In my VB class at school we have to create a program, me and my friend,being the idiots we are, decided to make a chess program. Well my teacher thought it wasn''t too challenging with two player so we told him we were making a single player version of it too. The only problem is, we don''t know how to do the AI for it. I don''t even know where to start. If you could help me I would greatly appreciate it. Anything will help.

My suggestion would be to go back to your teacher and tell him the truth!

Alternatively, there is an excellent series of articles in the Articles & Resources links of the website (under AI) that cover programming chess AI.

Good luck,

Timkin

hehe. I think you''ve bitten off more than you can chew! I bet your teacher had to stifle a grin when you told him that!

Why don''t you start with something more simple like connect 4 or even tic-tac-toe? Although relatively simple you will learn the basics of the techniques used to develop a chess game and at least the project will be realizable.

Good luck!



Stimulate

Hmm well just writing 2-player chess isn''t *that* easy. En passant and castling rules can be a pain.

A chess AI would be tough. Work out a way to evaluate a game state and then just go through all legal moves and choose the one leading to the best state. That would leave you with a simple but functional AI.

If the chess game "isn''t too challenging", ask your teacher to write one as well and see if he flinches.

Dave Mark
President and Lead Designer
Intrinsic Algorithm Development
"Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

When I do AI for Chess and TTT and similiar square based games I program the computer (we talk TTT now) to analyze every square and give them points and then takes the one that have the most points, priority.

Lets say that it is the computers turn in our TTT game. It start analyze the squares and think "Um...if a place my mark i got two in a row, that´s 1 point" or "If I place my mark here I got a impossible situation for him thats good, 2 points...but...oh, wait, here he has two in a row! Thats highest priority, 3 points" and so on. After the game analyze is complete the computer places a mark on the spot that has the most points.

A chess prgm is just to forget if you ask me! Imagine you go for the same AI concept, you have to give every square on the chesstable points. That means you have to know every peice value and the valuable of all the tactics. Imagine then to be forced to include all the planning the computer does and the knowledge about En passant and Castle.

Its hard, believe me...