How I Built a Simple AI to Play Chess with Python and Became a Grandmaster of Code

How I Built a Simple AI to Play Chess with Python and Became a Grandmaster of Code

You’re sitting at your desk. It’s a calm day. Coffee in hand, you think, “What’s the most wildly ambitious thing I could do right now?” Write the next great novel? Nah, too cliche. Build a robot to clean your house? Maybe later. How about… creating an AI that plays chess? YES. And not just any chess-playing AI, but one simple enough to build that even your cat could debug it.

Today, my friends, we delve deep into the magical world of Python programming, where dreams take shape, and bugs are hidden in plain sight. By the end of this journey, you’ll be able to not only understand how to code a basic chess AI but also feel like Magnus Carlsen… of keyboards.

Step 1: Getting Started — Board Setup

Chess is not an easy game. Python makes it seem so simple. First, we need a way to represent the chessboard. Let’s keep things simple by using the python-chess library, a fantastic module that makes handling chess logic as smooth as your morning coffee. Install it using: