The following is a program for playing chess in the console written in python3. The program has been built to use the computer chess standard EPD (extended position description) for loading and exporting game positions. The program also makes use of standard chess notation (English) as you would in an actual chess tournament so that the games can be universally understood and later analysed.

• White = Upper Case (Positive)
• Black = Lower Case (Negative)
• P,p = Pawn (1,-1)
• N,n = Knight (2,-2)
• B,b = Bishop (3,-3)
• R,r = Rook (4,-4)
• Q,q = Queen (5,-5)
• K,k = King (6,-6)

(PVP)
step 1: open main.py and make sure the "white" & "black" global variable are as follows;

white = 'human' #Values ['human','ai']
black = 'human' #Values ['human','ai']

setp 2: make sure your game is set to use the initial board position you would like

#Default
chess_game = Chess() #Uses 'rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq -' as EPD hash

or

#Custom starting position
chess_game = Chess(EPD='1b4k1/Q7/p2np1/P1P2p2/1P3P2/1R5R/q6P/5rK1 b - -') #Any EPD hash you want to start with

step 3: open your console
step 4: type the following command "cd [app directory]"
step 5: type the following command "python3 main.py"

(PVAI)
step 1: open main.py and make sure the "white" & "black" global variable are as follows;

#Play as white
white = 'human' #Values ['human','ai']
black = 'ai' #Values ['human','ai']

or

#Play as black
white = 'ai' #Values ['human','ai']
black = 'human' #Values ['human','ai']

step 2: makes sure you have imported the ai you wish to play

from ai_ben.ai import Agent

step 3: make sure your ai is properly initialized

#Play as white
b_bot = Agent(max_depth=100) #Initailize white bot

or

#Play as black
w_bot = Agent(max_depth=100) #Initailize white bot

setp 4: make sure your game is set to use the initial board position you would like

#Default
chess_game = Chess() #Uses 'rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq -' as EPD hash

or

#Custom starting position
chess_game = Chess(EPD='1b4k1/Q7/p2np1/P1P2p2/1P3P2/1R5R/q6P/5rK1 b - -') #Any EPD hash you want to start with

step 5: open your console
step 6: type the following command "cd [app directory]"
step 7: type the following command "python3 main.py"

To get a better understanding of why the code is written this way check out my detailed write ups:

• https://medium.com/@bellerb/building-a-chess-engine-part1-9758da877be7
• https://medium.com/@bellerb/building-a-chess-engine-part2-db4784e843d5