FRC is an exception, to castle click the rook square after the king. Otherwise can be ambiguous.)
En Passant captures are performed by clicking the pawn and then
its destination square.
Move button: Tells the computer to stop thinking and play the best
move its found so far if it's thinking, otherwise it will tell the computer
to start playing as the side to move.
Retract button: will take back the players last move so that he can
make a different one.
< and > : will move a half a move backward/forward respectively.
<| and |> :will go to the first and last move of the game.
Clicking on the transcript will set the board to the move clicked on.
The Difficulty level uses all limits set. (Let's say it's set to 7
ply, 5 seconds. If it completes a 7 ply search before 5 seconds it will stop,
otherwise it will stop after 5 seconds no matter how far it has searched.) The
52 ply is meant to be used for time based games, since it will always (except
certain endgame situations) reach the time limit before it reaches 52 ply. Seconds
per move defaults to 0, and when it's set to zero it uses the time control to
choose how long to think about its next move, instead of thinking a set amount
of time per move.
Analysis: To start analysis of the position currently on the board, click
the "Analyze" button in the side window. A window will appear below the board
which will display the principle variation of the best move or best moves found.
If you don't mind much slower best move analysis, you can use the '+' and '-'
button to have the computer calculate the 2nd best-6th best moves in addition
to the best. You can also turn on the analysis window while playing against
the computer from the options menu.
Multi-Threaded search: The default is 1 thinking thread. For better and quicker analysis, you can increase this number
under Search->Threads. This setting is saved in the EngineGUI.dft file. More threads is only a benefit up the the actual number of hardware threads your CPU supports, and additionally you might not want to use the hardware max
threads or other programs might become sluggish.
Displayed Search Info: When the computer is thinking, it will display
info about the search unless this option is unchecked. It will display the furthest
depth to which it searched a move completely (with a * afterwards if not all
moves were searched to that depth, a * after the eval value means there's no
value for this move at the current depth), the number of nodes it searched,
and search speed in Kilonodes/sec, and the evaluation value of the best move.
Options->Settings : Set Player Name, Book Dir, Use Book, SyzygyPath, Draw Offers, Resign, Eval White POV
In the window beneath a player's time, 1R, 2p beneath black's time would mean
that black has 1 more rook than white, and 2 more pawns.
The large print top clock is the time left for a player to complete his move
(according to the time limit set on the menu.) The bottom is the total time
the player has taken to make his moves so far. If the time left runs out, you
would lose the game by the rules of chess, but in this program your clock just
stays at zero and you're free to continue to play.
Note on the opening book: You manually add or remove positions from the opening book with the 3 and 6 keys. (Also 1 or 2 keys = position prefered by black. 4 or 5 keys = position prefered by white.) Remember to Save the book when you're done, it never autosaves. You can also add .pgns to the book. If you load an opening book the positions will be added to whatever is in the book in memory. Slow Chess can't handle really large books.
Interested in how Slow Chess evaluates the board? Right-Click on a piece to see it's full evaluation breakdown. Develop->Display Eval to see total board evaluation.
For those who like to know the country of their winboard engines, Slow Chess' official country of origin is the United States.
The piece images are by Josh Hess.
The engine logo on the page is by Yujin Choo
Version 2.2 and later contains third party code for Syzygy Tablebase support.If you want a more classic feel try version 1.4 or 1.5. They are weaker but don't do aggresive pruning so feel more like the chess programs of 15 years ago.