Ruffian

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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, supporting both, the Chess Engine Communication Protocol and UCI.

=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. One of the major evaluation terms is mobility based on pre-calculated tables considering various patterns.

=Photos= ICT 2004 winners: Chrilly Donninger, Erdogan Günes (Hydra 2nd), Stefan Meyer-Kahlen (Shredder 1st), Johan Havegheer (Ruffian 3rd), Vincent Diepeveen (Diep 3rd)

=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, winner of the (unofficial) Swedish Championship in 2003 , 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.

=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, and further with the otherwise free Arena GUI, CD production by Frank Quisinsky and distribution by Schachversand Niggemann , and soon as bundle with ChessPartner by Lokasoft. Ruffian is base of the chess AI in Kasparov Chessmate, with Perola Valfridsson credited as author by MobyGames. The initial hype about Ruffian's commercialization was apparently detrimental to its authors motivation to continue the development. In conjunction with the upcoming strong free engines catching up, this was slowly but surely the fall of the commercial endeavor. In May 2017, Frank Quisinsky rescued Ruffian versions 2.02 and 2.1 from their commercial burdens.

=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 Chess GUI for Linux and Windows
 * Ruffian, the replacement to ABBA, Interview with Perola Valfridsson by Frank Quisinsky et al., October, 2002, hosted by Ed Schröder
 * 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= Up one Level