Ruffian,
a chess engine developed by Perola Valfridsson since 1998, which appeared in July 2002 as a surprisingly strong newcomer playing on ICC and FICS 1, supporting both, the Chess Engine Communication Protocol and UCI.
Contents
Description
With portability and performance in mind, Ruffian was written in C, and used a hybrid board representation of bitboard and 8x8 board. It performs PVS with null move pruning and other forward pruning techniques as well as a few own algorithms and tricks 2. One of the major evaluation terms is mobility based on pre-calculated tables considering various patterns 3 4.
Photos
ICT 2004 winners: Chrilly Donninger, Erdogan Günes (Hydra 2nd), Stefan Meyer-Kahlen (Shredder 1st),
Johan Havegheer (Ruffian 3rd), Vincent Diepeveen (Diep 3rd) 5
Achievements
Ruffian was shared winner of the CCT5 and lonesome winner of the DOCCC 2003 supported by book author Đorđe Vidanović, operated by Johan Havegheer, Frank Quisinsky and Leo Dijksman 6 7, winner of the (unofficial) Swedish Championship in 2003 8, and further played a strong CCT6 and ICT 2004.
Free Ruffian
The free Windows versions 1.0 from September 2002 is still available for download from Ed Schröder's Winboard and UCI engines download site 9.
Commercial Ruffian
In 2003, Ruffian 2 went commercial, first bundled with Chess Assistant by Convekta, where Victor Zakharov mentions Dann Corbit was a big help 10, and further with the otherwise free Arena GUI, CD production by Frank Quisinsky and distribution by Schachversand Niggemann 11, and soon as bundle with ChessPartner by Lokasoft 12. Ruffian is base of the chess AI in Kasparov Chessmate 13, with Perola Valfridsson credited as author by MobyGames 14. The initial hype about Ruffian's commercialization was apparently detrimental to its authors motivation to continue the development 15. In conjunction with the upcoming strong free engines catching up, this was slowly but surely the fall of the commercial endeavor 16. In May 2017, Frank Quisinsky rescued Ruffian versions 2.02 and 2.1 from their commercial burdens 17.
See also
- Chester
- Kasparov Chessmate
- King of Kings
- Tinker
Forum Posts
2002
- What is Ruffian? by Bas Hamstra, CCC, July 24, 2002
- Some info about Ruffian by Benny Antonsson, CCC, July 29, 2002
- Ruffian 0.76 is still playing incredible strong! by Jouni Uski, CCC, September 19, 2002
- Ruffian is here - Make your move Bob Hyatt! by Peter Fendrich, CCC, September 23, 2002
- Interview with Ruffian programmer Per-Ola Valfridsson available! by Frank Quisinsky, CCC, October 09, 2002
2003
- Dutch Open Leiden final ranking - Ruffian Champion by Theo van der Storm, CCC, October 26, 2003
- First impression of Ruffian 1.0.5 by capgadget, Winboard Forum, November 07, 2003
- Arena 1.0 / Ruffian 2.0 ... information! by Frank Quisinsky, CCC, November 21, 2003
- Ruffian's Secret? by Steve Maughan, CCC, November 23, 2003
- The America/Ruffian ordeal... by Slater Wold, CCC, December 03, 2003
- Questions about Ruffian2 and other platforms by Daniel Clausen, CCC, December 17, 2003
- One more post on Ruffian 2.0 by Đorđe Vidanović, CCC, December 19, 2003
2004
- Ruffian on a G5 isn't bad! by George Sobala, CCC, January 31, 2004
- Ruffian 2.1.0 ... by Frank Quisinsky, CCC, February 09, 2004
- Good news for Ruffian Lovers from outside europe by Johan Havegheer, CCC, February 21, 2004
- Ruffian 2.1.0 or Ruffian 2.0.2 ... by Frank Quisinsky, CCC, February 23, 2004
- Ruffian 2.0.2 copy protection by Jouni Uski, CCC, March 02, 2004
- Ruffian's most peculiar way of pondering by Peter Berger, CCC, March 27, 2004
2005 ...
- Re: CSVN Leiden (Ruffian and Sjeng missing) by Johan Havegheer, CCC, June 01, 2005
- SSDF(Fruit 2.2.1 - Ruffian 1.0.1)A1200, 2½-2½, ended 26-14 by Tony Hedlund, CCC, January 09, 2006 » Fruit
2015 ...
- Computer Chess Progress: Stockfish 7 vs Ruffian 1.0.5 by Martin Fierz, CCC, March 17, 2016 » Stockfish
- Ruffian support ... by Frank Quisinsky, CCC, May 16, 2017
External Links
Chess Engine
- Ruffian from Arena (Wayback Machine)
- https://web.archive.org/web/20170830232610/http://www.top-5000.nl/int/ruffian.htm Ruffian, the replacement to ABBA], Interview with Perola Valfridsson by Frank Quisinsky et al., October, 2002, hosted by Ed Schröder (Wayback Machine)
- Shredder and Ruffian lead in Leiden by Eric van Reem and Theo van der Storm, ChessBase, April 24, 2004 » ICT 2004
- Ruffian in CCRL 40/40
- Download Winboard and UCI engines by Ed Schröder
- Frank's Chess Page, Downloads by Frank Quisinsky
Misc
- ruffian - Wiktionary
- ruffiano - Wiktionary
- from Wikipedia
- Ruffian Games from Wikipedia
- Ruffian (horse) from Wikipedia
- The Ruffian - eBike
References
What is Ruffian? by Bas Hamstra, CCC, July 24, 2002↩︎
Ruffian, the replacement to ABBA, Interview with Perola Valfridsson by Frank Quisinsky et al., October, 2002, hosted by Ed Schröder↩︎
Ruffian's Secret? by Steve Maughan, CCC, November 23, 2003↩︎
Participants 23rd Open Dutch Computer-Chess Championship 18, 19, 25, 26 Oct. 2003; Leiden, Netherlands old CSVN site↩︎
Dutch Open Leiden final ranking - Ruffian Champion by Theo van der Storm, CCC, October 26, 2003↩︎
iSMDS-03 (unofficial) Swedish Championship 2003 by Albert Bertilsson↩︎
ChessAssistance.com A talk with Victor Zakharov, head of Convekta development, part b by Robert Pawlak, February 14, 2003↩︎
Arena 1.0 / Ruffian 2.0 ... information! by Frank Quisinsky, CCC, November 21, 2003↩︎
Good news for Ruffian Lovers from outside europe by Johan Havegheer, CCC, February 21, 2004↩︎
Kasparov Chessmate review by Alastair Scott, CCC, July 12, 2003↩︎
Re: CSVN Leiden (Ruffian and Sjeng missing) by Johan Havegheer, CCC, June 01, 2005↩︎
Ruffian support ... by Frank Quisinsky, CCC, May 16, 2017↩︎