Hans Berliner

Infobox chess player


playername=Hans Berliner
|caption=
birthname=Hans Jack Berliner
country=USA GER
datebirth=birth date and age|1929|1|27
placebirth=Berlin, Germany
datedeath=
placedeath=
title=International Master
worldchampion=
womensworldchampion=
rating=
peakrating=

Hans Jack Berliner (born Berlin, Germany, January 27, 1929), a Professor of [http://people.cs.cmu.edu/faculty/index.html Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University] , is a former World Correspondence Chess Champion, from 1965–1968. He is a Grandmaster of Correspondence Chess, and an International Master for over-the-board chess. He directed the construction of the chess computer HiTech. Berliner is also a chess writer.

Life and career

Berliner was born in Berlin. When he was eight years old his family moved to America to escape Nazi persecution, taking up residence in Washington, D.C.. He learned chess at age 13, and "it quickly became his main preoccupation." In 1949, he became a master, won the District of Columbia Championship (the first of five wins of that tournament) and the Southern States Championship, and tied for second place with Larry Evans at the New York State Championship. He also won the 1953 New York State Championship (the first win by a non-New Yorker), the 1956 Eastern States Open directed by Norman Tweed Whitaker in Washington, DC, ahead of William Lombardy, Nicolas Rossolimo, Bobby Fischer and Arthur Feuerstein, and the 1957 Champion of Champions tournament. Harvcol|Berliner|1999|p=176 [ [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=24290 The chess games of Hans Berliner ] ] Berliner played for his country's Olympiad team at Helsinki 1952, drawing his only game on the second reserve board Harvcol|Főldeák|1979|pp=201-02. Berliner played four times in the US Chess Championship. In 1954 at New York, he scored 6.5/13 to tie 8-9th places; Arthur Bisguier won. The last three times Berliner played in the U.S. Championship, Fischer won the tournament. In 1957-58 at New York, Berliner had his best result, 5th place with 7/13. In 1960-61 at New York, he scored 4.5/11, tying for 8th-10th place. Finally in 1962-63 at New York, he scored 5/11 for a tied 7th-8th place. [ [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=24290 The chess games of Hans Berliner ] ]

Berliner is remembered most for his feats in correspondence play, most notably his victory in the 5th World Correspondence Chess Championship in 1965. He won with the extraordinary score of 14/16 (twelve wins, four draws), by a margin of three points, a margin of victory thrice that any other player has ever achieved. Harvcol|Berliner|1999|p=176

In his 1999 book "The System," Berliner claims that 1.d4 gives White a large, and possibly decisive, advantage. Berliner's book has been harshly criticized.

While programming HiTech, Berliner was having trouble implementing board evaluation. He decided that to explore the problem, he should write an evaluation function for another game: backgammon. The result was BKG 9.8, written in the late 1970s on a DEC PDP-10. Early versions of BKG played badly even against poor players, but Berliner noticed that its critical mistakes were always at transitions. He applied principles of fuzzy logic to smooth out the transition between phases, and by July 1979, BKG 9.8 was strong enough to play against the ruling world champion Luigi Villa. It won the match, 7-1, becoming the first computer program to defeat a world champion in any game. Berliner states that the victory was largely a matter of luck, as the computer received more favorable dice rolls.Berliner, Hans, et al. "Backgammon program beats world champ", "ACM SIGART Bulletin", Issue 69. January 1980. pp 6-9.]

He also developed the B* search algorithm for game tree searching.

Hans Berliner is mentioned in "How I Started To Write," an essay by Carlos Fuentes, where he is described as "an extremely brilliant boy," with "a brilliant mathematical mind." "I shall always remember his face, dark and trembling, his aquiline nose and deep-set, bright eyes with their great sadness, the sensitivity of his hands..." (The Art of the Personal Essay, edited by Phillip Lopate, 1995, pp. 435-36).

Berliner's game in which he played the Two Knights Defense to defeat Yakov Estrin in the 1965 World Correspondence Chess Championship is one of the most famous and important games in correspondence chess [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1224863] Harvcol|Burgess|Nunn|Emms|2004|pp=309-15, Harvcol|Evans|1970|pp=217-21.

As of March 31, 2005, Berliner still had by far the highest International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF) rating of any player in the United States, at 2726, 84 points above the second-highest rated player. Harvcol|Chess Life|2005|p=37. Berliner's 2726 rating places him third on the ICCF's world list, behind Joop van Oosterom (2741) and Ulf Andersson (2736) [http://www.iccf.com/ratings/toplisth.doc] (accessed 2008-05-08).

Berliner currently lives in Florida, and has worked to help develop computer chess programs in his later years.

Books

* Harvard reference
Surname1=Berliner|Given1=Hans|Authorlink1=Hans Berliner
Title=The System: A World Champion's Approach to Chess
Year=1999
Publisher=Gambit Publications
ID=ISBN 1-901983-10-2

ee also

* Chess piece point value Gives Berliner's system

* First-move advantage in chess#White to play and win Discusses Berliner's book "The System"

Notes

References

* cite journal
first = Hans
last = Berliner
title = [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0004-3702(79)90003-1 The B* Tree Search Algorithm. A Best-First Proof Procedure.]
journal = Artificial Intelligence (journal)
volume = 12
issue = 1
pages = pp. 23–40
year = 1979
doi = 10.1016/0004-3702(79)90003-1
* Citation
surname1=Berliner|given1=Hans
title=The System: A World Champion's Approach to Chess
year=1999
publisher=Gambit Publications
id=ISBN 1-901983-10-2
* Citation
surname1=Burgess|given1=Graham|authorlink1=Graham Burgess
surname2=Nunn|given2=John|authorlink2=John Nunn
surname3=Emms|given3=John|authorlink3=John Emms (chess player)
title=The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games
year=2004
publisher=Carroll & Graf
id=ISBN 0-7867-1411-5
*Citation
surname1=Evans|given1=Larry|authorlink1=Larry Evans
title=Modern Chess Brilliancies
year=1970
publisher=Fireside
id=ISBN 0-671-22420-4
*Citation
surname1=Főldeák|given1=Árpád|authorlink1=
title=Chess Olympiads 1927-1968
year=1979
publisher=Dover Publications
id=ISBN 0-486-23733-8
* cite journal
first =
last =
title = Top 50 ICCF-US Players as of 3/31/2005
journal = Chess Life
volume =
issue = May
pages = p. 37
year = 2005

External links

*chessgames player|id=24290
* [http://archive.computerhistory.org/projects/chess/related_materials/oral-history/hans_berliner.oral_history.2005.102630824/berliner.oral_history_transcript.2005.103630824.pdf Oral History of Hans Berliner]