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Scidlet is a chess program which comes with Scid. (Chess programs like Scidlet which can interface with graphical applications like Scid are usually called "chess engines".) Scidlet allows you to analyze games and positions; You can start it (or another chess engine) from inside Scid with the Analysis Engine... command in the Tools menu. For more assistance, see the Analysis online help page.

As chess engines go, Scidlet is modestly strong but there are many stronger free programs available. For example, at the WBEC Ridderkirk site, there is a rating list of more than 160 chess engines and Scid was ranked 54th with a rating of around 2300 last time I checked.

Interface Standards (WinBoard vs. UCI)

There are two main standards for chess-playing programs (often called "chess engines"): "WinBoard"-compatible engines, and "UCI"-compatible engines. Most commercial programs support UCI, while many free programs support the WinBoard interface. Scidlet is WinBoard-compatible and the current release of Scid can only run WinBoard engines. Programs which only use the UCI interface cannot yet be used in Scid; UCI support may be added in a future release.

Other WinBoard engines

There are many websites which provide information, links, ratings and tournament results for WinBoard-compatible engines. One of the most popular is WBEC Ridderkirk.

For other WinBoard engine links, please see the Scid Links page.