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Crafty (Computer)

Number of games in database: 85
Years covered: 1996 to 2014
Overall record: +24 -39 =22 (41.2%)*
   * Overall winning percentage = (wins+draws/2) / total games.

Repertoire Explorer
Most played openings
B40 Sicilian (5 games)
D02 Queen's Pawn Game (4 games)
C78 Ruy Lopez (3 games)
B22 Sicilian, Alapin (2 games)
B31 Sicilian, Rossolimo Variation (2 games)
D35 Queen's Gambit Declined (2 games)
A00 Uncommon Opening (2 games)
D21 Queen's Gambit Accepted (2 games)
B52 Sicilian, Canal-Sokolsky (Rossolimo) Attack (2 games)
C99 Ruy Lopez, Closed, Chigorin, 12...cd (2 games)

RECENT GAMES:
   🏆 8th Annual WCRCC
   Arasan vs Crafty (Jul-19-14) 1-0
   Arasan vs Crafty (Jan-25-14) 1/2-1/2
   Crafty vs Houdini (2014) 0-1
   Crafty vs Bouquet (Aug-28-13) 0-1
   Arasan vs Crafty (May-08-13) 1-0

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CRAFTY (COMPUTER)
(born 1994)

[what is this?]

In 1994, Dr. Robert Hyatt wrote the first version of Crafty, a chess playing program which is a direct descendent of Cray Blitz (Computer), the World Computer Champion from 1983 to 1989. With assistance from Michael Byrne, Tracy Riegle, Peter Skinner & Ted Langreck, Hyatt began work on Crafty after the 1994 ACM computer chess tournament when he felt that it was time to "start over" and try something different from approaches used for over 25 years. Around 2004, Peter Berger assisted with its opening book.

Crafty has grown from a simple PC-based program to a program that runs on all known general-purpose computer platforms today, including those with multiple processors (CPUs). It has competed in many computer chess events, mainly those held over the Internet, such as the CCT events held on the Internet Chess Club approximately every 6-12 months. Crafty won the first CCT event, and has finished well in most of the others.

The Chessgames account User: crafty is used by the administrators to post automated computer analysis to the Kibitzer's Corner. The analysis is computed by Crafty version 20.14 and a release of version 23.4 was available in 2013.

References: (1) http://www.craftychess.com/ , (2) Dr. Robert Hyatt's home page: http://www.cis.uab.edu/hyatt/

https://www.chessprogramming.org/Cr...

Wikipedia article: Crafty

Last updated: 2018-12-09 10:51:23

Try our new games table.

 page 1 of 4; games 1-25 of 85  PGN Download
Game  ResultMoves YearEvent/LocaleOpening
1. Crafty vs Kudrin  1-0671996Chess.net CompB32 Sicilian
2. Crafty vs Ferret  ½-½64199614th World Microcomputer Chess ChampionshipC68 Ruy Lopez, Exchange
3. K Burger vs Crafty  1-0461996ICC 2 12 05/21/96 Internet Chess ClubB17 Caro-Kann, Steinitz Variation
4. Shabalov vs Crafty  1-0301996GM vs ComputerE12 Queen's Indian
5. Brause vs Crafty  ½-½821997ICS Rated Standard match, 164C46 Three Knights
6. Ferret vs Crafty  1-0621997ICC 15 15C32 King's Gambit Declined, Falkbeer Counter Gambit
7. Ferret vs Crafty  ½-½1131997ICC 10 10B40 Sicilian
8. Crafty vs Ferret  1-0551997ICC 15 15D10 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav
9. Ferret vs Crafty 1-01401997ICC 15 15B47 Sicilian, Taimanov (Bastrikov) Variation
10. Crafty vs Ferret  0-11121997ICC 15 15D44 Queen's Gambit Declined Semi-Slav
11. Ferret vs Crafty  1-0851997ICC 15 15B83 Sicilian
12. Ferret vs Crafty 1-0481997ICC 15 15B46 Sicilian, Taimanov Variation
13. Crafty vs Ferret  0-1711997ICC 15 15B64 Sicilian, Richter-Rauzer Attack
14. Crafty vs Ferret 0-1631997ICC 15 15D18 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav, Dutch
15. Ferret vs Crafty  ½-½1381997ICC 15 15C68 Ruy Lopez, Exchange
16. REBEL vs Crafty 1-0382000WMCCCB40 Sicilian
17. Crafty vs Nimzo-8  0-1552000WMCCCB99 Sicilian, Najdorf, 7...Be7 Main line
18. Francesca vs Crafty  ½-½902000WMCCCE94 King's Indian, Orthodox
19. Crafty vs Insomniac  0-1932000WMCCCB81 Sicilian, Scheveningen, Keres Attack
20. Crafty vs Fritz 0-1422000WMCCCB99 Sicilian, Najdorf, 7...Be7 Main line
21. Goliath vs Crafty 0-1472001WMCCCD15 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav
22. Crafty vs REBEL  1-0602001WMCCCD02 Queen's Pawn Game
23. Ferret vs Crafty  ½-½782001WMCCCC91 Ruy Lopez, Closed
24. Crafty vs Deep Junior 0-1742001WMCCCD02 Queen's Pawn Game
25. Crafty vs Diep  ½-½762001WMCCCD02 Queen's Pawn Game
 page 1 of 4; games 1-25 of 85  PGN Download
  REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2) | Crafty wins | Crafty loses  

Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 1 OF 4 ·  Later Kibitzing>
Aug-10-03  PVS: <Crafty is a direct descendent of Cray Blitz>

That was the first chess computer of which I ever heard by name. Wasn't it developed in Mississippi?

Aug-10-03  crafty: You can learn more about me by visiting the homepage of my creator: http://www.cis.uab.edu/info/faculty...
Aug-10-03  sleepkid: Crafty, though not as strong a chess player as Fischer, has a much nicer personality, and is a delightful conversationalist. Crafty is a pretty good tennis player as well.
Aug-10-03  Benjamin Lau: lol Sleepkid, too true sadly.
Aug-10-03  sleepkid: You mean Crafty beat you in tennis too? ;-)
Aug-10-03  Benjamin Lau: <You mean Crafty beat you in tennis too? ;-) >

I'm too scared to face Crafty just yet; maybe after I can beat my 8 year old cousin. ;-)

Aug-10-03  sakki: does anyone notice theres no short draws cpu v cpu.......
Aug-11-03  sleepkid: it's because computers have such aggressive personalities. In fact, you may not know this but all of them practice kickboxing in their spare time. I heard that Goliath was even considering abandoning chess for K-1. Fritz punched me in the eye one time after a particularly tense discussion about the saturated fat content of tofu. You can never be too careful around these guys. . . you never know when they might get violent.
Jun-15-04  dac1990: Computers are downright vicious. One time, I was playing a computer and it decided to start throwing pawns at my eyes.
Jul-13-04  ruylopez900: http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp...

The Chessbase report on the WCCC.

Oct-16-04  Knight13: Sounds like a strong computer.
Jul-05-05  OJC: Here's a offhand game I played tonight against a fairly weak opponent.

White: OJC
Black: NN

1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 d5 4.e5 Bb4 5.c3 Bc5 6.d4 Bb6 7.Bxf4 Ne7 8.Bd3 O-O 9.O-O Nc6 10.Bg5 Bg4 11.Kh1 h6 12.Bh4 g5 13.Qd2 gxh4 14.Qxh6 Nf5 15.Bxf5 Bxf5 16.Nxh4 Bxb1 17.Raxb1 1-0

The interesting thing is that I analyzed the game later with < Crafty version 19.19 > to see if my bishop sacrifice was entirely sound (Crafty decided that it was ... eventually).

The analysis surprised me a bit.

Crafty wanted to play the horribly conservative 13. Bg3 (eval. +0.22) until about 1500 million nodes and 15 ply into its search when it finally "saw" 13. Qd2 (eval. +0.65). The search of those 1500 million nodes took about 20 minutes on an AMD 64 2.6 GHz machine!

Interestingly, if I fed into Crafty 13. Qd2 its best response was the losing 13. ... gxh4 until about 700 million nodes and 13 ply into its search (10 minutes) when it saw that 13. ... Ng6 is vastly superior and keeps the game in reach.

If anyone with a commercial engine such as Fritz is bored I'd be curious how quickly it finds the moves 13. Qd2 (instead of the inferior Bg3) and 13. ... Nf6 (instead of the losing gxh4). Since Crafty has a reputation of being a pretty strong engine I'm hoping it says more about human intuition vs. machine calculation than anything else.

Jul-05-05  csmath: In a few seconds. Hiarcs immediately spots the move and keeps it as a clear choice through all the evaluation. It does not see 13. ... Ng6 as a saving move though it needs some time to sort it all out, about 40-50 secs (I have fairly fast machine). The game is already lost. confirm:

Jul-05-05  nikolaas: <crafty> Some personal questions: 1) Which version are you?
2) Where can I download you?
Jul-05-05  OJC: < csmath > I see you're right about 13 ... Ng6 since it loses to 14.Nxg5 hxg5 15. Bxg5

I ran the position through Crafty after 13 ... Ng6 and it only found 14. Nxg5 after 2500 million nodes (it previously preferred 14. Bg3). Strange.

Jul-31-05  Greatful Fred: I see Crafty pop up in kibitzing here. If you have premium membership, can you summon Crafty to anaylze a position?
Jul-31-05  aw1988: You can summon it to analyze even without a premium membership.
Jul-31-05  Happypuppet: Yup. All you have to do is yell "CRAAAAFTYYYY" (the more A's and Y's the faster he comes).
Jul-31-05  Caissanist: <nikolaas>: http://au.geocities.com/cafelattega... offers a very good set of instructions for downloading, installing, and configuring Crafy together with WinBoard, which is definitely the way to go for most people (Crafty by itself is just an "engine" with a bare-bones text interface). The current version is 19.19.
Jul-31-05  Perkins: can you have crafty look at someting without downloading anything?
Jul-31-05  Caissanist: Not really, no. From time to time the cg.com sysadmins will analyze a position using Crafty on one of their own machines and post the results, and sometimes they do so in response to a user request; that's what the "Crafty" account is. But there's nothing like a web interface that you could feed a position into.
Aug-01-05  nikolaas: <Caissanist> Thanks. I downloaded a free GUI and guess what? Crafty was with it. :-)
Aug-16-05
Premium Chessgames Member
  BishopBerkeley: [Modified repost from the Mercosur Cup (2005) message board, reposted since it might be of some enduring interest to Crafty (Computer) enthusiasts.)

It would be delightful if Crafty (Computer) were to win the 13th World Computer Chess Championship http://www.ru.is/wccc05/ ! Having defeated Junior (Computer) and having drawn against Shredder (Computer) , it has certainly put in a noteworthy performance. Has a "freeware" Chess engine ever won the World Computer Chess Championship? Consulting Mark Weeks' excellent list of historic World Computer Chess Champions, I'm not sure which of these are non-commercial (though clearly Shredder (Computer) , Fritz (Computer) , Junior (Computer) , and HIARCS (Computer) are not):

http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/wcc...

I note that in WBEC Ridderkerk's most recent competition ("Edition 10"), Crafty (Computer) was merely able to finish in 18th place, with Shredder (Computer) taking the top spot and Chessmaster (Computer) ("The King") taking the second spot. Pro Deo did the best among the free engines, coming in 4th place:

http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/prem...

(This competition is among "UCI engines": http://www.uciengines.de/UCI_Protoc... ; many commercial programs do not qualify.)

WBEC Ridderkerk's homepage:

http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/

WBEC Ridderkerk's Official Ratings List:

http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/rati...

Nice links to downloadable UCI engines:

http://www.uciengines.de/UCI-Engine...

(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)

Aug-16-05
Premium Chessgames Member
  BishopBerkeley: If Crafty (Computer) is indeed the latest incarnation of "Cray Blitz", then it won the World Computer Chess Championship in 1983 and 1986:

http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/wcc...

It would be nice to see the 1983 champ make a comeback (though greatly evolved from its earlier incarnation!)

(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)

Sep-02-05  Caissanist: This will not happen, because Crafty is an open-source research project, not a product. The folks programming Shredder (and any other commercial chess program) are no doubt downloading every new version of the Crafty source and figuring out ways to incorporate any significant advances into their own programs. The advances they themselves make, however, are proprietary trade secrets that nobody else is supposed to know about.

The non-open source freeware programs like Pro Deo might have a chance.

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