The Brandeis Quant Club ML/AI Competition

Project Description: In this Python-driven competition, you will be building a model to play chess. Specifically, given any arbitrary position, what is the next best move?

Getting Started

1. Clone this repository.
2. Install required dependencies using pip install -r requirements.txt
3. Run the application using python bot.py

Submission

1. A team member is responsible for uploading a link to your chess_hackathon_23 fork, accompanied by a video that provides an in-depth explanation of your code and overall logic. All team members are expected to appear in the video, which should have a duration of 2-3 minutes.
2. You have until 11:59pm on November 12th, 2023 to submit your build to DevPost.

Rules

1. Apart from the libraries listed in the requirements.txt file, you're allowed to utilize only scikit-learn, pandas, and numpy.
2. You're free to consult online resources, such as research papers, ChatGPT, or YouTube videos, for reference. However, direct copying of open-source solutions from platforms like GitHub or using APIs is not permitted.
3. You are permitted to have up to 4 members working with your team. You must be a part of the Brandeis University community.

Usage

This skeleton is heavily derived from the python-chess open-source library. You may use any aspect of this library for the purposes of building your bot (other than calling premade models to determine moves).

The code skeleton involves a straightforward interaction between your code and an example bot inside of test_bot.py. Depending on the configuration, the example bot will either select a random piece or opt for the best possible move, if applicable.

The central logic of your bot should be contained within the next_move(self) -> str: function. When provided with a chessboard, this function is responsible for identifying the optimal next move for either the white or black pieces. This task can be challenging and necessitates a good grasp of the python-chess library. You may create any additional python functions or classes. Do not create any additional Python files, though.

Ensure you have a solid understanding of Chess board notation. While there are several methods to input commands (moves) into the python-chess library, it's generally advisable to use the initial move-to, new move format, likee2e3. While it's sometimes possible to use a simpler format, such as e3, where the library will move the only valid piece to that location, it's recommended to avoid this approach for the sake of simplicity.

Forsyth-Edwards Notation (FEN)

The board can be initialized as a new game or it can be passed a FEN board confirguation. I.e., chess_bot = Bot() or chess_bot = Bot("r1bqkb1r/pppp1Qpp/2n2n2/4p3/2B1P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNB1K1NR b KQkq - 0 4"), for example.

A list of puzzles with their corresponding FEN has been added in the puzzles.txt file. This will be extremely useful when testing the efficacy of your bot. It is recommended you build additional testing functions in the test_bot.py file to utilize these puzzles systematically.