# Sameshi chess engine

10 Hacker News commenters recommended Sameshi chess engine and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 1 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Tiny chess engine that fits in about 2KB of code and plays around 1200 Elo; people admire the compactness. Critics note missing castling, en passant and promotion.

## Why people recommend it

- Impressively small code size (3 comments): "while 4k is still very impressive for the code base" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47015336)) "the size and capability is impressive nonetheless" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47016291)) "Cool that you could keep it under 2k" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47014684))
- Enthusiastic, well-liked project (2 comments): "Cool project. The pawn is not permitted to move two fields after it has already been moved once before" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47015644)) "This is amazing! Thanks for sharing." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47015069))

## What people warn about

- Missing castling, en passant, promotion (2 comments): "you do need castling, en pessant and promotion for pretty much any serious play." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47015834)) "Not implemented: castling, en passant, promotion, repetition, 50-move rule." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47020900))
- Obfuscated code hard to contribute to (2 comments): "I love how you obfuscated your code, really in a spirit of FOSS!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47015244)) "Your code is useless to anyone that wants to contribute" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47018170))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Stockfish](https://hackerapproved.com/p/stockfish.md): 47 recommend
- [Chessmaster 3000](https://hackerapproved.com/p/chessmaster.md): 6 recommend
- [Leela Chess Zero](https://hackerapproved.com/p/leela-chess-zero.md): 5 recommend
- [Regex Chess](https://hackerapproved.com/p/regex-chess.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Sameshi chess engine", https://hackerapproved.com/p/sameshi-chess-engine/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).