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Blocky Chess Engine

Overview

Blocky is a UCI-compliant chess engine. It has implemented the following techniques below thus far:

  • Search:
    • Alpha-Beta Search
      • Aspiration Windows
      • Principle Variation Search
    • Quiescent Search
    • Null Move Pruning
    • Reverse Futility Pruning
    • Internal Iterative Reductions
    • Late Move Reductions
    • Late Move Pruning
    • Transposition Tables Cutoffs
  • Evaluation:
    • Piece-Square Tables
    • Tapered Evaluation
    • Pieces
      • Mobility (Bishop, Knight, Rook)
      • Bishop Pair
    • Pawns
      • Passed Pawns
      • Doubled Pawns
      • Chained Pawns
      • Phalanx Pawns
  • Move Ordering:
    • Transposition Table Moves
    • MVV-LVA
    • Killer Move Heuristic
    • Butterfly History Heuristic
    • Staged Move Generation
  • Other Techniques:
    • Magic Bitboards and Attack Tables
    • Zobrist-Hashing

Compiling Blocky

In order to get started running Blocky, first clone this repository. Then, use CMake to build this project. CMake projects like this one can be built like so:

cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build

As part of the development process used for Blocky, Windows binaries may be compiled from WSL using the modified command below:

cmake -S . -B build -DMAKE_EXE=ON
cmake --build build

In both cases, the binary will be located within the build folder.

Acknowledgements

This engine would have not been possible alone. Some resources used included but were not limited to:

  • The Chess Programming Wiki for providing a foundation on how to get started
  • The chess engine community's collective knowledge
  • Reference engines such as Stockfish, Ethereal, Smallbrain, Stormphrax, and Alexandria
  • Gedas for his Texel-Tuner used in Blocky's evaluation