Author: Will Singleton
Date: 10:34:54 05/14/98
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On May 14, 1998 at 05:32:13, frank phillips wrote: >Can anyone point me in the direction of explanations of the techniques >used in chess programming. Having learnt a bit of C this year and with >the help of articles found on the Net about search algorithms managed to >write crude connect4 and othello programs, I would now appreciate some >pointers to simple but thorough and complete explanations of bitboards >and hashtables. Several articles I have found partially explain these >topics but usually assume that the reader has more knowledge than I do, >perhaps because they assume a basic programming background which I do >not have. The source code to Crafty (thanks Bob) is well documented but >beyond me at the moment. On a specific issue, I would be grateful for >an explanation of how to get a pv out of the (alpha/beta negamax) >search. Everything I have tried so far based on storing the best move >in an array pv[depth] has failed, so I seem to be missing a fundamental >point - or am just plain stupid :-/ Hi Frank, As you know, you can find a wealth of material on the net. Here's one that's useful: http://www.xs4all.nl/~verhelst/chess/. If you really want to get into it, you can order back issues or a complete set of the ICCA Journal. Look at http://www.dcs.qmw.ac.uk/~icca/. There are also some chess programming books at Amazon, do a search over there. Re your question on the pv, take a look at Tom Kerrigan's Simple Chess Program. Much better than crafty for the novice :) I hope you know what you're getting into. Actually, you probably don't. I was where you are about a year and a half ago (chess programming-wise). And I've learned most stuff the hard way. Not every algorithm or idea works the same in every program, a lot depends on the interaction of the parts. And sometimes, it's just plain magic that it works at all. btw, does everyone down your way say "learnt?" Will
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