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Johannes Zwanzger ^[1]

Johannes Zwanzger,
a German mathematician with a Ph.D. from University of Bayreuth, chess programmer and chess player ^[2], since 2013 playing for FC Bayern München in the German Chess Bundesliga ^[3] ^[4]. His research interests include construction of discrete structures, especially linear codes, the use of heuristics in general, and chess programming. Johannes is author of the chess program Jonny, which competed at all World Computer Chess Championships since Graz 2003, and became World Computer Chess Champion at the WCCC 2015 in Leiden.

Jonny in Graz

Honorable sportsmanship intended, Johannes was subject of a difficult and controversial TD-decision during the WCCC 2003 in Graz. In the last round game, Shredder versus Jonny, Shredder had a winning position, already about to announce mate in X. There would nothing wrong for Johannes to resign on behalf of Jonny. Apparently due to a bug, Shredder allowed a threefold repetition, still high plus score. Johannes, while his engine had a zero score, and the external GUI a "Threefold repetition" Infobox popped up, decided that Info is no draw-claim and continued the game by making the move over the board. TD Jaap van den Herik first miss understood, assuming Johannes would claim a draw rather than asking to continue ^[5] ^[6] .

[Event "WCCC 2003"]
[Site "Graz, Austria"]
[Date "2003.11.29"]
[Round "11"]
[White "Shredder"]
[Black "Jonny"]
[Result "1-0"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 6.Bg5 Be7 7.f4 O-O 8.Qf3 e5
9.Nf5 Bxf5 10.exf5 e4 11.Qh3 h6 12.Bh4 Qc7 13.g4 d5 14.g5 hxg5 15.fxg5 Nh5
16.O-O-O Rc8 17.Bg3 Nf4 18.Bxf4 Qxf4+ 19.Kb1 Bxg5 20.f6 Nc6 21.fxg7 Kxg7
22.Be2 d4 23.Rhf1 Qh4 24.Qf5 dxc3 25.Rg1 Kf8 26.Rxg5 Ne7 27.Qf6 Qh7
28.Rd7 Ng6 29.Rxb7 Qg7 30.Qd6+ Kg8 31.Rxf7 Qxf7 32.Rxg6+ Kh7 33.Rg4 Rab8
34.Rh4+ Kg8 35.Rg4+ Kh7 36.Rh4+ Kg8 37.Rg4+ Kh7 38.Bc4 Rxb2+ 39.Ka1 Rxc4
40.Rh4+ Kg8 41.Qd8+ Qf8 42.Rg4+ Kf7 43.Qd7+ Qe7 44.Rf4+ Kg6 45.Qxe7 Rxa2+
46.Kxa2 Ra4+ 47.Kb3 Rb4+ 48.Kxb4 a5+ 49.Kxc3 a4 50.Qf6+ Kh5 51.Rh4# 1-0

Jonny in Leiden

WCCC 2015 in Leiden, Jaap van den Herik awards Johannes Zwanzger with the Shannon Trophy ^[7]

Selected Publications

2004 ...

Johannes Zwanzger (2004). The 12th Computer-Chess Championship. ICGA Journal, Vol. 27, No. 3 » WCCC 2004
Johannes Zwanzger (2004). Das Geheimnis der Schachprogramme. spektrum 3/04 (German), pdf
Johannes Zwanzger (2007). Computergestützte Konstruktion von linearen Codes mit hoher Minimaldistanz unter Verwendung heuristischer Methoden. Diplomarbeit im Fach Mathematik (German), pdf
Johannes Zwanzger (2007). Heuristic Construction Of "Good" Error-Correcting Linear Codes. University of Bayreuth, Talk at the Kolloquium über Kombinatorik, Magdeburg, November 17th, 2007, pdf ^[8]
Johannes Zwanzger (2008). Heuristic Construction of Linear Codes with prescribed Automorphism Group. Soria Summer School July 2008, pdf
Axel Kohnert, Johannes Zwanzger (2009). New linear codes with prescribed group of automorphisms found by heuristic search. Advances in Mathematics of Communications, Vol. 3, No. 2

2010 ...

Johannes Zwanzger, Michael Kiermaier (2010). A new series of Z4-linear codes of high minimum Lee distance derived from the Kerdock codes. ^[9] ^[10]
Johannes Zwanzger, Michael Kiermaier (2010). A non-free Z4-linear code of high minimum Lee distance. pdf
Johannes Zwanzger (2011). Computergestützte Suche nach optimalen linearen Codes über endlichen Kettenringen unter Verwendung heuristischer Methoden. Ph.D. thesis, University of Bayreuth, advisor Adalbert Kerber (German) pdf