"Hawkins" is an open-source, competitive Chess AI powered by multiple tree search algorithms. It makes use of various optimization techniques, such as alpha-beta pruning and its most common extensions along with cache memoization. It comes with its own GUI (which was heavily inspired by Nick Zuber's board design) and many levels of difficulty.
Hawkins plays at a really high-level, even when compared to the strongest AIs ever built with Python. In this particular game, Hawkins went head to head with Stockfish's fifth level on lichess (rated ~2000 ELO), and won after dozens of well-crafted moves.
Stockfish vs Hawkins, 0-1 (PGN)
Hawkins runs on both Unix/Linux and Windows terminals. In order to put the engine to test, you must either download the source code or install its package, which is available via PyPI. To challenge the hardest level, it is advisable that you run it on a Just-in-Time Interpreter (like PyPy, for example) for it to play to his maximum capability. (Note: Windows may have a hard a time rendering Unicode characters that represent our chess pieces. Please choose an adequate font for your terminal, such as NSimSum, to avoid that).
To get the package:
pip install hawkins
And finally, run the following command to start playing:
python -m hawkins.chessboard