Chess is possibly one of the most
impressive two player games. It is speculated that the game of Chess originated from India and has
documented evidence laying it's root as far as 500 BC. In the context of the current discussion, I
wanted to demostrate the ease with which the core game framework can
be extended to enable a computer player to play chess with a reasonable intelligence level.
For the demonstration applet on the left, the game has been infused with four simple evaluation
policies:
Material Strategy : It tries hard to increase its relative material strength. For her, the
pieces in order of importance are PAWN, BISHOP, KNIGHT, ROOK, QUEEN and KING. This strategy
takes the highest precedence and this is what makes the program very aggresive.
Encroachment Strategy : This strategy tries to maximize the advance of the pieces and its
effects are visible when the material advantage is minimal or non existent.
Center Board Capture Strategy : Computer will try to capture the center squares as I have
taught her that these are strong positions in the board.
Mobility Strategy : This strategy tries to maximize the mobility of the pieces and avoids
clumsy piece formations.
Each of these evaluation strategies has been assigned a weight and the cumulative goodness of a move
is a weighted sum of the goodness of each evaluation strategy.
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