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Hans Berliner, Master Chess Player and Programmer, Dies at 87
Hans Berliner, Master Chess Player and Programmer, Dies at 87
Hans Berliner, a former world champion of correspondence chess who won one of the greatest games ever played on his way to the title and later became a pioneering developer of game-playing computers, died on Friday in Riviera Beach, Fla. He was 87.
Re: Hans Berliner, Master Chess Player and Programmer, Dies at 87
Hans Berliner, Master Chess Player and Programmer, Dies at 87
January 17, 2017
If you have the April, 1968 number of Chess Life, there is an article there by Hans Berliner entitled The World Correspondence Chess Championship and it is followed by his game with Estrin (White) that has been called the best correspondence game ever.
Excerpts from the article:
On January 31, 1968 play in the V Individual World Correspondence Chess Championship officially came to an end. After almost three years of combat, 17 competitors from nine different countries ceased play in the round-robin contest, and the ten games still remaining unfinished were submitted for adjudication.
Although there are still many uncertainties about the final position of several of the participants, first place has been clearly decided. It has been my good fortune to win this coveted position for the U.S.A., ahead of six Russians, including the defending World Champion, V. Zagorovsky. Of particular pleasure is the fact that this is only the second Individual World Championship ever to be won by an American chess player, the other being Bill Lombardy’s convincing win in the 1957 World Junior Championship. I also feel quite proud of the fact that I was the only undefeated player in the tourney, scoring 5.5-0.5 against the strong Russian contingent in the process.
Correspondence chess is not an activity for impatient souls. My victory in this event is the result of many years of arduous and exacting competition. In 1959 I entered a qualifying section, many of which are usually run every year by the International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF) in order to allow players to qualify for the next semifinals of the World Championship Tournament. I won my section 6-0 and thus qualified for the semi-finals, which started in 1962. That event was particularly trying since out of each 14-man semi-final group only the winner would be allowed into the finals, and therefore it could be possible by one unlucky loss to be excluded from the finals. Fortunately I persevered in my section by the score of 11.5-1.5. The championship finals started in April 1965 with 17 participants.
Now, some three years later, the Championship is mine.
When I found that International Master J. Estrin of the Soviet Union was among the finalists of the WICCC, one thought that immediately came to mind was that he plays the Two Knights’ Defense from the White side. This was of special interest to me since I used to play this opening myself a long time ago, but stopped playing it shortly after a catastrophic loss against Larry Friedman in 1946 in a game which cost me the U.S. Junior Championship. Although I made some opening mistakes in that game, I became convinced that the whole 4. N-N5 variation was unsound. However, this conviction was not borne out by anything one could find in opening books or by any other analysis at hand. However, the conviction was strong enough that even though I did not know what color I was ultimately to get vs Estrin, I determined to begin some research on this pesky problem.
While the opening is of great importance to opening theory, the endgame is also very worthwhile. The sacrifice of a pawn to produce a winning position of rook and 2 pawns versus rook and 2 pawns on the same side facing each other is certainly unusual.
The result is the best rook and pawn endgame I have ever played and most probably a worthwhile addition to any endgame collection.
V World Correspondence Championship
1965
Estrin, Yakov – Berliner, Hans
C57 Two Knights Defence, Fritz, Gruber variation
Hans had a book, The System: A World Champion's Approach to Chess (1999), in which he claimed that 1. d4 gives one a decisive advantage. It received considerable criticism. One such review is:
Correction added later: He also co-authored with Ken Messere The fifth correspondence world championship; ed. with an historical preface by J.C. Bloodworth (1971) B.C.M. quarterly no.14
Last edited by Wayne Komer; Tuesday, 17th January, 2017, 11:56 PM.
Re: Hans Berliner, Master Chess Player and Programmer, Dies at 87
The great-uncle of Hans was Emile Berliner (1851-1929) - the inventor/developer of the "gramophone" and records in the late 1800's. The "Berliner Gramophone Company" was headquartered in Montreal from 1904, and it morphed into Victor, RCA, HMV, and JVC. The building still stands today, and houses a Berliner museum (as well as "commercial lofts").
Re: Hans Berliner, Master Chess Player and Programmer, Dies at 87
Dr. Berliner was a very significant figure in chess. I had the chance to visit with him when I played a couple of major Philadelphia events in 1988, where he was managing his program as an entry into the tournaments. We had coffee, and he said he valued my technical insight, as an engineer and mathematician, into the problems he was tackling. Very smart fellow, well spoken, classy, and polite. Some of his graduate students played major roles in the 'Deep Blue' projects.
Rest In Peace, Hans. You've done great work for chess! :)
Hans Berliner, a former world champion of correspondence chess who won one of the greatest games ever played on his way to the title and later became a pioneering developer of game-playing computers, died on Friday in Riviera Beach, Fla. He was 87.
The book of the V World Correspondence Chess Championship has always been one of my all-time favourite chess books.
I met Mr. Berliner at the ICCF Congress in Daytona (2000?). As Frank says, a true gentleman. A few years later, I wanted to ask him a question about a game he had played long ago and he graciously gave me permission to call and talk to him.
During the ICCF Congress, I asked him about a suspicion I had about a CC game I played way back when Mr. Berliner was at Carnegie Mellon University. “He couldn’t recall the game!” It was in the early to mid 60s, I think, and was a tourney organized by Chess Review. One of my opponents was a "person" called B. L. Room c/o Carnegie Mellon University. Every card I received was a typewritten card signed only in type-written characters “B. L. Room.” At the time, I wondered why it was not “signed” as required by the rules. Not one card had more than that signature and the required moves whether I sent him a message or not. I always wondered if that event was an experiment where they played the computer in a postal event. Did CMU have a room called BL? (NO, I am not suggesting he used a computer for the world championship! They were notoriously weak that far back.)
Hans Berliner, a former world champion of correspondence chess who won one of the greatest games ever played on his way to the title and later became a pioneering developer of game-playing computers, died on Friday in Riviera Beach, Fla. He was 87.
His fondness and belief in the objective correctness of early f3 in many lines (I didn't follow the lines in The System in my own play but they always intrigued me), inspired my early play and development (I could never make it work quite well as him but I still try for it later on today).
A man who believed he understood the game better than anyone else, and he did play some purely brilliant chess, RIP
Re: Hans Berliner, Master Chess Player and Programmer, Dies at 87
I played against his computer in a tournament in Columbus Ohio in the mid 80's. It was the highest rated computer at that time if memory serves me correct. It was crushing me, but I managed to find an exhcange sac to win. Hans was a complete gentleman and I am glad they do not allow computers to play in tournaments anymore!
He says this about Mr. Berliner, after his retirement:
I met Berliner at the 2000 ICCF Congress in Daytona Beach, Florida.
At that time he had not played a serious postal game since his overwhelming victory more than 30 years previously.
However he was persuaded to come out of retirement and play a round-robin “champion of champions” email tournament in which all the nine then living CC world champions competed.
It was indeed rather brave of him to accept this challenge given that he was by far the oldest competitor and was long out of practice whereas most of the others still played chess fairly regularly.
Berliner’s last tournament began in 2001 and continued until about 2005. In this hard-fought event he eventually finished sixth, winning one game (against FM Jørn Sloth of Denmark, the eighth champion, who had also long since given up correspondence play).
Berliner lost two games with Black. One was a fantastically complicated King’s Indian against the late Mikhail Umansky, who won the tournament, and he also lost to Vytas Palciauskas employing the Riga Variation of the Open Spanish, but drew his other five games. So, everything considered, it was a very creditable performance to score 3.5 points out of 8 in that company after such a long lay-off.
Berliner annotated several of his games from that tournament for Chess Mail and the tournament book. In that book he estimated that every move in the final took three or four hours and recognized that it was even more important to put in the work in less favourable positions, rather than enjoy analysing the good ones.
He also revealed that his method was to take notes about every move, but not to look at them initially when the reply came. He would re-analyse the position and then compare the new notes with the old. If the analysis matched, then he would go deeper. If the old and new variations were not congruent, this was a warning to really put in the hard yards.
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