Chess System Tal 2.02
The modern NNUE engine (UCI protocol). Pick the build that matches your processor — most machines want AVX2; choose AVX512 only if your CPU supports it. ~40 MB each.
All releases & notes on GitHub →Chess engine pioneer · Creator of Chess System Tal
Chris Whittington
Four decades of computer chess. Founder of Oxford Softworks and creator of Chess System Tal — the engine built to play like Mikhail Tal: bold, sacrificial, alive. Because a chess program should understand the game, not just brute force it.
About
Oxford Softworks & Chess System Tal 1982–2000
British chess and games programmer, publisher and entrepreneur, I founded Oxford Softworks in Burford, Oxfordshire in the mid-1980s and spent two decades building chess engines — from SuperChess (1982) to the Complete Chess System and, above all, Chess System Tal, designed to play in the romantic, sacrificial style of World Champion Mikhail Tal. Oxford Softworks became a software development, licensing and publishing house specialising in strategy games — Bridge, Go, Shogi and others — and was sold to venture capitalists in May 2000; the chess engine never retired, and Chess System Tal lives on today as a modern neural-network (NNUE) engine.
Worcestershire Sauce 2000–2010
After the sale I retired (sort of) and turned to other pursuits: vegetable patch, beekeeping, alpacas, sheep, pigs, cows and river boating, programming remaining a part-time pursuit. For a time I also served as Chairman of the Parish Council, handing over to the capable hands of Bob Annis in 2009.
France & the nomad years 2010–present
In 2010 I moved to south-west France and, somewhere along the way, reinvented myself — less programmer, more adventurer and nomad, now dividing my time between France, the Caucasus and South-East Asia.
- Chess engine design
- Evaluation & search
- NNUE neural networks
- C / C++
- Forward pruning
- Games publishing
Philosophy
Most engines win by searching deeper and faster. I bet on the opposite: knowledge over brute force. Pack real chess understanding into the evaluation, then let that judgement decide which lines are worth exploring at all. The aim was never just a stronger engine — it was an engine that plays like a daring human master, one that would rather sacrifice and attack than grind out a draw.
Programs
Four decades of computer chess, 1982 to today.
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1982
SuperChess
An early commercial chess program — the start of a long road.
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1989
Chess Player 2150 / 2175
A popular commercial release from Oxford Softworks.
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1990
Chess Simulator
Continuing the Oxford Softworks chess line.
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1993
Complete Chess System
A full chess package for MS-DOS (Amiga in 1994), with its own graphical interface and 2D/3D boards. Preserved today on the Internet Archive.
View on Internet Archive → -
1995 & 1999
Chess System Tal & Chess System Tal II
The flagship. An engine designed to play in the romantic, sacrificial style of Mikhail Tal — the fullest expression of the knowledge-based philosophy.
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2023
Chess System Tal — NNUE
A modern revival: a UCI engine in C++ (with Ed Schröder) using a neural-network (NNUE) evaluation, yet still tuned for Tal-style aggression. Rated around 2914 blitz and ranked among the top publicly available engines, with a "Learn Assist" feature that steers the search toward preferred lines.
View on GitHub →
Downloads
Free to download — the latest Chess System Tal engine and several EPD test suites: some for exhaustive testing of PERFT, and others for use as randomised opening positions for testing with various common chess-odds games.
EPD test suites
Various EPD test suites — position sets for testing and analysing chess engines.
Browse on GitHub →UCI protocol
The Universal Chess Interface — the command-line protocol between chess engines and GUIs (original specification by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen).
View on GitHub →Get in touch
For anything about Chess System Tal, Oxford Softworks, or computer chess, the engine lives on GitHub — that's the best place to find me.
Chess System Tal on GitHub