Sparky

Practise against Sparky

Sparky runs Stockfish 19 with its own strength limit set to 1400 (UCI_Elo), at search depth 10. It hangs pieces far less often than the bots below it but still misjudges plans, so it is the right level to test an opening. Pick one from our chess openings guide and play it every game for a week.

After each game, set up the position where it turned in the best move calculator and see what Stockfish would have played. Pro members can also run the whole game through the chess analysis board for a move-by-move review. If Sparky feels too easy, move up to Bolt (1700); if it is too strong, drop to Gizmo (1100).

All 11 levels are on the play chess against the computer page, and the bots up to 2600 are free. How each one is tuned is explained in our guide to chess bots.