where to start chess programming?

vittyvirus · Post by **vittyvirus** » Sat Jun 21, 2014 1:34 pm

my name is fahad. m 13 n i love to program and play chess. i wanna program a chess engine. i want to program the best. there's no alternative to that. i want to program the world computer chess championthe engine. i hv been programming for 3 years n i've developed the free software windows tricker (http://silican.site90.com). i hv also some expierence in c++, and m gonna make my chess engine in tht. i first landed on chessprogramming wiki, but soon got that it was supposed to be a reference. i continued to hunt fo c++ chess prog tutorials and got on write a chess egine in 99 steps. but i guess i can get better places to start , as the engine wingletx is pretty weak. as i see many big bros like hounorable dr hyatt, here are my two questions to all chess programmers
1. where exactly, and i mean exactly, should i start? i am already reading c++ primer if u think i should master cpp first.
2. there are hundreds of chess programs, but why are some programs, eg stockfish n crafty etc much more advanced than others? what acually goes into making a 3000+ rated engine???

JuLieN · Post by **JuLieN** » Sat Jun 21, 2014 1:47 pm

Welcome, Syed. A good start to program a good chess engine is to have a keyboard with all the letters on it, otherwise you'll make lots of programming mistakes.

JuLieN · Post by **JuLieN** » Sat Jun 21, 2014 2:09 pm

More seriously, here are a few suggestions :
1- post those questions in the programming sub-forum
2- Someone made a great video tutorial on youTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... tZHVbT-2hg
3- Bookmark the Chess Programming Wiki :https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com
4- For your first engine don't start from an existing source code = learn by yourself.
5- Don't think you'll make a 3000+ engine (at least not an original one : ALL programmers coming out of the blue with a 3000+ engine copied another engine, and this is not regarded well by the community).
6- making a strong engine is a work of patience, dedication and talent. It'll take you many years. Rome wasn't built in one year.

Henk · Post by **Henk** » Sat Jun 21, 2014 2:13 pm

Get a copy of stockfish and try to understand how it works. I don't like reading source code of other people. It's always quite difficult to understand.

Maybe first step is make a chess program that performs random moves.
Next step implement alpha beta algorithm ?

Henk · Post by **Henk** » Sat Jun 21, 2014 2:16 pm

Probably best is not to start at all. But If you really sure ...

zullil · Post by **zullil** » Sat Jun 21, 2014 2:16 pm

vittyvirus wrote:my name is fahad. m 13 n i love to program and play chess. i wanna program a chess engine. i want to program the best. there's no alternative to that. i want to program the world computer chess championthe engine. i hv been programming for 3 years n i've developed the free software windows tricker (http://silican.site90.com). i hv also some expierence in c++, and m gonna make my chess engine in tht. i first landed on chessprogramming wiki, but soon got that it was supposed to be a reference. i continued to hunt fo c++ chess prog tutorials and got on write a chess egine in 99 steps. but i guess i can get better places to start , as the engine wingletx is pretty weak. as i see many big bros like hounorable dr hyatt, here are my two questions to all chess programmers
1. where exactly, and i mean exactly, should i start? i am already reading c++ primer if u think i should master cpp first.
2. there are hundreds of chess programs, but why are some programs, eg stockfish n crafty etc much more advanced than others? what acually goes into making a 3000+ rated engine???

My suggestion: Create a scheme for representing a chess position, and then write code that generates all legal moves in a given position. Do this entirely on your own, from scratch. Don't worry about efficiency or what has been done before, your only goal is correctness in all positions. If you cannot complete this task, find another plan for your life. If you can, then maybe take a look at http://www.tckerrigan.com/Chess/TSCP

vittyvirus · Post by **vittyvirus** » Sat Jun 21, 2014 2:57 pm

thanks all for your extremely valuable suggestions, seriously. any new suggestions are also welcome.

vittyvirus · Post by **vittyvirus** » Sat Jun 21, 2014 3:01 pm

JuLieN wrote: 6- making a strong engine is a work of patience, dedication and talent. It'll take you many years. Rome wasn't built in one year.

by what goes into a strong engine, i meant some technical stuff eg razoring or endgame knowledge. but still, thanks for the inspiration!

Jhoravi · Post by **Jhoravi** » Sat Jun 21, 2014 4:59 pm

Me started making 4-in-a-row AI as foundation to Alpha-Beta. Then checkers and had fun manipulating bitboards. They're much simpler.

zullil · Post by **zullil** » Sat Jun 21, 2014 5:05 pm

Jhoravi wrote:Me started making 4-in-a-row AI as foundation to Alpha-Beta.

I did this too.

where to start chess programming?

where to start chess programming?

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