Harm Geert Muller

Home * People * Harm Geert Muller

HGM ¹

Harm Geert Muller (HGM),
a Dutch physicist and since 1976 computer chess programmer. He wrote a blitz program for the PDP-11 and programs for the 6800 and 6502 8-bit µ-Processors, released under the name Usurpator, which competed in several Dutch Computer Chess Championships. In 1986 HGM came up with a matchbox computer with a 65SC816 CPU for the purpose of running Usurpator ¹, competing three times until 1990 ².

Comeback

After 15 years "out of business", HGM is back with his minimalist chess engine Micro-Max, the chess variants engine Fairy-Max, the closed source programs Joker and Spartacus ³, the Chinese Chess engine HaQiKi D, and the Shogi engine Shokidoki. HGM is involved in extending the Chess Engine Communication Protocol specification to Version 2 ⁴, also addressing various chess and chess like game variants, and further covering Checkers, Go, Amazons, and Othello ⁵. The didactic open source engine KingSlayer published in fall 2015 ⁶ is intended to be an inspiration for beginning chess programmers ⁷. His open source engine CrazyWa plays Shogi and Chess variants with piece drops with boards up to 11x11, with up to 16 droppable piece types, and 15 promoted piece types ⁸.

Shokidoki

HGM's Shogi engine Shokidoki won silver in 5*5 Shogi at the 15th Computer Olympiad ⁹, gold at the 17th Computer Olympiad ¹⁰, gold in Shogi and Mini-Shogi at the 18th Computer Olympiad 2015, and also won the 2015 UEC Cup ^{11 12}.

Photos

DOCCC 2005

Harm Geert Muller and Stan Arts, DOCCC 2005 ¹³

CPT 2008

Harm Geert Muller and Vincent Diepeveen, CPT 2008 ¹⁴

Yokohama 2013

Yokohama 2013, Mini Shogi, Gold for Shokidoki, Silver 1/128 Rigan, Bronze Mattari Yucha ¹⁵
Jaap van den Herik, Nakamichi Takashi, Harm Geert Muller, Yoshiyuki Kotani ^{16 17 18}

Leiden 2016

19th Computer Olympiad, Winners in Mini-Shogi: Shun-Chin Hsu, Harm Geert Muller and Andrew Lin ¹⁹

Selected Publications

• Harm Geert Muller (1981). Usurpator 6502 6800 computerschaak. Wolfkamp
• Harm Geert Muller (1990). A Matchbox Chess Computer. ICCA Journal, Vol. 13, No. 4
• Harm Geert Muller (2000). Multiphoton ionization at AMOLF. pdf from Van A tot Q on line
• P.M. Paul, E.S. Toma, P. Breger, G. Mullot, F. Augé, Ph. Balcou, Harm Geert Muller and P. Agostini. Observation of a Train of Attosecond Pulses from High Harmonic Generation. Science 292, 1689 (2001).
• Petrissa Eckle, Mathias Smolarski, Philip Schlup,Harm Geert Muller, Jens Biegert, André Staudte, Markus Schöffler, Harm Geert Muller, Reinhard Dörner, Ursula Keller (2008). Attosecond angular streaking. Nature Physics, Vol. 4, doi:10.1038/nphys982 ^{20 21}
• Petrissa Eckle, Adrian Pfeiffer, Claudio Cirelli, André Staudte, Reinhard Dörner, Harm Geert Muller, Markus Buttiker, Ursula Keller (2008). Attosecond Ionization and Tunneling Delay Time Measurements in Helium. Science, Vol. 322, doi:10.1126/science.1163439 ^{22 23}
• Armin Scrinzi, Harm Geert Muller (2009). Attosecond Pulses: Generation, Detection, and Applications. in Thomas Brabec (ed.) (2009). Stong Field Laser Physics. Springer Series in Optical Sciences, Vol. 134, Springer
• Harm Geert Muller (2009). Toledo Nanochess. ICGA Journal, Vol. 32, No. 1 ²⁴
• Harm Geert Muller (2015). SHOKIDOKI wins MiniShogi Tournament. ICGA Journal, Vol. 38, No. 4 » 18th Computer Olympiad | Mini-Shogi

Forum Posts

2005 ...

• draw by repetition by Harm Geert Muller, Winboard Programming Forum, November 21, 2005 » Repetitions
• MTD(f) versus Alpha-Beta by Harm Geert Muller, Winboard Forum, December 13, 2005 » MTD(f), Alpha-Beta

2006

• self deepening: an improved implementation of IID by Harm Geert Muller, Winboard Forum, April 24, 2006 » Internal Iterative Deepening
• Null move, futility and LMR by Harm Geert Muller, Winboard Forum, September 26, 2006 » Null Move Pruning, LMR

2007

• LMR in micro-Max by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, April 07, 2007 » Late Move Reductions
• beyond minimax by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, April 27, 2007 » Minimax
• Trouble Spotter by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, July 19, 2007 » Tactics, Evaluation
• re-inventing the SMP wheel by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, August 15, 2007 » Parallel Search
• Delayed-loss-bonus discussion goes here by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, September 28, 2007 » Checkmate, Score

2008

• Again, rep-draws (and score aging) by Harm Geert Muller, Winboard Programming Forum, January 28, 2008 » Repetitions
• Threat extension by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, April 15, 2008 » Extensions

2009

• Bitboard techniques in Xiangqi by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, February 12, 2009 » Chinese Chess
• MVV/LVA. Or should it be LVV/MVA? by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, March 31, 2009 » MVV-LVA
• Check extension by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, April 09, 2009 » Check Extensions

2010 ...

• Seeing a promotion, but not playing it... by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, January 24, 2010
• Material tables by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, March 03, 2010 » Material Tables
• Pawn Hash by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, March 18, 2010 » Pawn Hash Table
• Cache-friendier material index by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, March 31, 2010
• Shokidoki wins silver at ICGA Olympiad for 5x5 Shogi by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, September 28, 2010

2011

• WinBoard, exotic version by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, January 15, 2011
• WinBoard 4.5 downloads by Harm Geert Muller, Winboard Forum, February 06, 2011
• MSVC calloc question by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, March 17, 2011 » Memory
• WinBoard protocol driver by Harm Geert Muller, Winboard Forum - Chess Programming Lessons, April 30, 2011
• WinBoard 4.5.3 released by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, October 02, 2011
• End-game evaluation by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, October 04, 2011 » Endgame
• Seirawan Chess at my ICS by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, December 27, 2011 » Seirawan Chess ²⁵

2012

• XBoard / WinBoard 4.6.0 released by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, March 11, 2012
• Mobility eval by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, May 01, 2012 » Mobility
• Zobrist alternative? by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, June 12, 2012 » Zobrist Hashing
• restartable nodes and the tri-angular array by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, July 11, 2012 » Triangular PV-Table
• Peer-to-peer GUI adapter by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, July 15, 2012 » GUI
• Some thoughts on QS by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, July 19, 2012 » Quiescence Search
• Why Knight and (lone) Bishop are so nearly equal in value by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, September 25, 2012 » Point Value, Material

2013

• Pruning in QS by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, March 06, 2013 » Pruning, Quiescence Search
• static mobility(Q&D) by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, March 13, 2013 » Mobility
• Anatomy of a simple engine: Fairy-Max by Harm Geert Muller, Winboard Forum | Chess Programming Lessons, March 28, 2013
• Repetition check by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, March 29, 2013 » Repetitions
• New version of HaChu released by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, June 16, 2013 » Shogi ²⁶
• Hash cutoffs and analysis by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, June 17, 2013 » Transposition Table
• Table-less bitboards (bitrays?) by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, June 18, 2013 » Board Representation
• Search-based opening book by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, July 07, 2013 » Opening Book
• Repetition check by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, July 20, 2013 » Repetitions
• Easy easy move by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, August 02, 2013 » Time Management
• Shokidoki wins gold medal in Yokohama by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, August 15, 2013
• Chess with incomplete information by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, December 13, 2013

2014

• Positional quiesence by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, April 12, 2014 » Quiescence Search
• To be, or not to be checkmated by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, April 18, 2014 » Checkmate
• Spite checks by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, May 13, 2014 » Check, Check Extensions
• Pointless delays by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, July 25, 2014
• for Chess-variant authors by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, September 17, 2014 » Chess Engine Communication Protocol, WinBoard, XBoard
• UCCI2WB by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, October 27, 2014 » Chinese Chess, Protocols
• N.E.G. 1.0 released by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, December 26, 2014

2015 ...

• killer trees by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, February 23, 2015 » Killer Heuristic
• 'Analogy grafting' and the horizon effect by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, June 22, 2015
• Singular extension by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, July 17, 2015 » Singular Extensions
• New Shokidoki release by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, July 26, 2015 » 18th Computer Olympiad 2015 - Shogi
• Hash cache by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, October 12, 2015 » Cache, Hash Table, Transposition Table
• Shokidoki wins UEC Cup! by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, November 22, 2015 ²⁷
• Restarting iterative deepening by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, December 09, 2015 » Aspiration Windows, Fail-Low, Iterative Deepening

2016

• Killer heuristic by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, September 11, 2016 » Killer Heuristic
• Photographing Chess Clock by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, October 10, 2016
• Spite checks, again by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, October 23, 2016 » Check, Check Extensions

2017

• The Inferno thread by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, March 06, 2017 » Tenjiku Shogi, Incremental Updates
• Check extension vs LMR by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, April 04, 2017 » Check Extensions, LMR
• (I)ID and PV dropout by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, June 17, 2017 » Aspiration Windows, Fail-Low, Internal Iterative Deepening, Iterative Deepening
• Deep killers by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, August 18, 2017 » Killer Heuristic
• The Peace-Chess Challenge by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, September 24, 2017 » Chess Variants
• Magic end-game material hash? by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, November 30, 2017
• The Gigatron project by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, December 06, 2017 » Gigatron

2018

• 'ab-initio' piece values by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, March 30, 2018 » Point Value
• Chinese Chess by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, May 22, 2018 » Chinese Chess
• Xiangqi evaluation by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, July 01, 2018 » Xiangqi, Evaluation
• Fast SEE (Ed's lookup revisited) by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, December 17, 2018 » Ed's lookup, SEE

2019

• idea: null-move analogy by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, March 06, 2019 » Null Move Pruning
• delaying tactics: prune or extend? by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, March 10, 2019 » Selectivity, Tactics

2020 ...

• Zobrist key independence by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, February 17, 2020 » Zobrist Hashing
• The Inferno Thread, part II by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, March 07, 2020 » Tenjiku Shogi
• Re: Zero? by Harm Geert Muller, SHOGI-L, June 05, 2020

2021

• Reinforcement learning project by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, January 31, 2021 » Reinforcement Learning, Texel's Tuning Method
• The mailbox trials by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, March 04, 2021 » Mailbox ²⁸

2023

• Chessprogramming wiki, @Gerd by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, October 05, 2023

HGM's pages

• Computer Chess

Micro-Max

Joker Chess

Shokidoki

10x8 Chess

The Chessiverse: Evolution of Chess Programs

Chu Shogi, the ancient super Chess game » Shogi ²⁹

Ultima Pieces

• EGTB generator

Leapfrog Tablebase Generator

• Chess Engine Communication Protocol by Tim Mann & Harm Geert Muller

WinBoard and XiangQi

• hgm.nubati.net Git

External Links

• Harm Geert Muller's ICGA Tournaments
• Self-made Chess Computer SHAH based on an Atmel-ATmega88V Microcontroller and Micro-Max-WinAVR GCC port by Andre Adrian (German)
• ATM18 Mini Chess Computer from ELEKTOR.com – Platform for electronics and microcontrollers with Micro-Max
• HGM and The Matchbox Chess Computer from Adam's Computer Chess Pages by Adam Hair, June 1, 2012

References