Hans Berliner, 1929-2017
Former Correspondence World Champion, over-the-board International Master, and computer chess programming legend Hans Berliner died this past Friday, January 13, at the age of 87, two weeks short of his 88th birthday. He was an impressive figure whose work as a chess programmer indirectly affects almost all of us today.
Do check out the link above for an overview of his many successes in and contributions to the royal game. Berliner wrote a book a couple of decades ago called The System. There are some interesting bits in the book, but overall it's a bit nuts. It is interesting that as a programmer he realized the impossibility of "teaching" the program to play by logic rather than brute force, but then thought that a relatively simple algorithm was the Rosetta Stone to playing the opening better than even world champions.