Richard Lang

(born 1956 in England) is a chess software programmer. He was considered the best chess software programmer in the years 1980 to 90.

Richard Lang studied physical sciences at Imperial College London, where he learned Fortran programming. He then worked in the energy sector at British Gas1, researching the safety of natural gas drilling2.

After purchasing a TRS-80, Richard Lang began amateur chess programming in 1981.

His first piece of software was called Cyrus and won the European Chess Computer Tournament in 1981. Then he worked for the company Intelligent Software owned by David Levy and wrote programs for dedicated computers (among others La Régence and L'Empereur). In 1984, he became independent and began collaborating with Psion on software for IBM PC, Apple, Atari ST and Sinclair QL, and shared the title of World Microcomputer Champion in Glasgow with three other programs.

In 1985, he joined Hegener & Glaser (Mephisto) and won the world championship with the Mephisto Amsterdam program, which was the beginning of a long series as Richard Lang's software held the record with seven world microcomputer championship titles (1984 to 1990) and ten titles for commercial programs (1984 to 1993).

In 1993, he created Chess Genius which, in 1994, beat Kasparov in two parts in 30-minute semi-fast (1.5-0.5).