Board Evaluation
The first question is, when we look at the board, what do we value and how much? The things we value will be the parameters in our model that we will assign values after playing games. As a starting point we will use Stockfish evaluation parameters and then adjust as we play more games.
The parameters we will define will include (those with \(\checkmark\) have been integrated into the current model):
- Material
- King : value of checkmate \(\checkmark\)
- Queen : value of presence of queen \(\checkmark\)
- Rook : value of presence of rook \(\checkmark\)
- Bishop : value of presence of bishop \(\checkmark\)
- Knight : value of presence of knight \(\checkmark\)
- Pawn : value of presence of pawn \(\checkmark\)
- Structure
- Control of Center : number of times the center 4 squares are attacked + number of times other center 16 squares are attacked
- Doubled Pawn : number of doubled pawns
- Isolated Pawn : number of pawns without a pawn in either adjacent rank (protected?)
- Backwards Pawn : number of pawns in a chain not able to advance
- Pawn Close to Promotion : pawn 1 square away + pawn 2 square away
- Passed Nonprotected Pawn : pawn not in path of opp color pawn and passed opp pawns in adjacent rank
- Protected Passed Pawn : pawn defends passed pawn
- Mobility
- Piece Development : number of moves available to a player
- King Safety
- Castled : whether the king has castled
- Pieces Protect King : num pieces 3 squares away from king
- King Defended from Attacks : pins + num of times squares next to king attacked
- Piece Interactions (In V2)
- Knights in Closed Positions
- Bishop Pair
- Game Phase
- Color of Bishop and Pawns
Board Searching
Now that we know whether a board looks good or bad for us, we will want to look moves into the future and try and find boards that are good for us. There are a couple options that are available to us.