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Chess alpha beta returning wrong move for the board

I am trying to implement a chess game with alpha beta pruning. The following is almost working, but it returns wrong moves.
For example, the following can occur.
White (user) to move, white king position - a1 / Black (computer), black king position - h1
White moves its king from a1 - a2, then black return the move g2 - g1???
It appears that the computer returns a move for the wrong node (board representation), as if the best evaluation of a given board position is not being propagated all the way back up the tree. So in one of the simulated positions explored, the computer "imagines" its king moving to g2 and then returns the move to be made from this position, not realising that this position is a simulated position and not the representation of the actual board (the root node?).
How can I correct the code to make the computer return a move for the actual board representation and not one of the simulations by mistake?
Thank you.
Initial call alphaBeta(3, ChessEngine.invertBoard(ChessEngine.board), -10000, 10000, true);
private static int alphaBetaEvaluate = 0;
private static int alphaBetaSelectedSquare = 0;
private static int alphaBetaMoveToSquare = 0;
public static int alphaBeta(int depth, char[] board, int alpha, int beta, boolean maxPlayer) {
//create a copy of the board
char[] boardCopy = board.clone();
//if terminal state has not been met, keep searching
if (maxPlayer == true && depth > 0) {
//for all of the moves that max can make
for (int i = 0; i < board.length; i++) {
for (int move : ChessEngine.getValidMoves(i, boardCopy)) {
//make the move
boardCopy[move] = boardCopy[i];
boardCopy[i] = '.';
alphaBetaEvaluate = rating(board, boardCopy, i, move);
//store the best move to make
int temp = alphaBeta(--depth, ChessEngine.invertBoard(boardCopy), -10000, 10000, false);
if (temp > alpha) {
alphaBetaSelectedSquare = i;
alphaBetaMoveToSquare = move;
alpha = temp;
}
//reset the board for the next simulated move
boardCopy = board.clone();
if (beta <= alpha) {
break;
}
}
}
return alpha;
} else if (maxPlayer == false && depth > 0) {
//for all of the moves that min can make
for (int i = 0; i < board.length; i++) {
for (int move : ChessEngine.getValidMoves(i, boardCopy)) {
//make the move
boardCopy[move] = boardCopy[i];
boardCopy[i] = '.';
beta = Math.min(beta, alphaBeta(--depth, ChessEngine.invertBoard(boardCopy), -10000, 10000, true));
//reset the board for the next simulated move
boardCopy = board.clone();
if (beta <= alpha) {
break;
}
}
}
return beta;
}
return alphaBetaEvaluate;
}

I dont get your implementation after all. First of all what you want to do is create a tree. A decision tree and propagates the decision up. You want to maximize your evaluation and also expect that the enemy will select the move that minimizes your evaluation in return.
So inverting the board does not sound so reasonable for me unless you know that the evaluation you do uppon the situation is correctly adjusting.
Another serious problem for me is that you always call the min/max for the next move with -10k and 10k as the bounderies for alpha and beta. This way your algorithm does not 'learn' from previous moves.
What you need is to check the algorithm again (wikipedia for instance, which I used) and see that they use alpha and beta being modified by former evaluation. This way the calculation in higher depth can firstly stop and secondly evaluate the best move better.
I am no expert in this. its decades ago when I wrote my implementation and I used something different.
Another idea is not to use min and max within the same method but use the min and max methods instead. It makes it more likely you spot other defects.
Also do not use two kings for evaluation. There is no goal in that. Two kings are random, cant win. One thing might be two knights or four queens and alike. It is not so random and you can see the queens dancing around without being able to catch each other. Or use three knights versus a single queen.
And try to create yourself some unit tests around your other parts. Just to insure that the parts are working correctly independently. And why are you using characters? Why not using enums or objects. You can reuse the objets for each field (its more like kinds of figures).
But anyhow this is style and not algorithm correctness.

connect 4 java issues: How do I do this?

I am a noob to java, as well as programming, and I am having large difficulties picturing how to actually execute each method in order to create the Connect Four game. There are 4 methods, main, printBoard, checkWinner, and playerMove. I may add more methods if necessary. I am overwhelmed and need a ton of guidance. how to approach each method? Sorry if this is a mammoth question, I am throughly confused.
import java.util.Scanner;
public class ConnectFour{
// We will represent the game board using a 2 dimensional integer array.
// Each entry of the array will contain a 0, 1, or -1.
// A 0 entry in the array represents an empty slot.
// A 1 entry represents Player 1's piece.
// A -1 entry represents Player 2's piece.
// Since most methods will need to access this board, we have decided to
// make it a global class variable.
import java.util.Scanner;
public class ConnectFour{
public static int[][] board = new int[6][7];
public static void main(String[] args){
Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
// initializing board
for(int i = 0; i < 6; i++){
for(int j = 0; j < 7; j++){
board[i][j] = 0;
}
}
// WRITE CODE HERE
if (j < 7 && j >= 0)
f[i][j] =".";
else f[i][j] = " ";
return board;
}
}
// This method prints the board on the screen.
// To represent Player 1's pieces, print 'X'.
// To represent Player 2's pieces, print 'O'.
// To represent an empty slot, print '.'.
public static void printBoard(){
// WRITE CODE HERE
for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++)
{
for (int j = 0;j < 7; j++)
{
System.out.print(f[i][j]);
}
System.out.println();
}
}
// This method scans the current board and checks if there is a winner.
// The method should return 1 if Player 1 has connected 4 pieces.
// It should return -1 if Player 2 has connected 4 pieces.
// It should return 0 if no player has connected 4 pieces.
public static int checkWinner(){
// WRITE CODE HERE
return;}
// This method implements a player's move and updates the board accordingly.
// The method has two integer inputs.
// The first input indicates the player (1 for Player 1, -1 for Player 2).
// The second input indicates the column number that the player has
// chosen to play.
// If the column number is out of range or the column is currently full,
// the method should return false.
// Otherwise, the board should be updated and the method should return true.
public static boolean playerMove(int player, int columnNum){
// WRITE CODE HERE
}
}

Think about how your program should work, logically. I would personally put your board in a separate class, but it's not too important, especially since the program is pretty small. This isn't really as much as a code problem as much as a logic one, so we'll walk through how the game works.
First off, what does each function do? We have checkWinner(), playerMove(), and printBoard(). So we'll have a loop until the game ends, which should be controlled by checkWinner(), like so
while !checkWinner
So the game will loop until a winner is found, and any code executed after the while loop is end game code. Inside our while loop should go all of code executed every frame while there is no winner, since that is how our while loop is setup now. So let's think about what should execute every frame of your game.
printBoard()? Yeah, probably, since we want to update the display every frame right?
playerMove()? Yeah, since if the game hasn't ended, we want the players to execute a move. However, you need to make sure that the code is functional for switching between players. If you do that, the basic game loop should be finished. Here's some psuedocode for that
//setup board here
while !checkWinner
printBoard
playerMove
//since checkwinner did not return 0, a player won. so we put in endgame code here
The main issue here is thinking out how your program should work, logically. So plan out which functions do what, and try to write it out.
Hope that helps.

Bingo Card Game in Java

I created two methods for my Bingo Game in Java. One method creates a new board which populates the Bingo Board with integers according to the Bingo rule (1-75). My second method generates random numbers with a range of 1 - 75.
public static int drawNum(){
Random rand = new Random();
int num = rand.nextInt(75)+1;
return num;
}
public static void bingoCard(){
int [][]card=new int [5][5];
ArrayList<Integer> alreadyUsed = new ArrayList<Integer>();
boolean valid = false;
int tmp = 0;
for(int i = 0; i <= 4; i++){
for(int row = 0; row < card.length; row++){
while(!valid){
tmp = (int)(Math.random() * 15) + 1 + 15 * i;
if(!alreadyUsed.contains(tmp)){
valid = true;
alreadyUsed.add(tmp);
}
}
card[row][i] = tmp;
valid = false;
}
}
card[2][2] = 0;
//create array to make title.
String title []={"B","I","N","G","O"};
for(int i=0;i<title.length;i++){
System.out.print(title[i]+ "\t");
}
System.out.println();
for(int row=0;row<card.length;row++){
for(int col=0;col<card[row].length;col++){
System.out.print(card[row][col]+ "\t");
}
System.out.println();
}
}
What I need help with is, how do I check whether or not the drawNum() method corresponds to any values stored inside my bingoCard() array? If so, print out a new array with the integers filled in. If the condition is met for a bingo, then you win.
I hope I don't make it sound like I want you to do it for me, but I am confused as to how to start coding that part. Thank you.

This my recommendation - Learn Object Oriented Programming immediately
I see you are using objects provided in the JDK, so why not learn to make your own?
Make two classes with the following methods (-) and members (+) (PS. This is not a formal way to document code)
BingoCard
+list of numbers on card
-reset() : gets new numbers for this card
-test(BingoDrawer) : Tests to see if this card won on this drawing
-toString() : returns a String representation of this card
BingoDrawer
+list of numbers drawn
-reset() : draws new numbers
-hasNumber(int number) : tests if this number was drawn
-toString() : returns a String representation of this drawing
One more suggestions
Instead of keeping track of what you used, keep track of what you have not used, it will make things much easier because you can just choose stuff from that list randomly. Unlike your current action which is choosing (a logical number) from thin air and hoping (which causes issues) it is not a collision
If you follow my recommendation you can write code like this
public static void main(String[] args) {
BingoCard bc = new BingoCard();
BingoDrawer bd = new BingoDrawer();
while(thePlayerWantsToPlay()) { //function to be defined by you
bc.reset();
bd.reset();
System.out.println(bc);
System.out.println(bd);
System.out.println(bc.test(bd));
}
}
You can take it a step further and make a BingoGame class and do what I did in main there and just create an instance of BingoGame and call some start method on the object.

For checking if you have the number in your board, read through the board in a similar manner as you do for the already_used numbers, except with the number the user just entered.
The conditions for the user to win should be checked after the board has another number guessed.
There are a few ways to do this, a simple one would be to iterate over every possible pattern that could win, checking to see if there are tokens there.
All of this would be in a loop, that goes a little like this:
Set up board via user entering numbers.
Start loop
set either a timer to wait for, or wait for a keypress (so the game doesn't just play really fast)
Get random number
Possibly add to board
Check if winner
if winner, break the loop and do something else.
Print the new board out.
(end of loop)
If they got here, that could mean they won!
Wait to exit

You can just write it out as pseudo-code and fill in the methods after that. It usually helps to work on these things in a top-down fashion. So, for bingo you might have:
board = generateBoard();
while (!bingoFound(board)) {
number = drawNumber();
board = stampNumbers(board, number);
}
If that makes sense, you can go a step deeper and define each method. For example, bingoFound might look like:
public boolean bingoFound(int[][] board) {
boolean wasFound = bingoRowFound(board)
|| bingoColFound(board)
|| bingoDiagonalFound(board);
return wasFound;
}
Again, I've defined everything in (mostly) pseudo-code. If this looks ok, you can move a step deeper. Let's define the bingoRowFound method.
public boolean bingoRowFound(int[][] board) {
for (int row = 0; row < NUM_ROWS; row++) {
boolean rowIsABingo = true;
for (int col = 0; col < NUM_COLS; col++) {
// We have to check that everything up until this point has
// been marked off. I am using -1 to indicate that a spot has
// been marked.
rowIsABingo = rowIsABingo && board[row][col] == -1;
}
if (rowIsABingo) { return rowIsABingo; }
}
return false; // If we didn't find a bingo, return false.
}
Some of the methods (like drawNumber) will be really easy to implement. Others, like looking for a diagonal bingo might be a bit more difficult.

Feb 12 2014 Update:
Retracted code, since this was a college course assignment, and I want to prevent people just copying the code. I almost got in trouble for being accused of sharing code (which is a nono in assignments) when another student lifted my code from my Github repo and sent it in as their own.
There were two classes, one main class and a class to hold my methods and constructors.
BINGOFINAL.java was my main class.
Bingo_Card.java held my constructor and methods.
If you want to run this, make sure you create a new project called BINGOFINAL, and put Bingo_Card.java into that same */src/ extension.

Sample code not doing as expected

Here is the algorithm (not working) Please let me know where the error is
Thanks
private void checkSouth(Location point, int player) {
//Loop through everything south
boolean isthereAnOppositePlayer=false;
int oppositePlayer=0;
//Set opposite player
if (player==1) {
oppositePlayer=2;
}else{
oppositePlayer=1;
}
for (int i = point.getVertical(); i < 8; i++) {
//Create a location point with the current location being compared
MyLocation locationBeingChecked= new MyLocation();
locationBeingChecked.setHorizontal(point.getHorizontal());
locationBeingChecked.setVertical(i);
int value = board[locationBeingChecked.getVertical()][locationBeingChecked.getHorizontal()];
//If the first checked is the opposite player
if (value==oppositePlayer) {
//Then potential to evaluate more
isthereAnOppositePlayer=true;
}
//If it isn't an opposite player, then break
if(!isthereAnOppositePlayer && value!=0){
break;
}
//If another of the player's piece found or 0, then end
if (isthereAnOppositePlayer && value==player || isthereAnOppositePlayer && value==0) {
break;
//end
}
//Add to number of players to flip
if(isthereAnOppositePlayer && value==oppositePlayer && value!=0){
//add to array
addToPiecesToTurn(locationBeingChecked);
}
}
}

It looks like the locations that got rotated back to the other player are the exact same as those rotated during the first move. I would guess that the array being populated by addToPiecesToTurn is perhaps not being cleared out between each move, so all the previous locations are still in there.
If you are storing the pieces to be turned in an ArrayList, you can use the clear() method to erase the contents of the collection between each turn.
Another possible problem is that you are checking for the opposite player, and then instantly beginning to populate addToPiecesToTurn. However, the pieces in that direction are not necessarily valid to be rotated unless they are "sandwiched" in by a second location containing the current player's piece. I don't think your code is properly checking for that case; when that happens, you'll want to somehow skip flipping those pieces to the other player, such as clearing out the array of piecesToTurn.
Edit: Looking at your current solution where you are implementing every direction separately, you are going to have a lot of duplicated code. If you think about what it means to walk along a certain direction, you can think of it as adjusting the x/y value by a "step" amount. The step amount could be -1 for backwards, 0 for no move, or 1 for forwards. Then you could create a single method that handles all directions without duplicating the logic:
private void checkDirection(Location point, int player, int yStep, int xStep) {
int x = point.getHorizontal() + xStep;
int y = point.getVertical() + yStep;
MyLocation locationBeingChecked = new MyLocation();
locationBeingChecked.setHorizontal(x);
locationBeingChecked.setVertical(y);
while (isValid(locationBeingChecked)) {
// do the logic here
x += xStep;
y += yStep;
locationBeingChecked = new MyLocation();
locationBeingChecked.setHorizontal(x);
locationBeingChecked.setVertical(y);
}
}
You would need to implement isValid to check that the location is valid, i.e., in the board. Then you could call this method for each direction:
// north
checkDirection(curPoint, curPlayer, -1, 0);
// north-east
checkDirection(curPoint, curPlayer, -1, 1);
// east
checkDirection(curPoint, curPlayer, 0, 1);
// etc

This is the sort of problem that is ripe for some unit testing. You could very easily set up a board, play a move, and validate the answer, and the test results would give plenty of insight into where your expectations and reality diverge.

why didn't you use a 2d array ?
each cell would contain an enum : EMPTY, PLAYER_1, PLAYER_2 .
then, in order to go over the cells, you simply use loops for each direction.
for example, upon clicking on a cell , checking to the right would be:
for(int x=pressedLocation.x+1;x<cells[pressedLocation.y].length;++x)
{
Cell cell=cells[pressedLocation.y][x];
if(cell==EMPTY||cell==currentPlayerCell)
break;
cells[pressedLocation.y][x]=currentPlayerCell;
}
checking from top to bottom would be:
for(int y=pressedLocation.y+1;y<cells.length;++y)
{
Cell cell=cells[y][pressedLocation.x];
if(cell==EMPTY||cell==currentPlayerCell)
break;
cells[y][pressedLocation.x]=currentPlayerCell;
}

Making a player move on 2D array game grid

I am creating a game using a 10x10 2D array. The player starts at the top left hand corner indicated as "P" and the objective is to get the player to avoid obstacles to get to the treasure indicated as "T" located in the lower right corner.
How would I go about making the player move about the grid using commands Up/Down/Left/Right?
Would I use a for loop to count through the elements in the array to designate the move?
Here is what I have so far:
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.util.Random;
public class Adventure {
public static void main(String[] args) {
char grid[][]= new char[10][10];
Scanner move = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("Here is the current game board:");
System.out.println("-------------------------------");
for(int i=0; i<grid.length; i++) {
for(int j=0; j<grid.length; j++) {
double random = Math.random();
if(random <=.05) {
grid[i][j]='*';
}
else if(random > .06 && random <= .15) {
grid[i][j]='X';
}
else {
grid[i][j]='.';
}
grid[0][0]='P';
grid[9][9]='T';
System.out.print(grid[i][j]);
}
System.out.println("");
}
System.out.print("Enter your move (U/D/L/R)>");
}
}

you should keep track of the current position of the player and just update those variables.
initial values would be (0,0) as you said.
int px = 0;
int py = 0;
when a move is made, update the variables accordingly:
grid[px][py] = <empty cell>;
switch (move) {
case 'u': py += 1; break;
case 'r': px += 1; break;
...
}
grid[px][py] = 'P';
of course you shouldn't just updated the values "blindly", you should insert some validation logic to follow the rules of the game:
if (grid[px][py] != <obstacle> )
// update player coordinates...

Looks like you're using row-major ordering, judging from the way your board prints out. Based on that, here's what you'll need to do:
First, you need to store the player's position somewhere. Right now it's hardcoded to 0,0.
Second, you need to read in the player's move. That will have to happen in a loop, where you get a move, check if the move is allowed, perform the move, and display the results.
Third, you need to be able to calculate the new position based on the move. Up means row -= 1. Right means column += 1. Etc.
Given the new coordinates, you need to make sure the move is valid. At the very least, you have to stop them from walking off the board, but you may also prevent them from entering a square with an obstacle, etc.
Once you know that the move is valid, you have to update the variables you're storing the current coordinates in.
At the end of the loop, you'll need to redraw the board.
That's the basic gist of it. Right now you are doing everything in main(), and that's okay, but if it were me I would start to split things out into separate methods, like InitializeBoard(), GetNextMove(), CheckIfMoveIsValid(int r, int c), and so on. That way, main() becomes a high-level view of your game loop, and the guts of the different operations are compartmentalized and more easy to deal with. This will require storing off things like your game board into class variables rather than local variables, which should actually make things like obstacle detection easier than it would be currently.

All of the above answers are great. Here are a few suggestions I would make:
Instead of a char two-dimensional array, I would make a custom object, such as Space, and define a two-dimensional array of Spaces (eg, Space[][]). There are a few reasons for this:
You can define a space in a variety of ways (rather than just 1 character). For example, Space[i][j].hasTreasure() can return a boolean to let you know whether or not you found the treasure.
If you want to add functionality later, its as easy as adding an attribute to your Space class. Again, you are not limited to one character here.
More to your question of movement, I would also recommend a few things. Similar to redneckjedi's suggestion of a CheckIfMoveIsValid() method, I would pass the grid and move direction as parameters and return a boolean. To ensure that you do not end up with ArrayIndexOutOfBounds issues, I would also suggest adding a row/column of walls on each side. I would widen the grid out to 12x12 and put a strip of obstacle-type blocks around the outside. This will ensure that you cannot step outside of the grid as hitting a wall will always return 'false' on a valid move.