The French Champion. Strongest player in the world in the 1830s. Legendary matches against McDonnell.
Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais was the strongest player in the world from the mid-1820s until his death and is considered the first player deserving of that title in the modern sense. His legendary 1834 series against Alexander McDonnell in London, 85 games across six matches, is one of the most celebrated events in chess history and produced games of extraordinary richness that are still studied today. He ran a famous chess café in Paris, the Café de la Régence, which was the social center of European chess. He died in London in 1840, impoverished, at age 45.
Notable: The La Bourdonnais Gambit in the French Defense is named after him. His 1834 match games are among the earliest systematically preserved in chess history.
| Era | Romantic |
| Years | 1795–1840 |
| Peak rating | 2500 |
| Born | Réunion (île Bourbon), 1795 |
| Title | Unofficial World Champion (1820s–1840) |
| Style | Dynamic attacking play, bold sacrifices, romantic chess |
Bourdonnais, reconstructed from the player's own games and measured against a modern engine, as a UCI engine for your machine: it runs locally and offline, loads into CZUBATRONIC 2400 as an external engine, and into any compatible UCI chess interface. Strong chess from the engine; the choices, recognisably Bourdonnais's.
| File | ChessGate_Labourdonnais.exe · 21 MB |
| Runs in | CZUBATRONIC 2400 (as an external engine) and any UCI chess interface |
| Requirements | Windows 10 / 11, 64-bit; any UCI chess interface; CZUBATRONIC 2400 lists it as an external engine |
| Works offline | Yes. No account, no server. |
| Packs | — |
| Collection | Complete Personality Collection |
| In the browser | A lighter version of Bourdonnais plays on ChessGate. |
Prices marked “Planned price” are provisional and may change before launch. These products are in preparation and cannot be ordered yet.