How to Write a Checkers Program

There are a number of reasons why you may be interested in how a checkers program is written: You are learning programming and interested in learning something different. You are a programmer who is interesting in developing their programming experience. You are interested in learning more about checkers. You are interested in developing a checkers program and playing against it. You do need to be an expert programmer to understand this book. The code is written as simply as possible. The code is designed to be simple even for intermediate and even novice programmers.

If you are not a programmer, but am interested in checkers, this book may be of interest.

The book includes the source code for a checkers engine the author has developed. The program can be compiled using a freely downloadable compiler. You can alter the code and see if you can make it stronger.

Alternatively you can simply download the .exe file and run the program.

The engine is strong enough to beat most social players.

Features of the engine include:

The ability to save and load positions. The ability to set different levels. It is very fast. Detects when a player has won. Detects draws by repetition or the 40 move rule. Evaluation The engine evaluates elements of a position including: Material. Piece position. Square control. Search The engine uses a standard alpha-beta minimax search including: Cut offs. Capture search. Recursion. And much more…

To keep the programming simple the graphics and interface are fairly basic, though these may be added in the future.

Other books on computer programming include How to Write a Chess Program,The Joy of Chess Programming , Think Like a Computer and How to Write a Bitboard Chess Engine .