Larry Kaufman

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Lawrence (Larry) Charles Kaufman, (born November 15, 1947) is an American chess Grandmaster, chess writer, Shogi player, chess teacher, opening book author, and professional computer chess programmer with focus on evaluation. In 1965, while already a chess master and top rated U.S. Junior player and began to study economics at MIT, he started his computer chess career as opening book author of Richard Greenblatt's Mac Hack VI. In the 80s and 90s, Larry Kaufman collaborated with Don Dailey and Julio Kaplan. Kaufman is well known for his research on material and his work and publication on The Evaluation of Material Imbalances and doubled pawns based on statistics. In 1993 as editor of ICD's Computer Chess Reports, Kaufman proposed a 25 problem test suite for chessplaying programs. During the late 90s and early 2000s, Larry Kaufman was affiliated with Excalibur Electronics. He was chess consultant supporting Ron Nelson concerning evaluation, and responsible for the opening books of their dedicated chess computers. Larry Kaufman was member of the Rybka team around Vasik Rajlich, and successfully improved the evaluation of Rybka 3. He started again to work with Don Dailey on his new program Doch and since 2010 on Komodo. After Don Dailey's death in November 2013, the work on Komodo continued with Mark Lefler, culminating with the release of the Dragon by Komodo Chess in November 2020.

=Chess Programs= Larry Kaufman was/is involved in the development of following chess programs :
 * Mac Hack VI
 * Rex
 * RexChess
 * Heuristic Alpha
 * Titan
 * Socrates
 * Kasparov's Gambit
 * Star Socrates
 * Corel Chess
 * Mini
 * Occam
 * Rybka
 * Doch
 * Komodo
 * Dragon by Komodo Chess

=Senior World Champion= In 2008 Larry won the FIDE Senior World Championship in Bad Zwischenahn, Germany, also receiving the Grandmaster title.

=Quotes= by Ron Nelson on his work with Larry Kaufman : The book openings for all the Excalibur Chess Games was designed by Larry Kaufman. Larry Kaufman is a most brilliant Chess Master that understood computer chess search. He would explain to me how Frans Morsch evaluated positions, just by playing his program. He was incredible. He wrote a list of things for an evaluation function and how to balance it. His piece weightings were different than the Spracklens.

=Selected Publications=

1986 ...

 * Larry Kaufman (1986). ACM's North American Computer-Chess Championship. Computer Chess Reports, 1986 Fall/Winter Edition, pp. 25 » ACM 1985
 * Larry Kaufman (1986). 5th World Computer Chess Championship. Computer Chess Reports, 1986 Fall/Winter Edition, pp. 33 » WCCC 1986
 * Larry Kaufman (1988). ACM 1986 North American Computer-Chess Championship. Computer Chess Reports, 1987-88, pp. 8 » ACM 1986
 * Larry Kaufman (1988). ACM 1987 North American Computer-Chess Championship. Computer Chess Reports, 1987-88, pp. 9 » ACM 1987

1990 ...

 * Larry Kaufman (1990). The Rexchess Story. Computer Chess Reports Quarterly. Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 8 » RexChess
 * Larry Kaufman (1993). Rate Your Own Computer. Computer Chess Reports, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 17-19 » Kaufman Test
 * Larry Kaufman (1993). How Our PC Chess Programs Are Developed. Computer Chess Reports, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 12 » Engine Testing
 * Larry Kaufman (1993). Rate Your Own Computer - Part II. Computer Chess Reports, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 13-15 » Kaufman Test
 * Larry Kaufman (1993). CCR Problem Set Vol. 3 No 1 and Vol. 3 No 2. Computer Chess Reports, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 30-31 » Kaufman Test
 * Larry Kaufman (1994). The One-Hour CCR Test. Computer Chess Reports, Vol.4, No.2, pp. 25-30 » CCR One Hour Test
 * Larry Kaufman (1994). The Relative Value of the Pieces. Computer Chess Reports, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 33

1995 ...

 * Larry Kaufman (1995). Aegon Tournament. Computer Chess Reports, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 4 » Aegon 1995
 * Larry Kaufman (1995). Does Fritz deserve to be World Champion? Selective Search 60, pp 3, pdf hosted by Mike Watters
 * Larry Kaufman (1996). 13th World Microcomputer Chess Championship. Computer Chess Reports, Vol. 5, Nos. 3+4 » WMCCC 1995
 * Larry Kaufman (1999). The Evaluation of Material Imbalances. (first published in Chess Life March 1999, online version edited by Dan Heisman) » Material, Material Tables

2000 ...

 * Larry Kaufman (2005). All About Doubled Pawns. (first published in Chess Life, May 2005)

2010 ...

 * Larry Kaufman (2010). Handicap Matches: Rybka vs. Grandmaster. ICGA Journal, Vol. 33, No. 2
 * Larry Kaufman (2010). A New Use For Monte-Carlo. ICGA Journal, Vol. 33, No. 2
 * Larry Kaufman (2012). The Kaufman Repertoire for Black and White. New In Chess
 * Larry Kaufman (2019). Kaufman's New Repertoire for Black and White: A Complete, Sound and User-friendly Chess Opening Repertoire. New In Chess

2020 ...

 * Larry Kaufman (2021). Chess Board Options - A Memoir of Players, Games and Engines. New In Chess

=Forum Posts=

2010 ...

 * Question for Bob Hyatt by Larry Kaufman, CCC, January 14, 2010
 * GM Kaufman v.Novag Constellation 3.6 QR Odds (Moves 1-40) by Steve B, CCC, July 03, 2010 » Constellation
 * Will Connie Ever Castle?? by Steve B, CCC, July 14, 2010
 * GM Kaufman v.Novag Constellation 3.6 QR Odds (Moves 41-55) by Steve B, CCC, August 10, 2010

2012 2014
 * Why are the Ippo derivative stronger than Stockfish? by Larry Kaufman, CCC, February 24, 2011 » Ippolit, Stockfish
 * Re: How old were you in 1967?? by Larry Kaufman, CCC, September 21, 2011
 * Thank you Vincent! by Larry Kaufman, CCC, November 15, 2011
 * Lazy eval by Larry Kaufman, CCC, November 27, 2011 » Lazy Evaluation
 * opening novelty by Larry Kaufman, CCC, December 30, 2011
 * Should reduction depend on depth? by Larry Kaufman, CCC, January 14, 2012 » Late Move Reductions, Komodo
 * Rounding by Larry Kaufman, CCC, January 18, 2012 » Score
 * checks in quies by Larry Kaufman, CCC, March 22, 2012 » Quiescence Search, Check
 * stand pat or side to move bonus by Larry Kaufman, CCC, March 22, 2012 » Tempo
 * A new way to compare chess programs by Larry Kaufman, CCC, June 21, 2012 » Komodo, Match Statistics
 * margin of error by Larry Kaufman, CCC, September 16, 2012
 * Another testing question by Larry Kaufman, CCC, September 23, 2012
 * La Máquina Preservadora 4. Don Dailey & Larry Kaufman by Luis a, Meca Foro, October 18, 2013
 * Time Management by Larry Kaufman, CCC, May 29, 2014 » Time Management

2015 ...

 * The future of chess and elo ratings by Larry Kaufman, CCC, September 20, 2015 » Chess, Match Statistics, Opening Book
 * A bizarre evaluation by Larry Kaufman, CCC, March 20, 2016 » Evaluation, Opening
 * a second "grand" title by Larry Kaufman, CCC, January 27, 2018
 * Re: What got you into computer chess? by Larry Kaufman, CCC, October 18, 2018
 * Komodo vs. Larry K on chess.com by Larry Kaufman, CCC, August 27, 2019

2020 ...

 * The Stockfish of shogi by Larry Kaufman, CCC, January 07, 2020 » Shogi, NNUE, Stockfish NNUE
 * Komodo 14 released by Larry Kaufman, CCC, May 12, 2020
 * Larry Kaufman by Mehmet Karaman, CCC, August 14, 2020
 * Komodo 14.1 Release and Dragon Announcement by Larry Kaufman, CCC, November 02, 2020 » NNUE
 * Dragon by Komodo Chess by Larry Kaufman, CCC, November 10, 2020 » Dragon by Komodo Chess
 * correspondence chess in the age of NNUE by Larry Kaufman, CCC, January 21, 2021 » NNUE
 * Chess324 by Larry Kaufman, CCC, Aug 22, 2022 » Chess324

=External Links=
 * Larry Kaufman from Wikipedia
 * Larry Kaufman's ICGA Tournaments
 * The chess games of Larry Kaufman from chessgames.com
 * About Komodo by GM Larry Kaufman
 * Quality Chess Blog » Q&A with Larry Kaufman, December 12, 2013
 * Komodo 8: about the authors, ChessBase News, September 19, 2014
 * The New Chess World Champion by Ken Regan, Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP, December 28, 2014 » TCEC Season 7, Komodo
 * Komodo: Birth of a chess engine by Priyadarshan Banjan and Albert Silver, ChessBase News, July 20, 2016
 * Interview with Robert Houdart, Mark Lefler and GM Larry Kaufman by Nelson Hernandez, Chessdom, November 23, 2017 » TCEC Season 10
 * GM Kaufman speaks about his pet dragon — Komodo 13 by Davide Nastasio, ChessBase News, August 20, 2019 » WCSC 2019
 * GM Larry Kaufman talks Komodo, chess engines + his new opening repertoire, and some fun stories! The Perpetual Chess Podcast, December, 2019, YouTube Video


 * Larry Kaufman Interview - The Dragon's tale by Arne Kaehler, ChessBase News, June 22, 2021 » Dragon by Komodo Chess

=References= Up one level