SAGE DRAUGHTS - the worlds best checkers game program, with a free shareware demo!

SAGE DRAUGHTS 9.0 is a compact, powerful and fast program - possibly the best all-round shareware Windows checkers program in terms of features. It represents the latest in intelligent games playing software, and will give even the very best players a challenging game of checkers. While SAGE is easy enough for even a beginner to use, it does have a host of advanced features - it is also a powerful database program - it can build & search large databases of games for certain players or events, or positions.

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"This full-blown checkers program functions well as both a partner and a tutor... This powerful program suits both beginning and advanced players."
(review from Download.com, 4/5 rating)

"This checkers program is simply amazing. I found it nearly impossible to beat, and I consider myself a pretty strong checkers player. "
(original review from TUCOWS.COM, 5/5 rating)

Features of SAGE DRAUGHTS 9.0

SAGE plays both ENGLISH and ITALIAN variants of draughts.
Set any level of playing strength, from 1 second to 1 day a move, tournament style clock display used. Can also play "Easy" levels for beginners.
All functions available through a pleasant, easy to use user interface, nice graphics, animation of moves, friendly toolbar icons for many commands. Despite its advanced features, even a beginner can use SAGE.
Replay/rewind games with natural "tape" controls.
Save/Load games to disk, add annotation to game moves with comments, special comment fields for White/Black/Event/Date etc. This data, together with moves, shown in "moves" window.
Will accept "CheckerBoard" compatible external plug-in engines, giving access to the very strongest checker-playing engines in world. Click here for CheckerBoard compatible engines to run under SAGE..
Set up your own problem positions for the computer to analyse.
Analysis (best line and evaluation) can be spooled to a text file while you play, or added to comments automatically. Automatically analyse complete games move-by-move, saving the results in a text file. It can analyse sets of positions, again posting the results to a file.
SAGE supports PDN (Portable Draughts Notation) Database format - a new way to annotate/store large numbers of games via simple text files. You can browse a "1 line per game" summary of a database, click on the one you want, search the database for certain players/comments and even board position transpositions - a very powerful tool! Click here for information on the PORTABLE DRAUGHTS NOTATION format. SAGE is supplied with a large database of Master games. You can download an archive of 9000 PDN games from here..
Works with the 6 piece CHINOOK ENDGAME DATABASES for English checkers, around 2.5 billion endgame positions. Special thanks go to Jonathan Schaeffer's pioneering work on checkers, and for putting these databases in the public domain. Can run the Cake engine, which can use the 6/7/8 piece databases..
Powerful opening book-database which can contain set-up positions and auto-find transpositions (& sides-reversed pos). If you want to improve the book, a simple add-line-to-book function exists, and the ability to mark each move ?,<,=,>,! (weak to strong, 5 grades).
Will automatically classify the game you play according to a list of official openings. You can select a 3 move ballot to play, or have SAGE randomly choose one for you.
Powerful Analysis tools - an analysis window shows scrolling "Best move sequence/score so far" for current/previous moves. Analysis can be added as comments automatically. Games can be analysed automatically.
Auto-tournement mode, can play matches between different checker engines.
Print moves or diagrams (using a checkers true-type font).

Previous versions of SAGE came second in the 1997 Man-Machine tournament, previously won the "Sam Cohen" checkers tournament, and has a good track record against top players. Here is an example game (in PDN format) with Derek Oldbury, (former World Champion), playing against an earlier version of SAGE...

[Event "Demo game 1994 (on a slow 286 PC!)"]
[Black "Derek Oldbury, World champion"]
[White "SAGE 2300, 40sec/move"]
11-15 22-18 15-22 25-18 8-11 29-25 10-14 24-20 7-10 25-22 12-16 28-24 4-8 24-19 8-12 32-28 {the tempting 27-24 loses}
9-13 {3-7 loses to 19-15 10-19 27-24} 18-9 5-14 22-18 1-5 18-9 5-14 27-24 3-7 26-22 14-17 21-14 10-17-26 31-22 7-10 {Now at this stage Derek felt he had it sewn up but he didn't expect the following..} 22-18 13-17 18-14 2-7 30-26 17-21 19-15! 11-18-27 20-11-2 10-17 2-9 27-31 26-23 {Drawn!} 1/2-1/2

Test Position
Here is a test problem for SAGE (by D.Oldbury) White to play and win. Can you see it?
.

Sage sees the 13 move solution in a second and plays:- 27-24! 20*27 14-9 7x14 15-11 1x10 11-7 13x6 18x9x2 25x18 23x14 10x17 19-16 3x10 2-6 12x19 6x15x24x31x22x13 and White Wins!

Click here to see a list of NEW SAGE 9.0 FEATURES

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This page has been accessed times since April 2001.