Clean way to write this if

Question

Hi I'm writing python function and when I try to test it with pylint it shows: R0912: Too many branches (20/12) (too-many-branches). How should I write this code below cleaner?

rows = len(board)
cols = len(board[0])
count = 0
copy_board = deepcopy(board)
for i in range(rows):
    for j in range(cols):
        if check(i - 1, j - 1, rows, cols):
            if copy_board[i - 1][j - 1] == 1:
                count += 1
        if check(i - 1, j, rows, cols):
            if copy_board[i - 1][j] == 1:
                count += 1
        if check(i - 1, j + 1, rows, cols):
            if copy_board[i - 1][j + 1] == 1:
                count += 1
        if check(i, j - 1, rows, cols):
            if copy_board[i][j - 1] == 1:
                count += 1
        if check(i, j + 1, rows, cols):
            if copy_board[i][j + 1] == 1:
                count += 1
        if check(i + 1, j - 1, rows, cols):
            if copy_board[i + 1][j - 1] == 1:
                count += 1
        if check(i + 1, j, rows, cols):
            if copy_board[i + 1][j] == 1:
                count += 1
        if check(i + 1, j + 1, rows, cols):
            if copy_board[i + 1][j + 1] == 1:
                count += 1
        # Apply the rule to each cell
        if count < 2 or count > 3:
            board[i][j] = 0
        elif count == 3:
            board[i][j] = 1
        # Reset the count for the next cell
        count = 0

Answer 1

Make two lists:
dx = [-1, -1, -1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1]
dy = [-1, 0, 1, -1, 1, -1, 0, 1]

then you can write the if part as:

for k in range(len(dx)):
    if check(i+dx[k], j+dy[k], rows, cols) and copy_board[i+dx[k]][j+dy[k]]:
         count+=1