The Early Days: Beginnings of Stockfish Chess
Stockfish Chess, originally known as Glaurung Chess, was created in 2004 by Marco Costalba, Tord Romstad, and Joona Kiiski. Its early versions were based on the open-source engine Glaurung, but it quickly evolved into its own unique engine through the contributions and improvements of various developers. The engine takes its name from the Stockfish, a cold-water fish known for its intelligence and strategic approach to hunting.
Another significant development during this time was the adoption of the Stockfish engine by the online chess platform Chess.com. This exposed Stockfish to a wider audience and enabled it to compete against other top engines. It also led to more contributors and improvements to the engine.
The Era of Alpha-Beta Pruning: Performance Improvements
In 2010, Stockfish incorporated alpha-beta pruning, a powerful search algorithm that significantly improved the engine´s performance. With this update, Stockfish was able to analyze more positions in less time, making it a formidable opponent for other chess engines. This improvement was a game-changer for Stockfish, and it quickly rose to the top ranks of computer chess engines.
Open Source Collaboration: The Leela Chess Zero Integration
In 2018, Stockfish took a groundbreaking step by incorporating Leela Chess Zero, an open-source neural network-based engine, into its codebase. This move was a collaboration between the Stockfish team and the Leela Chess Zero community, and it made Stockfish the first-ever engine to combine traditional alpha-beta search with neural network evaluation.
Dominating the Chess World: TCEC Championships and Other Achievements
Stockfish´s dominance in computer chess was further solidified through its performance in the annual Top Chess Engine Championship (TCEC) tournaments. It won the first Superfinal in 2010 and continued to dominate in subsequent editions, winning a total of 11 TCEC championships as of 2021.
The Future of Stockfish: Neural Network Updates and Beyond
In recent years, Stockfish has continued to incorporate neural network updates, improving its playing style and performance. Its developers have also been experimenting with hybrid engines, combining different search and evaluation algorithms to create even stronger engines.
