OpenChess

After resisting the temptation for years, I spent several weeks this summer writing a chess program. The program's name is Kirby, and at the moment it's nothing more than a (very slow) move generator, a basic alpha-beta search and a (very crude) evaluation. But it plays legal chess, albeit quite slowly and very badly. (See below for a crushing loss to Crafty-23.3!)

I decided to start from scratch---for example, I use a 12x12 array for board representation ---and it has been a blast. Not sure if/when I'll have time to do more, but I've really enjoyed the project so far. And it's nice to know that I won't be seeing any polls asking who thinks Kirby is a clone/derivative!

[Event "?"]<br> [Site "?"]<br> [Date "2010.08.07"]<br> [Round "?"]<br> [White "Crafty 23.3"]<br> [WhiteElo ""]<br> [Black "Kirby 0.01"]<br> [BlackElo ""]<br> [Result "1-0"]<br> <br> 1. Nf3 d5 2. Nc3 e6 3. e4 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bd7 5. d4 Bc6 6. Bd3 <br> Nd7 7. Qe2 Ngf6 8. Nxf6+ Qxf6 9. Bg5 Bxf3 10. Qe3 Bxg2 11. Bxf6 <br> Bxh1 12. Bh4 c5 13. f3 cxd4 14. Qxd4 e5 15. Qd5 g5 16. Bf5 Bb4+ <br> 17. Ke2 Rd8 18. Bxg5 f6 19. Rd1 Bxf3+ 20. Kxf3 fxg5 21. Bxd7+ <br> Kf8 22. Kg3 Kg7 23. Qxe5+ Kg6 24. Qf5+ Kg7 25. Qxg5+ Kf8 26. Rf1# <br> *

This is great news!

I'm guessing that Kirby is Winboard compatible? Is it an there an official release or is it still private?

Is the name based on the Nintendo character?

Looks nice

Feel free to enter next cycle of ChessWar that will start in September.

Olivier

LucenaTheLucid wrote:This is great news!

I'm guessing that Kirby is Winboard compatible? Is it an there an official release or is it still private?

No support yet for any gui. And certainly not ready for release!

Ovyron wrote:Is the name based on the Nintendo character?

Not familiar with the Nintendo Kirby. Actually, the program is named after my recently deceased cat, who was named after Kirby Drive in Houston, Texas (which apparently was named after John Henry Kirby).

Olivier Deville wrote:Looks nice

Feel free to enter next cycle of ChessWar that will start in September.

Olivier

Thanks.

zullil wrote:Not familiar with the Nintendo Kirby. Actually, the program is named after my recently deceased cat, who was named after Kirby Drive in Houston, Texas (which apparently was named after John Henry Kirby).

I see, I'm sorry for your cat, I've had more than 24 cats in my life and one gets so attached to them that when they die is a great pain.

Anyway, Nintendo Kirby is the most famous Kirby as can be seen when searching for Kirby images on Google, sorry for the confusion, and good luck with your engine.