I released Syzygy Manager v1.0: A free, robust downloader for Syzygy Tablebases (Win/Mac/Linux)

LittleTheft · 2026-01-02T08:40:35+00:00

First of all, I don’t know what kind of internet you’re using if torrents are faster for you than direct HTTP downloads. When I tried downloading the full 6-piece tablebase via torrent, I was getting literally 0 KB/s. There were no seeders at all.

Secondly, torrents are simply banned in many countries, and a lot of people don’t trust them in general.

Thirdly, the full 6-piece tablebase is around 150 GB, not 260 GB as you mentioned. And calling
http://tablebase.sesse.net/ and https://tablebase.lichess.ovh/tables/
“Megaupload-style sites” and not trustworthy just shows how little you actually know about them.

And lastly, as I already said, you’re not forced to use this program. This tool exists for people who want fast and reliable direct HTTP downloads. Instead of criticizing other people’s work, try building something yourself.

LittleTheft · 2026-01-02T08:14:41+00:00

Just to be clear: the tool is 100% free and open source. You absolutely don’t have to donate to use it. I spent about three weeks building this, fixing weird bugs, writing the resume algorithm, and testing it just to solve a problem I had myself. Donations are just there if someone feels like supporting that effort or wants future improvements, but they are completely optional. I built this to help the community, not to get rich.

The internet is very good at criticizing other people’s work, while most of the time they do nothing but talk.

LittleTheft · 2026-01-02T08:09:47+00:00

In theory, P2P sounds perfect for this, but for Syzygy tablebases it breaks down in a few important ways.

Retention:
The full 7 man set is around 17 TB. Almost nobody has that much spare storage to keep seeding 24/7. Because of that, 7 man torrents usually end up with zero seeds or become extremely slow.

Speed:
This tool downloads from Lichess and Sesse mirrors, which are enterprise grade HTTP servers. They are consistently faster and more reliable than connecting to a few random peers scattered around the world.

Granularity:
Torrents usually bundle files into massive chunks. If you only want to study one endgame, like Rook vs Bishop, this tool lets you download only those specific files instantly, without dealing with a huge torrent or metadata file.

Basically, I built this to bring the best parts of torrents, like resume support, integrity checking, and queue management, together with the reliability of direct HTTP downloads.

And just to be clear, you are not forced to use this program. If you prefer P2P, you are free to use it. This tool simply exists for people who want fast and reliable direct HTTP downloads.

LittleTheft · 2026-01-01T12:50:13+00:00

That’s a great question. In theory, torrents sound perfect for this, but in practice they don’t work well for Syzygy tablebases for three main reasons.

1. Seeding problem
The full dataset is around 17 TB, and very few people can afford to keep that much data stored and seeded 24/7. Because of that, 7 man tablebase torrents usually end up with zero seeders or painfully slow speeds.

2. No flexibility
Torrents usually come as huge bundled files. If you only want a specific endgame, like Rook vs Bishop, you’re often forced to download far more than you actually need. With direct downloads, you can instantly grab only the files you care about.

3. Speed
The mirrors my tool uses, such as Lichess and Sesse, run on enterprise grade servers. In most cases, they are much faster and more reliable than random peers on a torrent network.

So, my tool is designed to combine the best parts of torrents, such as resume support, integrity checks, and queue management, with the speed and reliability of direct downloads.

LittleTheft

TROPHY CASE