Vito Janko (2015) . Prešeren awards for students.

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Abstract

We present the design of a computer program for playing Progressive chess. In this game, rather than just making one move per turn, players play progressively longer series of moves. Combinatorical complexity generated by many sequential moves presents a difficult challenge for classic search algoritms. Our program follows the generally recommended strategy for this game, which consists of three phases: (1) looking for possibilities to checkmate the opponent, (2) playing generally good moves when no checkmate can be found, and (3) preventing checkmates from the opponent. For the task of finding (and preventing) checkmates we considered two versions of the A* algorithm, and developed five different heuristics for guiding the search. An automatically generated set of chess positions was used to evaluate the efficiency of checkmate search. For the second phase of the game we developed another set of heuristics, and combined the A* algorithm with Min-Max search, in order to fight the combinatorical complexity. We constructed an opening book, and designed specialised heuristics for playing Progressive chess endgames. We developed an application with a graphical user interface that enables human players to play Progressive chess against the computer, and

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