Hans Berliner
Hans Berliner researched computer chess, game playing and search. A correspondence-chess champion in the 1965–1968 contest, he earned his CMU doctorate in 1975. His BKG program beat a backgammon world champion in 1979. He led the shared Hitech chess-computer effort, which used specialized hardware and defeated a grandmaster in 1988. AAAI elected him a Fellow in 1990. He retired in 1998 and died in January 2017.
- Works
- 85
- Citations
- 938
- h-index
- 16
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.
Timeline
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1965–1975
Chess and a computing career
Berliner won a correspondence-chess championship in a contest that ran from 1965 to 1968. He earned a computer-science doctorate at CMU in 1975 and later worked as a senior research scientist.
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1979
A backgammon program
Berliner’s BKG backgammon program defeated the reigning world champion in 1979.
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1984–1988
Hitech and search
B-star search uses optimistic and pessimistic evaluations of branches. Hitech implemented the method in 1984 and won against a grandmaster in 1988. Berliner led the project, while Carl Ebeling designed its specialized circuits and other people contributed to construction.
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1990–2017
Recognition and retirement
AAAI elected Berliner a Fellow in 1990. He retired in 1998 and died on 13 January 2017.
Sources and credits
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