He does mention the Loop results again for #2 (page 97, 111 of the PDF), and I actually think he is likely wrong to say that Loop did so well due to 'the use of highly sophiscated perfect hash functions and magic multipliers for the computation of compound bit-patterns (bitboards) via perfect hashing'. The question of 'competitive in speed' here in #1 is also touched upon in his Conclusion on the Problem Statement, where nodes per seconds-cores is used as a metric, as opposed to any tournament result. I might think that using the Fruit evaluation function in this guise could even be argued to be 'fair use' for an academic project, though once he starts 'competing' with it, the situation is more dicey.

And the specific of the evaluation function is somewhat tangential here. Only #1 (with the 'competitive' word) much relates to the Loop results. How can we develop new computer-chess architectures in such a way that computer-chess engines combine the requirement on knowledge expressiveness with a maximum of efficiency? How can develop an alpha-beta approach in order to implement pruning conditions in the domain of static exchange evaluation?ġ. To what extent is it possible to use hash functions and magic multiplications in order to examine bitboards in computer chess?ģ. To what extent can we develop non-bitboard computer-chess architectures, which are competitive in speed, simplicity, and ease of implementation?Ģ. Regarding the thesis of Fritz Reul, I think it is a stretch to think there is any academic dishonesty that would disqualify his thesis on the whole.ġ.

claims the improvements are related only to search, there's no problem I can think of so long as he mentions the origins of the rest of the program somewhere to avoid any issue related to plagiarism. If the search is different, and his Ph.D. If it turns out that Loop is simply a Fruit clone then this should at least be regarded as severely misleading the examiners.Ĭertainly, although to date the allegation is relative to the evaluation only. He was working on a PhD problem, presumably given to him by his advisor(s).Ī valid question is I believe: would Loop not being an original work invalidate his PhD? I had a cursory look at the thesis and he clearly implies that the strength of Loop is the result of the developed algorithms. What he 'had in mind' is not important I think. He could have published his work as an open source, but he did not, which shows that he clearly had a whole lot more in mind than just ''research into algorithms''. That's a quite an erroneous statement in my opinion, because at some time both Loop/List were commercially available, which shows the fact that there was a whole lot more than just research into algorithms.

Loop Chess Engine