Wordfish 4.50 190326 - new version chess engine

 

Wordfish is a free, open-source UCI chess engine implementing cutting-edge search algorithms combined with neural network evaluation. Derived from fundamental chess programming principles, Wordfish analyzes positions through parallelized alpha-beta search enhanced with null-move pruning and late move reductions.

Author: Jorge Ruiz Centelles and the Stockfish developers

Wordfish 4.50 190326 what's new?

Root Syzygy shortcut is now gated for the problematic modes only: the immediate root-tablebase shortcut is no longer taken for go infinite or ponder. In Wordfish, the equivalent root-TB path lives in src/thread.cpp, so the narrow adaptation was applied there. Normal timed searches still keep the fast root-tablebase path enabled.

Why this was applied: the purpose of the patch is to reduce the risk of Playchess time losses in Syzygy endgames, especially in low-latency and short-time scenarios where immediate and fully consistent bestmove delivery matters more than an aggressive root shortcut in non-timed modes.

UCI callbacks cleaned up as proper instance handlers: stateful callback paths were kept as instance methods and wired consistently through this. This matters because low-time suppression and throttling are state-dependent and should not be split across static-style paths.

Atomic bestmove output: the final bestmove line is now emitted in a single sync_cout << ... << sync_endl chain, with optional ponder appended in the same chain. Mixed std::cout writes were removed from that path so GUI-facing move delivery is cleaner and more deterministic.

No broad search or evaluation rewrite: this is not a speculative strength patch, not a broad upstream sync, and not an NNUE change. It is a narrow operational fix aimed at real-world engine behaviour under Playchess/Syzygy/UCI conditions.

Deterministic EXE + UCI identity preserved and rebranded: the release base is now Wordfish-4.50-190326, and the compiled ISA suffix remains carried consistently into both the executable filename and the UCI id name. This keeps GUI discovery and tournament indexing stable across -sse41popcnt, -avx2, -FMA3, and other supported build targets.

Supporting tooling added for follow-up validation: the release also adds a Windows-oriented latency harness (tests/uci_latency_harness.py) and a dry reproduction note (docs/playchess_tb_latency.md) for the real 6-man Playchess/Syzygy scenario.

Compatibility note: compared to 4.40, this release does not change the verified NNUE pair and does not widen scope into unrelated engine logic. It is a focused maintenance patch for root-TB gating, UCI callback correctness, and atomic GUI-visible bestmove delivery.

Wordfish 3.10 011125 vs other engines:

Stockfish 17.110/22-222 games
SugaR 1.0.19.5/22-322 games
ShashChess 408.5/18-118 games
Stockfish dev-202511028.5/18-118 games
HypnoS 1.007.5/18-318 games
DarkSeid 7.0 EE6.5/16-316 games
SpecTral 116.5/14-114 games
CorChess 202510056.5/14-114 games
JudaS 1.0.16.5/14-114 games
Brainlearn 316/14-214 games
Killfish PB 1510256/14-214 games
Artemis 18.8TR6/14-214 games
Kookaburra 3.115/14-414 games
Revolution 3.10 0511254.5/14-514 games
Revolution 3.0 0111254/8+08 games
PlentyChess 7.0.124/8+08 games
Tactical Titan 5.73.5/8-18 games
Solistafish Sep25 PB3.5/8-18 games
Deep Blue3/8-28 games
Revolution 3.40 0811252.5/8-38 games
Omega Explorer 1210253/6+06 games



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