Sameshi
Games
chess engine
SHOW HN2026
230points
69comments
#224of 4,366 in 2026
Top 6%of 2026 by points
How HN took it
DebatedReal support and real criticism
5 positive, 8 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 5 critical, out of 19 comments about the project. Thread score 0.00.
Execution: 1 for, 4 againstIdea: 2 for, 0 againstDocs: 2 for, 0 againstPerformance: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Impressive size for a chess engine
From 3 comments
Oh my god the source is so tiny! It's really hard to parse because of it being minified but I love it to bits.
falsaberN1 on HNThis is amazing! Thanks for sharing. What would be the elo gain for 4KB engine? P.S. I assume 1200 elo in chess com scale (not lichess / fide elo) and bullet chess variant?
haute_cuisine on HNThere's something clarifying about working under extreme constraints like this. When you only have 2KB, you're forced to discover what the irreducible core of chess actually is —…
wittlesus on HN
Fun code golf challenge
From 2 comments
That's an awesome code golf challenge
esafak on HNDo you think it would be possible to achieve 1:1 ELO:bytes? Even smaller, but can be less smart.
lekevicius on HN
Objections
Missing castling, en passant, promotion, repetition and 50-move rule
From 3 comments
This is very cool and having stalemate is nice, however how much space would it take to implement the full ruleset? As you write: not implemented: castling, en passant,…
sireat on HNThis is not chess, but something that allows to move chess pieces. > Not implemented: castling, en passant, promotion, repetition, 50-move rule.
galkk on HNI have been into computer chess for many years and I was fully expecting those concessionary statements. I have seen enough programs in this lucrative genre where a lot of…
Mr_Minderbinder on HN
Stockfish ratings measured with moves filtered, so Elo is for a constrained variant
From 2 comments
zero games were thrown away for castling, because i forced stockfish not to castle (and not to play en passant/promotion) by filtering legal moves and only giving those filtered…
datavorous_ on HNWouldn't that just stop it from considering castling, en passant, and promotion on the first move of the position you are analyzing? It's still going to consider those in the…
tzs on HN
Pawn double-step bug: b6b4 accepted after b7b6
From 1 comment
Cool project. You could also use the front-end of GNU chess to save some lines, and implement only a back-end. Bug report: ``` a b c d e f g h 8 r n b q k b n r 8 7 . . p p p p p…
jll29 on HN
Minified code is hard to read or contribute to
From 2 comments
It's not about being hideous, it's about being useless. Your code is useless to anyone that wants to contribute, or maybe make something better by improving on the idea.
burstw0w on HNCool that you could keep it under 2k but it would nice to have a readable version of the source code. Do you work with it like this or do you have some sort of script you apply…
chvid on HN
Requests
Add a readable source version
From 2 comments
Cool that you could keep it under 2k but it would nice to have a readable version of the source code. Do you work with it like this or do you have some sort of script you apply…
chvid on HNa readable version seems to have just been added! https://github.com/datavorous/sameshi/tree/master/readable
mackeye on HN
Add full rules support
From 1 comment
This is very cool and having stalemate is nice, however how much space would it take to implement the full ruleset? As you write: not implemented: castling, en passant,…
sireat on HN
Playable version of the engine
From 1 comment
Nice initiative! Was hoping the "play" button/link would go to a playable version though
Aachen on HN
Questions
How were games with castling or promotion handled
From 2 comments
How did you handle games where Stockfish would castle or promote?
GeertB on HNHow many games did you have to throw away because stockfish wanted to castle? Or did you force stockfish to not castle? Castling seems like such a frequent move it is hard to…
dfc on HN
Is the Elo on chess.com scale
From 1 comment
This is amazing! Thanks for sharing. What would be the elo gain for 4KB engine? P.S. I assume 1200 elo in chess com scale (not lichess / fide elo) and bullet chess variant?
haute_cuisine on HN
Alternatives named
ToledoChess tiny chess programs
From 2 comments
ToledoChess [0] has a few implementations of this in different languages. Some highlights: 2KB of JavaScript with castling, en passant, promotion, search and even a GUI 326 bytes…
dmurray on HNhttps://www.chessprogramming.org/Toledo is a family a moderately strong tiny chess programs.
tromp on HN
Video Chess
From 1 comment
This is very cool and having stalemate is nice, however how much space would it take to implement the full ruleset? As you write: not implemented: castling, en passant,…
sireat on HN
Ice4 and TCEC 4k engines
From 2 comments
If you look at the current winner [1], it does a lot more than just brute force tree search. The space state for chess is simply too big to cover without good heuristics. Deep…
sigmoid10 on HNThere is a TCEC category for 4k engines. The top ones are ~3000 Elo.
grumpopotamus on HN
OliThink and Xiphos
From 1 comment
I have been into computer chess for many years and I was fully expecting those concessionary statements. I have seen enough programs in this lucrative genre where a lot of…
Mr_Minderbinder on HN