Fritz Reul

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Fritz M.H. Reul, a German computer scientist, chess programmer, and author of the chess engines List and Loop, which is also the chess engine of Wii Chess. Fritz studied mathematics and applied computer science at University of Applied Sciences Giessen-Friedberg, and defended his M.Sc. on computer chess in 2004. In 2005 he started his Ph.D. project New Architectures in Computer Chess at the Maastricht University supervised by Jaap van den Herik and Jos Uiterwijk, which he completed in June 2009 at Tilburg University.

=Tournament Play=

WCCC 2003
Fritz Reul's first WCCC experience in Graz 2003 was a mess. List was not represented by its author himself, but by Erdogan Günes. Fritz, probably not aware of the ICGA rules, and with examination commitments, did not act appropriate to prove his program was not a clone, as accused by an official protest during the tournament. As a consequence, Loop List was disqualified after eight of eleven rounds. With hindsight Fritz Reul was fully rehabilitated by the ICGA in 2005:

Cancellation of Suspension During the 2003 World Computer Chess Championship in Graz, it was unfortunately necessary for the ICGA to disqualify one of the participants, Fritz Reul, and to impose a suspension on him from taking part in ICGA events. This was because Mr. Reul did not respond positively to a request by the tournament committee to submit his program code for inspection, as required by the ICGA tournament rules.

We are now pleased to announce that Mr Reul has since submitted his program code to the scrutiny of an expert approved by the ICGA tournament committee and that this expert has declared Mr. Reul’s code to be completely above board, with no sign of any copying of code from other known programs. Furthermore Mr. Reul has submitted to the ICGA an apology for what happened in 2003 (see above). The ICGA tournament committee has therefore decided unanimously to lift the suspension on Mr. Reul with immediate effect and to welcome him back for participation in future ICGA events. London, England

David Levy

DOCCC 2006
Reul's new program Loop (32-bit) played the 26th DOCCC 2006 in Leiden, represented by Opening Book Author Clemens Keck, and surprised as runner up behind Rybka and ahead of Hiarcs.

WCCC 2007
Another success was the participation of Loop Amsterdam (64-bit) during the WCCC 2007, also represented by Clemens Keck. Loop became third behind behind the later disqualified Rybka and Zappa, ahead of Shredder and GridChess.

=New Allegations= During the ICGA Investigations in 2011 concerning the Rybka Controversy and evaluation overlaps, 64-bit Loop was inspected by Mark Watkins who found congruence with the evaluation of Fruit 2.1. As confirmed by David Levy, the ICGA has received a complaint on Loop by Fruit author Fabien Letouzey and an investigation has been started about this case, as already mentioned by Watkins in August 2011.
 * Complaints

=Selected Publications=
 * Fritz Reul (2005). A Letter to the ICGA. ICGA Journal, Vol. 28, No. 1, pdf
 * Fritz Reul (2009). New Architectures in Computer Chess. Ph.D. thesis, pdf
 * Fritz Reul (2010). Static Exchange Evaluation with αβ-Approach. ICGA Journal, Vol. 33, No. 1

=Forum Posts=
 * Loop List available soon by Fritz Reul, CCC, October 11, 2005
 * doing undoing by Fritz Reul, CCC, May 14, 2007 » Make Move, Unmake Move
 * Iterative DTS by Fritz Reul, CCC, July 02, 2007 » Parallel Search
 * Board without color flags by Fritz Reul, CCC, October 31, 2009 » Color Flipping
 * Compiler Problem by Fritz Reul, CCC, June 29, 2010

=External Links=
 * Fritz Reul's ICGA Tournaments
 * ICGA/Rybka controversy: Feedback - Allegations against another Chess Engine – The LOOP Program by David Levy, ChessBase News, February 17, 2012
 * Allegations against two more Chess Engines – The LOOP Program by David Levy, ICGA president, May 22, 2012 » Thinker
 * Complaints against the Chess programs LOOP and THINKER by David Levy, ICGA President, May 9, 2014

=References= Up one level