Stats

I like numbers. If you're here, I assume you like numbers.

I'm hoping this page will show all kinds of stats about people playing Cheops on this site - how often the engine gets beaten and at which setting, how long the average game runs, how many captures, checks and promotions happen, etc etc.

If you're reading this and see no figures, we're not there yet. But you can help: go and play a game.

In the meantime, I've had the computer play itself, tens of thousands of times → scroll down for the results.

This is the engine playing itself, at the same strength as the Hard setting. I'm hoping that the figures provide a fair sense of what to expect.

First-mover advantage results in about a 55% win rate, which is roughly the same as what you'd see in chess: strong chess engines land between 54.6% and 55.4%.

Reaching the Apex is decisive. Whoever gets a Pawn there first - it promotes to a Queen on arrival - wins about seven of every eight decided games. That is easier said than done.

It is not a quiet game. A typical one carries around nine checks and twenty-three captures, and with sixteen pieces a side that leaves the board nearly stripped by the end.

Games run a bit longer than chess - about 144 moves (72 per side) against roughly 120 for engine chess - which is what you would expect of a game asking for two things at once instead of one: a Queen on the Apex and the opposing King in check, both true at the same moment. About one game in eight is drawn; on the Brutal setting draws rise to about one in six.