Quack-Mate SQL Chess Engine

What is Quack-Mate?

Quack-Mate is an experimental chess engine that performs move generation and evaluation directly within DuckDB using SQL. It explores the feasibility of using analytical databases for game-tree search.

To read more about the technical details, architectural design decisions, and performance benchmarks of Quack-Mate, check out this blog post.

⚠ Restricted Mode

You are currently playing using a WASM DuckDB engine in Restricted Mode. To ensure browser stability in this static environment, search depth is capped at 4 and threads at 2.

The WASM engine is limited to 4 GB of RAM. Out of memory errors may still occur, especially using the Recursive CTE strategy.

To experience the full power of Quack-Mate (including higher depths and the high-performance Native DuckDB backend), please visit the GitHub Repository and run it locally.

Engine Options

• Max Depth: How many plies ahead the AI calculates.
• Max Depth QS: Quiescence Search depth: how many plies on top of Max Depth the AI calculates to stabilize "noisy" positions involving captures.
• Strategy: Different SQL approaches to search (Recursive CTE is impractical for above Max Depth 3).
• Optimisations: Heuristics like Alpha-Beta pruning and Transposition Tables (TT) that help the engine search faster.