Matt 0.5

Matt 0.5
A Chess Engine by SkyHighGaming

Matt is a ~2400 Elo chess engine coded in C++ from scratch. It plays aggressive, attacking chess and features a unique Chaos Mode that creates unpredictable, complex positions which is perfect for playing against humans who rely on pattern recognition and opening preparation.

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Estimated Strength

Matt 0.5 is estimated at approximately 2400 Elo (±50 Elo) based on engine vs engine testing:

• vs Nejmet 3.07 (~2427 CCRL Elo): ~45% score
• vs Dragon 4.6 (~2411 CCRL Elo): ~50% score

These estimates carry ±50 Elo uncertainty based on 40-game test samples at 60s+0.5s/move.

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Features

• Handcrafted evaluation: pure algorithmic chess understanding
• Alpha-Beta search with all modern pruning (LMR, NMP, futility, singular extensions, aspiration windows)
• Opening book with 300,000+ positions from grandmaster games
• Chaos Mode: creates complex, wild positions for human opponents
• Multi-threaded search (up to 512 threads via Lazy SMP)
• King safety evaluation: pawn shields, attacker weights, pawn storms
• Perfect K+P vs K endgame knowledge
• Chess960 / Fischer Random Chess support
• Pondering (think on opponent's time)
• Syzygy endgame tablebase support
• UCI protocol: compatible with Arena, Lucas Chess, Banksia, En Croissant, and all major GUIs

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How to Play

Matt is a UCI chess engine, it requires a chess GUI to play against. Download the zip, extract it, then add matt.exe to any of these free GUIs:

• Arena (Windows) - arena-chess.de
• Lucas Chess (Windows/Mac/Linux) - lucaschess.pythonanywhere.com
• Banksia (Windows/Mac/Linux) - banksiagui.com
• En Croissant (Windows/Mac/Linux) - encroissant.app

The included About & Setup Guide (.txt) has step-by-step setup instructions for all four GUIs.

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Chaos Mode

Enable ChaosEnabled=true in your GUI's engine options to unleash Matt's wild side. Chaos Mode is designed for human opponents it makes Matt deliberately avoid drawish positions, seek complex imbalances, and makes life difficult for players who rely on opening prep and pattern recognition. Set ChaosEnabled=false for full competitive strength.

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Download Contents

• matt.exe - The engine (self-contained, no install required)
• matt_book.bin - Opening book (300,000+ grandmaster positions)
• Matt 0.5 - About & Setup Guide.txt - Full setup instructions

Runs on any 64-bit Windows PC. No DLLs, no installer  just extract and go.

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Key UCI Options

ChaosEnabled	true/false - Enable Chaos Mode (default: false)
ChaosAggression	0-100 - Chaos intensity (default: 70)
OwnBook	true/false - Use opening book (default: true)
Hash	1-16384 MB - Transposition table (default: 512)
Threads	1-512 - Search threads (default: 1)
Ponder	true/false - Think on opponent's time (default: false)
UCI_Chess960	true/false - Fischer Random Chess (default: false)

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