Reckless is a from-scratch UCI chess engine that has climbed rapidly through the computer chess rating lists. It is not a Stockfish derivative — it is an independent implementation, which makes it considerably more interesting than yet another fork.
Independent strong engines matter because they are the only real test of whether an idea is genuinely good or just something that happens to work inside one particular codebase. When two unrelated engines converge on the same technique, that is evidence. When they disagree, that is a research question.
It is included on Chessy specifically because it is the kind of engine most people have never heard of and cannot easily try. Running it takes downloading a binary, finding a GUI and configuring a UCI connection — or opening this page and pressing start.
What makes it distinctive
- ▸Independent codebase, not derived from Stockfish
- ▸AGPL licensed — the strongest copyleft of anything bundled here
- ▸Actively developed and climbing the engine rating lists