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AlphaZero, Leela Chess Zero and Stockfish NNUE revolutionized Computer Chess. This book gives a complete introduction into the technical inner workings of such engines.
The book is split into four main chapters - excluding chapter 1 (introduction) and chapter 6 (conclusion):
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Chapter 2 introduces neural networks and covers all the basic building blocks that are used to build deep networks such as those used by AlphaZero. Contents include the perceptron, back-propagation and gradient descent, classification, regression, multilayer perceptron, vectorization techniques, convolutional networks, squeeze and excitation networks, fully connected networks, batch normalization and rectified linear units, residual layers, overfitting and underfitting.
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Chapter 3 introduces classical search techniques used for chess engines as well as those used by AlphaZero. Contents include minimax, alpha-beta search, and Monte Carlo tree search.
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Chapter 4 shows how modern chess engines are designed. Aside from the ground-breaking AlphaGo, AlphaGo Zero and AlphaZero we cover Leela Chess Zero, Fat Fritz, Fat Fritz 2 and Effectively Updateable Neural Networks (NNUE) as well as Maia.
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Chapter 5 is about implementing a miniaturized AlphaZero. Hexapawn, a minimalistic version of chess, is used as an example for that. Hexapawn is solved by minimax search and training positions for supervised learning are generated. Then as a comparison, an AlphaZero-like training loop is implemented where training is done via self-play combined with reinforcement learning. Finally, AlphaZero-like training and supervised training are compared.
Just clone this repository or directly browse the files. You will find here all sources of the examples of the book.
During COVID, I worked a lot from home and saved approximately 1.5 hours of commuting time each day. I decided to use that time to do something useful (?) and wrote a book about computer chess. In the end I decided to release the book for free.
To be completely transparent, here is what I make from every paper copy sold on Amazon. The book retails for $16.95 (about 15 Euro).
- printing costs $4.04
- Amazon takes $6.78
- my royalties are $6.13
If you find mistakes, please report them here - your help is appreciated!