Blind-Chess Telegram bot

In the last two years I have returned to playing chess a little. I’m probably part of a global trend. As part of the new hobby, I decided to try and practice a somewhat challenging aspect (at least for my level) - blind chess. I searched and tried several platforms but none were really comfortable so I decided there was no way out, I had to create one myself. Of course, I treated the whole thing as a nice and easy exercise in end-to-end programming. It took me a few days to get it working and another few weeks of occasional work to renovate, fix and add features. I must say that I am quite pleased with the result.

So what does the bot do?

The bot allows you to play against the computer, at levels ranging from making random moves to the best chess engine in the world - Stockfish. The game is played in a textual way only by writing the moves in the chat. But if necessary there is an option to “take a peek” at the board, I won’t judge you.

Features

  1. Choose from various levels: The bot allows you to select different difficulty levels. You can choose from a bot that makes random moves all the way up to using the powerful Stockfish engine at its full strength.

  2. Choose your playing color: You have the flexibility to choose which color (white or black) you want to play, or just pick a random color if you don’t mind.

  3. Export games in PGN or GIF formats: The bot enables you to export your completed games in PGN (Portable Game Notation) format. This allows you to save and analyze your games using external chess software or share them with friends. Likewise, you can generate a GIF animation of your game.

Future Features

In addition to the current features, I plan to add some more features in the future, including in-depth computer analysis and guided mode.

How to use the bot?

–Just search for “@textchessbot” on Telegram and start a conversation with the bot. It will guide you through the process of starting a new game.– At the moment the hosting service is causing some problem. In order to use the bot you would have to clone the repository and run it locally.

Source code

The source code for my chess Telegram bot is available on GitHub. Feel free to explore, contribute, or use it as a reference for your own projects.

Note: This blog post is about a personal project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Telegram or any official chess organizations.