Chess Bot Code Jam

A 2-hour, 4-team chess bot tournament. You write one function; the rest of the system runs the game and shows it on a big screen.

Setup

pip install -r requirements.txt

Run

In one terminal, start the spectator server:

python server.py

Open http://localhost:5050 in a browser.

In another terminal, run a match:

python game_runner.py --white bots/random_bot.py --black bots/greedy_bot.py --delay 1.0

Headless (no visualizer, for quick testing):

python game_runner.py --white bots/my_bot.py --black bots/random_bot.py --no-viz

Completed games are saved as PGN under games/.

Your job

Edit bots/my_bot.py. Implement:

def make_move(board: chess.Board) -> chess.Move:
    ...

That's it. Return a legal chess.Move. No game loop, no UI, no networking.

Rules

• Per-move limit: 3 seconds. Exceed it → random legal move is played for you and you take a strike.
• Per-game clock: 10 minutes per side. Flag fall → adjudicated by material (P=1, N=3, B=3, R=5, Q=9).
• Strikes: Raise an exception (or return None) → strike. Time out → strike. 3 strikes → forfeit.
• Allowed imports: Python stdlib and python-chess only. Nothing else is installed.
• No network, file I/O, multiprocessing, or chess.engine.

Strategy hints

• Material counting: prefer moves that win material and avoid hanging pieces.
• Center control: d4/d5/e4/e5 are good squares.
• King safety: castle early.
• Look one ply ahead: push each candidate, evaluate, pop.
• Minimax: search 2–3 ply, but watch the 3-second clock.
• board.legal_moves is your loop. Iterate, score, pick the best.