Lawrence Charles Kaufman (born November 15, 1947) is an American
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
shōgi
, also known as Japanese chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is one of the most popular board games in Japan and is in the same family of games as Western chess, ''chaturanga, Xiangqi'', Indian chess, and ''janggi''. ''Shōgi'' m ...
player. In chess, he was awarded the title
Grandmaster by
FIDE
The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...
for winning the 2008
World Seniors Championship
The World Seniors Championship is an invitational seniors snooker tournament which has been played under different formats. As of 2020 the minimum age is 40, but it was 45 in 2011 and 2012.
History
The event was first held in 1991 with 16 pla ...
(which he later retroactively shared with
Mihai Suba). Kaufman had been previously awarded the title
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 (chess), Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combinatio ...
in 1980.
Background
A longtime researcher in
computer chess
Computer chess includes both hardware (dedicated computers) and software capable of playing chess. Computer chess provides opportunities for players to practice even in the absence of human opponents, and also provides opportunities for analysi ...
, Kaufman has made several contributions to chess-related works. He helped write the opening book for the pioneering program
Mac Hack, co-developed
Socrates II and its commercial adaptation,
Kasparov's Gambit
''Kasparov's Gambit'', or simply ''Gambit'', is a chess playing computer program created by Heuristic Software and published by Electronic Arts in 1993 based on Socrates II, the only winner of the North American Computer Chess Championship runnin ...
, edited the journal ''Computer Chess Reports'', and worked on many other research and commercial
chess engine
In computer chess, a chess engine is a computer program that analyzes chess or chess variant positions, and generates a move or list of moves that it regards as strongest.
A chess engine is usually a back end with a command-line interface with ...
s. He is also known for his work on computer chess engine
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 Worl ...
3, and several books and articles, includin
The Evaluation of Material Imbalances He helped develop the chess program
Komodo with
Don Dailey
Don Dailey (March 10, 1956 – November 22, 2013) was an American longtime researcher in computer chess and a game programmer. Along with collaborator Larry Kaufman, he was the author of the chess engine Komodo. Dailey started chess program ...
, with whom he had worked on the
Socrates
Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...
series of programs. After Dailey's death in 2013, Kaufman resumed his work on Komodo with Mark Lefler.
Kaufman has reached a considerable level of competence in several other board games. He is one of the strongest
shogi
, also known as Japanese chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is one of the most popular board games in Japan and is in the same family of games as Western chess, '' chaturanga, Xiangqi'', Indian chess, and '' janggi''. ''Shōg ...
players in the west; he learned the game by the traditional method of studying
handicap theory
The handicap principle is a hypothesis proposed by the biologist Amotz Zahavi to explain how evolution may lead to "honest" or reliable signalling between animals which have an obvious motivation to bluff or deceive each other. It suggests th ...
and is one of the leading experts in this field.
Go and
Xiangqi
''Xiangqi'' (; ), also called Chinese chess or elephant chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is the most popular board game in China. ''Xiangqi'' is in the same family of games as ''shogi'', ''janggi'', Western chess, '' chat ...
are among his other past interests.
Works
* ''The Chess Advantage in Black and White: Opening Moves of the Grandmasters'' (2004).
* ''The Kaufman Repertoire for Black and White: A Complete, Sound and User-friendly Chess Opening Repertoire'' (2012).
* ''Sabotage the Grunfeld: A Cutting-Edge Repertoire for White based on 3.f3'' (2014).
* ''Kaufman’s New Repertoire for Black and White: A Complete, Sound and User-friendly Chess Opening Repertoire'' (2019).
* ''Chess Board Options: A Memoir of Players, Games and Engines'' (2021).
*
References
External links
*
*
*
*
Larry Kaufman on the merits of various chess variants
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaufman, Larry
1947 births
Living people
American chess players
American shogi players
Computer chess people
Chess grandmasters
World Senior Chess Champions
People from Potomac, Maryland