Ultra chess engine contest

I posted a contest on another forum a little bit ago, to award 25 dollars to the first person to create a chess engine for the new game ultra chess. Ultra chess was created by me and a few chess buddies. It has 14X14 squares (196), and 3 new peices. It is really neat, and challenging, with alot more variations and combinations of moves than normal chess. I am updating the contest to 50 dollars for the person that creates the first ultra chess engine. The engine must search 2 depth - 4 depth. The engine must be graphical in some way, it can be text for all I care, with the pieces being represented with letters, BB would be black bishop for instance. This isnt really about making money, but for the challange of it. However I decided to add a little incentive. If you would like the game information, even if you dont want to make an engine, or if you do, send me an email at [email protected], and i will send you the game info. It is REALLY easy to understand, not complicated at all. I am in the process of making an engine myself, however I lack the chess programming theory to do it. I am learning though. BTW, this is WAY better than Omega chess, which is 10X10 and includes 2 new pieces.

I am interested in the game, but I dont have enough programming knowledge to make an engine. 50 bucks huh? Can someone teach me how to make an engine so i can make one for ultra chess??? This is interesting indeed!

Ummm... shouldn't this be in the projects page instead?

Yeah, I think you're probably right PJ

do i smell project work worded creatively... I might be wrong though... :D

As far as i can tell, this IS the project page, and im recruiting someone to make the engine. Im also gonna put it in the contests page, since i think it belongs there actually :) Thanks for your concern

I noticed this post was MOVED from the contest page, TO HERE? WHY? its a contest!

Because a contest is where a group of people submit programs that will be judged with an ultimate winner based on certain set criteria. You are just asking someone to write a program for payment, first come first serve, which is a project/recruitment. Thus its best suited on the project board.

This is no easy project though from what I can tell, with so many pieces and so many moves possible theres no way you could brute force search even a couple of moves deep. AND you lose the inherent beauty of a 64 square chess board which fits well with a 64 bit integer. Most chess engines use 64 bit ints to store and calculate just about everything, not so easy when the board is now 14x14. My hats off to anyone who accomplishes this, if I had time I'd give it a try.

Ill take a shot at it. Gimme the info.