[chess engine programming] minimax and alpha-beta. 3-4 plies. Normal?
Hi,
I have being writing a chess engine and has just began the AI part (finished move generation and implemented all the rules). What I have implemented so far is a simple minimax with alpha-beta prunning (random ordering). The evaluation function only takes material balance into account. Boards are implemented using bitboards (simple ray-through for sliding pieces, no rotated bitboards). Currently, on ~10 seconds per move, I get 5 plies at the beginning, 3-4 in middlegame and endgame (without opening book and endgame database). Does that seem normal? To me the numbers seem pretty low, but I have no prior experience in chess programming.
Thank you very much