ChessBrainVB

Chess engine with GUI for Excel / Word / Powerpoint VBA - plus edition for winboard: win32 engine with playing strength of 2750 ELO

There are two ways to use this chess engine:

1. Use a free chess GUI like ARENA, add ChessBrainVB.exe as winboard engine and play games.
   Files needed: ChessBrainVB.ini for settings, ChessBrainVB_Book.opn, ChessBrainVB_Book.opi for opening book.
   Playing strength 2750 ELO (CCRL 40/4 conditions, see http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/rating_list_all.html)
   Compiled with Visual Basic 6

2. Use ExcelChessBrainX.xlsm, WordChessBrainX.docm or PowerpointChessBrainX.pptm (full install needed, viewer not working)
   to play games using the GUI implemented in VBA forms.
   Files needed: ChessBrainVB.ini for settings, ChessBrainVB_Book.opn, ChessBrainVB_Book.opi for opening book.
   Playing strength 2250 ELO (CCRL 40/4 conditions, see http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/rating_list_all.html)
   Visual Basic for Applications is used for the chess engine.
   This pseudo code is not compiled and 15 times slower than the compiled VB6 EXE for winboard.

For questions please contact me:
rogzuehlsdorf@yahoo.de

CREDITS

This chess engine is based on the source of the engine "LarsenVB" by Luca Dormio (http://xoomer.virgilio.it/ludormio/download.htm).
LarsenVB was inspired by "Faile 0.6 by" Adrien M. Regimbald, which was also the base for the engine "Sjeng".
I want to thank Luca Dormio for his permission to use his LarsenVB source.

ChessBrainVB is also based on many great ideas from the following people:

Marco Costabla/Tord Romstad/Joona Kiiski (Stockfish sources): Search logic, king safety, piece evaluation.
Search logic and evaluation are based an Stockfish 7 with adaptions to non-bitboard data structure and search changes that perform better for slower move generation and evaluation.
Ed Schroeder (REBEL descriptions): Killer move strucure, Search extensions
Raimund Heid (Protector sources): Material draw logic
Norbert Raimund Leisner: Logo file

Keywords: "Excel chess engine", "Word chess engine", "Powerpoint chess engine", "VBA chess engine", "VB6 chess engine"