Archive for category: Computer Chess

Are improvements in computer chess due mostly to hardware or software?

August 22, 2014 | Checkers, Computer Chess, Computer Games | By: Mark VandeWettering

My recent revival in interest in computer chess/checkers/gameplaying was in part spawned by the impression (not particularly support by evidence at the time) that the dramatic increase in computer chess strength must have come from more than just basic hardware improvements. It seemed obvious to me that some fraction of the increase in the play […]

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Pondering computer chess…

August 20, 2014 | Computer Chess | By: Mark VandeWettering

At the risk of name dropping, on my flight out to Vancouver for SIGGRAPH last week, I had the exceedingly high luck of scoring a seat next to Pat Hanrahan. 25 years ago, I was working at Princeton in the Applied Math department, and the single smartest thing I did was make Pat’s acquaintance. Besides […]

On Computer Chess, including Stockfish and SmallFish

January 13, 2014 | Computer Chess, Computer Games, My Projects | By: Mark VandeWettering

Off and on I’ve been pondering some changes to my computer checkers program called Milhouse. Most of these changes have relatively little to do with checkers per se, but are just changes to the algorithms that are common to nearly all game-tree search programs. Since computer chess has always been more popular than computer checkers, […]