Some monthes ago I tried to the take a glance at chess engine programming. I first started by writing one in python (ChessBuddy) with absolutely no knowledge on the subject. Although it was quite slow, it worked and already beat me (spoiler alert : this means nothing, I suck at chess).
Then I opened the pandora’s box : How will it compete against other engines ?
I joined the ##chessprogramming community on Freenode IRC, and started studying the CPW (chess programming wiki).
After reading the very basics, I had to face the facts that rewriting one engine from scratch was inevitable, so I started Chessika, a chess engine in C++.
After some monthes of work on my free time, I submitted one version of chessika to the CCRL (Computer Chess Rating Lists).
The first results are here : Chessika reached the 599th place on 677 engines in Blitz competition !
Time to write some updates !
If you’re reading those lines and get interested in such programming topics, don’t hesitate to join us on IRC !