Chess

Probably the most famous board game in the western world, and probably the game that has consumed more CPU cycles than any other. The homepage for this code is http://mobilechess.sourceforge.net/ but here is a local fully working copy of the applet. See bottom of page for source.

This is a Java applet.

How to Play the Game

Chess is a somewhat complex game: each type of piece starts in a different place, and each piece moves in a different way. Teaching chess is too big for a single web page but there are existing resources worth considering.

The very basics of chess -- setting up the board and how the pieces move.
Another complete beginners site -- with video.
Brief summary of the rules -- as a reference to go back to.
Simple Strategy -- points for material on the board and estimation of positional advantages.
Common Chess Strategies -- all of these would be well understood by any strong player.
Archive of Famous Games -- study how the masters play.

Source Code

The source (with compiled JAR file throw in) can be found in ChessApplet-1.08.tar.gz.

Computer Chess

Computers don't play chess like humans do. Computers never make obvious blunders because they are highly accurate and repeatable algorithms. On the other hand, computers rarely have strokes of genius like humans do, which means that a computer can be beaten.

Opening Book

Because computers have no overall sense of strategy, and because the ultimate implications of opening moves are very subtle and complex, the program uses an "opening book". This is a sort of condensed wisdom of all the great games structured to provide special information as to the opening moves that are known to work, and those that are known to look good but fail miserably. Humans tend to also find it useful to memorise a reasonably large number of openings, but naturally computers have an advantage in this respect.

Index of Java Games