Abstract

Since the 10th century, chess has been seen as more than a game by humanity. Thus, it is not surprising that, when the first computers were built, people have tried creating engines to play chess. Although hard at the time, enthusiasts persevered and searched for ways to improve their chess playing algorithms with the hope of creating a computer which will be able to outclass a human. After many years, their efforts were rewarded.

In the present, chess engines are already playing better than chess world champions. It is no longer hard to build a chess engine, as the knowledge required is easy to find. Some of it can also be used for other games like Checkers, Go, Shogi (Japanese chess) and others.

In this presentation, we seek to build a simple chess engine and then do some basic optimisations so that we can obtain a worthy computer chess opponent.