ChessBrainVB is a chess engine written in Visual Basic 6 (32-bit) by Roger Zuehlsdorf.
It supports both UCI and WinBoard protocols and has an estimated playing strength of approximately 3125 Elo (CCRL Blitz,single CPU).
Internals: Classic board representation, HCE evaluation (no NNUE:Neural Network)
See the full collection at: https://github.com/RZulu54
- VB6 (Visual Basic 6): ChessbrainVB (~3125 Elo)
- VBA (Excel Visual Basic for Applications): ExcelChessbrainX (~2600 Elo)
- VB.NET (Visual Basic .NET): ChessbrainVbNet (~3300)
To use the engine, install a free chess GUI such as Arena Chess GUI or Cute Chess.
Then, add ChessBrainVB.exe as a UCI or WinBoard engine and start playing.
For independent rating lists, see:
https://computerchess.org.uk/404/rating_list_all.html
- Compiled with Visual Basic 6 as a 32-bit Windows executable.
- Evaluates approximately 150,000–250,000 positions per second.
- Opening book (approx. 48,000 lines, configurable in
ChessbrainVB.ini). - Supports up to 64 CPU cores.
- Pondering (UCI only).
- Fully implements all standard chess rules:
- Castling
- En passant
- Threefold repetition
- 50-move rule
- No support for endgame tablebases.
Changes from V4.03a to V4.10:
- Added UCI option for pondering.
- Excel VBA GUI version moved to a separate project.
- Code cleanup and minor fixes (no Elo changes expected).
Some antivirus programs may report false positives. To verify the safety of the executable, you can scan it using:
https://www.virustotal.com
For questions or feedback, please contact:
Email: rogzuehlsdorf@yahoo.de
This chess engine is based on the source code 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.
I would like to thank Luca Dormio for his permission to use his LarsenVB source code.
ChessBrainVB is also based on many great ideas from the following people:
- Marco Costalba / Tord Romstad / Joona Kiiski (Stockfish sources): Search logic, king safety, and piece evaluation.
- The search logic and evaluation are based on Stockfish 7, with adaptations to non-bitboard data structures and search changes that perform better for slower move generation and evaluation.
- Raimund Heid (Protector sources): Material draw logic.
Keywords: "VB6 chess engine", "Visual Basic chess program", "Visual Basic chess game", "VB6 chess program", "VB6 chess game"