Question for you chess programmers out there!

Hi, all

Does anybody here know anything about chess engine programming(C++)? I especially want to know about bitboards--anything and everything about them and programming chess engines.

Also, any good programming sites would be appreciated.

Your comments are REALLY Appreciated!!!

Stockfish is probably the one you should check out first. It is among the very best chess engines in the world and the code is open source, so you can easily browse through it and see how it works.

https://stockfishchess.org/

Yes, but it is so hard to understand. Could you explain its basics to me?

More specifically, how does it implememt its bitboards?

Everything you need to know:

https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/

Thank you.

Do you know of any C++ forums that do not require me to set up an account?

Thank you!

Not a C++ forum, but talkchess.com has many experienced chess programmers.

Thanks for looking into it! You guys are very helpful!

I looked at Talkchess.com, but it seems a little counter-intuitive...Am I looking at it wrong?

There is a section "Programming and Technical Discussions"

http://talkchess.com

Thank you! Also, could you tell me where I can get the Microsoft Visual C++ for free? I do not have a microsoft account.

Check out:

http://aghaznawi.comuf.com/computer%20chess/winglet/

Also, you shouldn't have a look at Stockfish, it's an extremely advanced engine. Try TSCP.

Yes, I heard that I should try TCSP. It is indeed a smple chess engine. I think  I will have another go at Stockfish, though.

Thanks for the help :)

Also, I tried to go to your link, aghaznawi, but it would not load...is the link dead?

No, it loads perfectly on my browser. I can send you the offline mirror, but I'm not sure whether it'll be legal...

I don't want to do anything illegal :) What browser are you using? I am using firefox. Anyway, what is in the link?

The Chess A.Is currently out there are basically brute force algorithms.

They check through all the moves using a minimax search (they can skip some moves to optimize it), and then they choose the best moves based on their own heuristics, which is unique for each engine.

Going through Stockfish's source code if you're just learning engine programming would be a disaster, simply because you will probably not understand a single line there.

I suggest that you go here - TSCP, download the executable and the source code. It is written in C in just about 2000 lines and also heavily commented, it is built with the sole purpose of introducing programmers to chess-programming. Also, go to this site - https://sites.google.com/site/tscpchess/home , It explains everything from bitboards to evaluation functions from a begginer's point of view.

After understanding the complete code of TSCP and if you are able to add some of your own code to make it stronger will you be able to go through Stockfish. Anyway, good luck with your quest. Engine programming is a lot of fun.