Meet Zahak 9

Nov 24, 2021 · 2 min read  ·
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I am happy to announce Zahak 9.0. This release focuses most on making Zahak usable outside engine-to-engine matches. Good for analyzing, good for playing! Of course with lots of gained strength still. Now you can use Zahak to analyze the World-Chess Championship match between Carlsen and Nepo thanks to the support of MultiPV!

This version comes with a lot of improvements:

Usability improvements

  • MultiPV Support
  • Supporting go searchmoves ..., go mate ... and go nodes ... UCI go commands, which makes the engine better at finding mate and also in analyzing (searchmoves).
  • Support of 7 different skill levels (1 being the weakest, while 7 is the strongest). Anchored around Rustic Alpha 3, I found that, based on CCRL the ratings will probably translate to the following:
    • Skill Level 1: 1270
    • Skill Level 2: 1440
    • Skill Level 3: 1630
    • Skill Level 4: 1856
    • Skill Level 5: 2004
    • Skill Level 6: 2074

Strength improvements

  • A much stronger network is included, trained on more than 500 million self-play positions.
  • A much more improved search
  • Better move ordering thanks to counter history and follow-up history
  • Lots of bug fixes!
  • Much better multi-threading support.

Acknowledgement:

It is worth mentioning that all the skills from 1 to 6 are based on networks that are trained by Alan Cooper (Scally on CCC). Many thanks to him.

To download Zahak 9.0, please visit here

Are you still reading this? Head to the download page, download Zahak and start analyzing the WCC games!

And of course enjoy playing with Zahak!