Sameshi
a ~1200 Elo chess engine that fits within 2KB
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I made a chess engine today, and made it fit within 2KB. I used a variant of MinMax called Negamax, with alpha beta pruning. For the board representation I have used a 120-cell "mailbox". I managed to squeeze in checkmate/stalemate in there, after trimming out some edge cases.I am a great fan of demoscene (computer art subculture) since middle school, and hence it was a ritual i had to perform.For estimating the Elo, I measured 240 automated games against Stockfish Elo levels (1320 to 1600) under fixed depth-5 and some constrained rules, using equal color distribution.Then converted pooled win/draw/loss scores to Elo through some standard logistic formula with binomial 95% confidence interval.
HN · launched Feb 14, 2026 · 230 upvotes (top 4%) · 0 views
Niche: specialized algorithms and computing libraries · 230 launches, 4 in the last 7 days ▼ -73% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Hardware & robotics
- Developer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 230 launches in specialized algorithms and computing libraries →
Could you build this?
No While basic minimax chess algorithms can be generated by AI, fitting a full functional chess engine (including move generation, mailbox representation, alpha-beta pruning, and win conditions) into an extreme code-golf constraint of 2KB requires deep low-level algorithmic optimization and byte-level manual hacking.
What it would actually take: To achieve a working ~1200 Elo chess engine under 2KB, one needs handcrafted assembly, C, or minified JavaScript utilizing bitwise operations, compressed board representations (0x88 or 10x12 mailbox), and extreme byte-saving heuristics. Modern AI models frequently hallucinate illegal move mechanics or exceed strict size constraints when attempting aggressive code-golfing. Success requires deep familiarity with tournament rules, micro-optimizations, and algorithmic compression techniques.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: Stockfish, asmFish, OliThink, Xiphos, TCEC 4K sized engines
Concerns raised: Missing core chess rules (castling, en passant, promotion, repetition, 50-move rule), Unsigned integers complicate language design and error-handling, Small size claims in chess programs can be fraudulent with hidden limitations, Static evaluation neural net trained with rules that aren't actually enforced, Not actual chess, just chess piece movement simulator
Feature requests: Playable version/play button link, Support for unsigned integer types
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 261 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #16 of 262 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 108 days after the earliest competitor.
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