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Subject: Re: Chess engine for dummies

Author: Bob Durrett

Date: 14:49:21 02/04/04

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On February 04, 2004 at 14:05:20, Harald Lüßen wrote:

>On February 04, 2004 at 10:52:38, Andrew Wagner wrote:
>
>>Sheer random thought....do you guys think that a basic book on how to write a
>>chess program would sell? Like an "Idiot's guide..." or "...for dummies" book
>>that takes you through the process step by step?
>
>I have such a book. It is written in german and it is called
>"Schach am PC", from D.Steinwender, F.A.Friedel.
>Markt & Technik 1995, ISBN 3-87791-522-1.

A little outdated, don't you think?  Maybe someone could translate and then
update and get rights to the English version.

Bob D.

>
>The chapters are (translated):
>1. The first chess engines (16 pages)
>2. How chess programs think (32)
>3. Recent developments (28)
>4. What chess programs can do (20)
>5. The most important programs (70)
>6. Chess software for free (28)
>7. Playing strength of men and Machine (58)
>8. Computer chess for experts (36)
>9. We write a chess program (80)
>10. MiniMax in Basic (58)
>- Dictionary of computer chess (34)
>A. Literature, B. CD-ROM, Chess232 & Auto232, Nimzo, Link to CSS Shop
>Index (5)
>
>All basic knowledge is included, even a commented source.
>What I am missing are the more advanced or new topics:
>- more about bitboards
>- more about pruning and razoring
>- more about extensions
>- more about hash tables and pawn hash tables
>- more evaluation patterns
>- more about collecting the principle variation
>- evaluation based tricks, pruning and extensions
>- more about nullmove
>- what are attack tables?
>- discussion of different search algorithms
>- discussion of different variants of the technics above
>- what else can you try?
>- how do things work together, where are the problems?
>- optimization technics
>- pocount, firstbit, lastbit
>- repetition detection
>- time management
>- Winboard and UCI interface, input threads
>- internet play
>- how to implement opening books
>- how to build opening books
>- endgame tablebases
>- how to test, debug and tune a chess program
>- resources in the internet and usenet
>- how to publish a new engine
>- ...
>
>I would like to have an advanced book. But I don't think
>it would sell well.
>
>Harald



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