La Dame Blanche

Chess Program by Marc-Philippe HUGET

My program constested to two French Chess Championships

in 1997 : I finished 12th on 14 participants and I scored 2/9 (ratings ~1850 ELO)

in 1998 : I finished 10th on 16 participants and I scored 5,5/9.

In 1999 : La Dame Blanche version 2.0c participate in 3rd Winboard Tournament. I finish 14th on 14 participants and I scored 0,5/9 and 16pts on 72pts (ratings 2145 ELO)

About my program ? Nothing special : I use classical algorithm : MinMax with alpha-beta pruning, Killer Move, my evaluation is so simple for the moment.

I work for the moment on opening book, bitboards and rotated bitboards.

My opening book is Exchess book but I work on a new book and evaluation function (La Dame Blanche 2.5) forecasted for March or April 1999. See below in order to find binary for the construction of the book.

It may be strange but I dedicated this program to Alan Turing and Mikhail Botvinnik.

They made me want to write a chess program. Else I like Crafty and I used Gnuchess and Exchess for my first ideas.

Next work ? Evaluation of course !

Some Results :

3rd Winboard Tournament | 16pts on 72, Estim. 2145 ELO
LCT II Test | Estim. 2280 ELO on PII 450 MHz 64 Mo Hashtables
Comet A98 - La Dame Blanche 2.0b | Comet A98 35.5 - LDB 14.5 blitz 20 0

When I start to code La Dame Blanche, I find it is a great shame, I can't find one program which converts a PGN file into an opening book and above all without having to decode others chess programs like Crafty or Gnuchess.

I realize Book Builder in order to help new chess programers and me, of course. Book Builder format is the format proposed by Kate Spracklen.

Here is one extract of a very simple opening book (e2e4(e7e5)(c7c5))(d2d4(d7d5)). I am sure, you understand the format.

My format has some differences because I don't encode the opening book in binary mode but in text mode and I don't code from/to but SAN notation. It is not a big problem for you since I release source code.

As you can see, code is very simple and in MFC. If you find good enhancements, no problem ! Just send me, new versions and I release them on my page or I link your page.

Above all, this program is a cardware. So, please, can you send me a postcard if you download my program, I collect postcards and I am very glad if I receive nice ones coming from all over the world.

Download La Dame Blanche 2.0c

Download Games from match Comet A98 - La Dame Blanche 2.0b

(many thanks for Sylvain Renard who organized this match)

Download Games from 3rd Winboard Tournament

Download Book Builder binary (please, don't forget my postcard)

Download Book Builder source

Download Book Builder opening book example

`Last update : 02/23/1999`