Hi all

I am about to start my master thesis in computer science and since I'm
interested in AI and chess I though computer chess might be my field of
work. Now, I don't wont to end up writing my own chess engine from scratch
only to find out 6 months later that it plays mediocre chess and that there
are lots of other open source engines that are a lot better. What I would
like to do is rather improve an existing algorithm or evaluate some new
exciting idea.

Please let me know if you guys have some ideas of what needs to be done
within computer chess research. I have a feeling that lots of things have
already been done (for instance with crafty), but I hope there are still
some work to do to make the best program play even stronger.

Regards
Martin