Virtual Chess

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Virtual Chess,
a commercial chess program by Marc-François Baudot and Jean-Christophe Weill market by Titus. It is the 32-bit Windows version of the Virtua Chess MS-DOS program and commercial fellow of Écume aka Cumulus 2. Virtual Chess was further ported to the Nintendo 64 Video game console released in 1998 as Virtual Chess 64, featuring a 3D Graphics Board with animations similar to Battle Chess. Virtual Chess participated at the WMCCC 1995, and became two times Professional World Microcomputer Chess Champion at the WMCCC 1996 and WMCCC 1997 (runner-up behind Junior). In 1997, Virtual Chess won the 5th French Computer Chess Championship and participated at the WCCC 1999. Beside other human-machine matches , Virtual Chess played the Harvard Cup 1995 and the Aegon 1997 .

Description

given in 1999 from the ICGA site  :

Virtual Chess is the commercial version of the Écume and Cumulus 2 chess programs. It holds the title of World Professional Computer Chess Program '97. Its most recent result: a 1.5/2 match win against GMI Étienne Bacrot at the Cap d'Agde tournament. It finished first (tied with Vaisser and Chernin) of the 1996 rapid Aubervilliers tournament.

The chess engine is written in C and 32 bits assembly. It is based on PVS, uses null move pruning and includes dynamic evaluation of king safety and pawn structure. The evaluation function attempts to build plans whenever it recognizes important features in a position. It runs on a PC with Windows (95, 98 or NT), with a splendid graphical interface written by the French firm Titus Interactive  . 

Selected Games

The two games versus Étienne Bacrot at the Cap d'Agde tournament.

[Event "Cap d'Agde comp m"]
[Site "Cap d'Agde"]
[Date "1998.??.??"]
[Round "1"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[White "Virtual Chess"]
[Black "Étienne Bacrot"]

1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Nf3 Bc5 4.d3 Nf6 5.c3 O-O 6.O-O Bb6 7.Bg5 d6
8.Nbd2 h6 9.Bh4 Bg4 10.Bd5 g5 11.Bxc6 bxc6 12.Bg3 Nh5 13.Qa4 Bd7
14.Nc4 Nf4 15.Bxf4 gxf4 16.Rfd1 Qe7 17.Re1 Kh7 18.d4 f6 19.Qd1 Rg8
20.Kh1 Be6 21.Qd3 Qf7 22.Nxb6 axb6 23.d5 Bd7 24.c4 c5 25.a3 Qh5
26.b3 Rg7 27.Rec1 f5 28.Nd2 Kh8 29.Re1 Rag8 30.Rg1 Rg4 31.Qf3 R8g5
32.exf5 Bxf5 33.Rae1 Qh4 34.Re2 Rh5 35.Nf1 Rg7 36.Qc3 Bg4 37.f3 Bf5
38.Qe1 Rg3 39.Rd2 Kg7 40.b4 cxb4 41.axb4 Kf7 42.Qf2 Rg8 43.Qxh4 Rxh4
44.Ra2 Ke7 45.Nd2 Rh5 46.Ra7 Kd7 47.Ne4 Bxe4 48.fxe4 Rg3 49.Raa1 Re3
50.Rge1 Rxe1+ 51.Rxe1 Rg5 52.Ra1 Rg8 53.Ra3 h5 54.Kg1 Rb8
55.b5 Rg8 56.Kf2 Rh8 1/2-1/2

[Event "Cap d'Agde comp m"]
[Site "Cap d'Agde"]
[Date "1998.??.??"]
[Round "2"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Étienne Bacrot"]
[Black "Virtual Chess"]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nc3 dxc4 4.d5 Ne5 5.f4 Nd7 6.e4 Nb6 7.a4 a5 8.Be3 e6
9.Bxb6 cxb6 10.Bxc4 Bb4 11.Bb5+ Kf8 12.dxe6 Bxe6 13.Qf3 Nf6 14.f5 Bd7
15.Nge2 Bxb5 16.axb5 Qe7 17.O-O Re8 18.Ng3 Qe5 19.Rad1 h5 20.Nd5 h4
21.Nxf6 gxf6 22.Nh5 Bd6 23.Rxd6 Qc5+ 24.Kh1 Qxd6 25.Qg4 Qd4 26.Qg7+ Ke7
27.e5 Rxh5 28.exf6+ Kd8 29.Qxf7 Rxf5 0-1

Games on Lichess.org : game 1 , game 2

See also

• Virtua Chess
• Virtual Kasparov

Forum Posts

1997 ...

• Why no Virtual Chess included in SSDF? by Saran Maitreiwech, rgcc, January 01, 1997 » SSDF
• AEGON (2): Virtual Chess defeated GM Cifuentes by Enrico, rgcc, April 17, 1997 » Aegon 1997
• Nintendo 64 Chess by Jean-Christophe Weill, rgcc, January 06, 1998
• Virtual Chess II available in which versions? by Harald Faber, rgcc, March 10, 1998

Re: Virtual Chess II available in which versions? by Jean-Christophe Weill, rgcc, March 12, 1998

• Let's talk about Virtual Chess by Christophe Théron, CCC, May 30, 1998
• virtual chess 64 by Oliver Y., CCC, June 22, 1998
• Virtual Chess 64 by Don Getkey, rgcc, July 21, 1998
• Virtual chess goes with large distributors by Francesco Di Tolla, CCC, July 12, 1999

2000 ...

• What is the rating of Virtual Chess II ? by Didzis Cirulis, CCC, November 13, 2000
• Virtual Chess II by Roy Eassa, CCC, December 08, 2000
• virtual chess by Colin Hanson, CCC, June 17, 2002
• Virtual Chess Program by Frank Zimmer, CCC, July 14, 2002
• Any news about Virtual Chess3 ? by Thorsten Czub, CCC, June 27, 2003
• Virtual Chess 3 info by ludicrous, CCC, July 07, 2003
• Virtual Chess 2 by Louis Lev, CCC, August 19, 2005

2010 ...

• A 20 games match against Virtual Chess II 2.04.... by Dr.Wael Deeb, CCC, August 04, 2010
• The amazing style of Virtual Chess II... by Dr.Wael Deeb, CCC, January 25, 2012
• Rating list with Virtual Chess 2 and/or Chess System Tal ? by Vincent Lejeune, CCC, January 26, 2012 » Chess System Tal
• Virtual Chess II by Colin Gough, CCC, December 07, 2016

External Links

• Virtual Chess' ICGA Tournaments
• A Short Story of JCW's Computer Chess Program by Jean-Christophe Weill
• Virtual Chess' games from chessgames.com
• Virtual Chess 64 from Wikipedia
• Virtual Chess 64 - The Nintendo Wiki
• Virtual Chess 64 Box Shot for Nintendo 64 - GameFAQs
• Virtual Chess 64 - Nintendo 64 Review at IGN

References

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