Vasik Rajlich (born 1971 in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S ...

) is an

International Master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

and the author of

Rybka Rybka is a computer chess engine designed by International Master Vasik Rajlich. Around 2011, Rybka was one of the top-rated engines on chess engine rating lists and won many computer chess tournaments. After Rybka won four consecutive Wo ...

, previously one of the strongest

playing

programs Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program management, the process of managing several related projects * Time management * Program, a part of planning Arts and entertainment Audio * Progra ...

in the world. Rajlich is a dual

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

citizen by birth; he was born in the United States of America to Czech parents, at that time graduate students, but grew up in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

. He later spent years in the United States as a student, graduating from MIT. He married Iweta (née Radziewicz) on 19 August 2006. Iweta, who is also an International Master in chess, helps him with the development of Rybka as its tester. In April 2012, the couple was living in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population o ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...

and had one child, a son. In April 2012, Rajlich participated in an April Fools' Day prank on ChessBase—claiming by using Rybka he had proven to a "99.99999999% certainty" that the accepted

King's Gambit The King's Gambit is a chess opening that begins with the moves: :1. e4 e5 :2. f4 White offers a pawn to divert the black e-pawn. If Black accepts the gambit, White has two main plans. The first is to play d4 and Bxf4, regaining the gambit ...

is a draw for White, but only after 3. Be2. Rajlich later admitted on ChessBase, that, "we're still probably a good 25 or so orders of magnitude away from being able to solve something like the King's Gambit. If processing power doubles every 18 months for the next century, we'll have the resources to do this around the year 2120, plus or minus a few decades". Rajlich's handle on the Internet Chess Club is "vrajlich".

WCCC disqualification and banning

On 28 June 2011, the International Computer Games Association (ICGA) determined that Rajlich had plagiarized two other chess software programs:

Crafty Crafty is a chess program written by UAB professor Dr. Robert Hyatt, with continual development and assistance from Michael Byrne, Tracy Riegle, and Peter Skinner. It is directly derived from Cray Blitz, winner of the 1983 and 1986 World Compu ...

and

Fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in partic ...

. The ICGA sanction for Vasik Rajlich and Rybka was the disqualification from the

World Computer Chess Championship World Computer Chess Championship (WCCC) is an event held periodically since 1974 where computer chess engines compete against each other. The event is organized by the International Computer Games Association. It is often held in conjunction with ...

(WCCC) of 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. Vasik Rajlich is banned for life from competing in the WCCC or any other event organized by or sanctioned by the ICGA.Tech World: World's best chess program loses titles in plagiarism row
/ref> Rajlich had already responded to these charges with an e-mail to David Levy, president of the ICGA, in which he stated: :

Notes

External links

*
Rybka games at ChessGames.comSCHACH MAGAZIN 64 (May 2007)

CHESS Magazine (May 2007)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rajlich, Vasik 1971 births Living people American chess players Czech chess players Chess International Masters Computer chess people