Re: A86: Chess Engine


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Re: A86: Chess Engine



David Piper wrote:
> 
> I have decided to make Chess Master 86,  It will have a computer to play
> against...

Good luck.

> This is my problem,  how do I effectivily make a good computer apponent
> without the program being massive....

There are plenty of information on the web on how to program chess
computers. There are also sources available, for example GNU chess,
or Crafty, two _very_ strong freeware chess computers. Of course, the
source is in C/C++ and is quite massive...

If you're serious about programming a chessprogram, you really must
know what you're doing if you want to the computer to beat anyone
(even a complete beginner). Using brute force in the search algorithm
will maybe allow the computer to think at most 3 ply (halfmoves) ahead,
and then you probably need to let it think for a few seconds. Detecting
if one player can checkmate the other player in one move requires
'thinking' 3 ply - the checkmate move, try a defence move, find that
the defence move isn't allowed.

There are several hiearchies (sp?) used in modern chess program to
reduce the size of the enormous tree of moves, and you have to use
at least SOME of them if you want at least a computer than doesn't
make blunder moves all the time.

If I find time to make a chess program against a computer, I would
port an existing program. It's still a very hard project though, but
if you have a lot of time...

> I have decided to make it so you can choose which computer apponent you
> want,  the computer apponents will be stored in sperate files. (I hope,
> I may just go with the best one)

Concentrate on making the computer play first. Then you can make
different opponents.

-- 
Jimmy Mårdell                "The nice thing about standards is that 
mailto:mja@algonet.se         there are so many of them to choose from."
http://www.algonet.se/~mja    
IRC: Yarin                   "Sanity? I'm sure I have it on tape
somewhere!"


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