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Drawfish

Drawfish scores every legal move with Stockfish and plays the one closest to 0.00, from WatchCheckmate’s “Stockfish, But…” videos. Get ahead and it gives material back to level the game. Try to make it lose.

Your move

How Drawfish plays

  • On each turn Drawfish asks Stockfish 18 for a score on every legal move, at depth 10, and plays the move whose score is closest to 0.00. When two are equally close it takes the one Stockfish ranked higher.
  • That means it does not try to win. If it is ahead it gives the advantage back; if it is behind, the move closest to 0.00 is its best defence, so it defends like Stockfish.
  • A forced mate counts as far from 0.00 in either direction, so it avoids walking into one and avoids delivering one while a level move exists.

How to beat Drawfish

  • Getting ahead is the easy part: it hands material back to level the game. Converting is the hard part, because once you are winning its “closest to 0.00” move is its best move.
  • Win by making every one of its moves bad at once — a mating attack or a material lead so large that no legal move comes near 0.00.
  • Do not let positions repeat. Repetition and the fifty-move rule are enforced: a position that comes back a third time is a draw. A repetition scores exactly 0.00, which is the move Drawfish is looking for.

Why does Drawfish give away material?

When it is ahead, the move closest to 0.00 is one that throws the lead away. It is not blundering by accident; that is the rule it plays by.

How strong is Drawfish?

It has no rating. It uses full-strength Stockfish 18 scores at depth 10 and then picks for 0.00 instead of for the best move, so it is weak when ahead and strong when behind.

After the game

Every finished game gets its own link, and you can open it as a full game review.

Drawfish leaderboard