in memoriam: Theo van der Storm Einstein forum

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in memoriam: Theo van der Storm
  • Ingo Althofer at 2011-06-07

    Hello all,

    kpato was so friendly to set up a

    user tournament in memory of Theo

    van der Storm (1960-2009). It will

    start on December 1, 2011, which would

    have been Theo's 51's birthday.

    Register here

    Theo was a good friend of mine for many years.

    We had seen each other on several chess occasions:

    \* in the 1990's at the AEGON tournaments

    between men and computers

    \* in Paderborn during the computer chess tournaments

    \* In 2005 and 2006, when I was tournament director

    of the Chess960 computer world Championships in Mainz,

    Theo became my deputy referee.

    In March 2005, in Paderborn, I introduced EWN to the

    computer chess community, and Theo was the one who grasped

    a good strategy for the game much quicker than all the

    others. Within hours he became a really strong player.

    That is remarkable especially, because in those days

    only very few strong players (kitaktus and me, to name

    them all; LuiseR came later) were around.

    Theo played EWN on the German server Inetplay (where

    also Richard M. came across the game). He also wrote

    a strong computer bot, named “MeinStein”. And of course,

    Theo helped to make EWN so popular on LittleGolem.

    On Inetplay, Theo had several German friends and fans.

    Legendary is his 2005 duel (over 50 games) with “Madam”.

    Theo won by 29-21.

    You can find more information and some photos of Theo

    here

    and

    here.

    In that “Long Night of Science 2005” in Jena, Theo was the

    guest of honour. By the way, in five of the pictures you

    can see also kitaktus, in the blue pullover, with orange

    button.

    Or directly here in duel with Theo:

    click

    Ingo.

  • Ed Collins at 2011-06-07

    Just last week I enjoyed reading and following your online game with Theo back in March of 2005:

    Here's that link, if others want to follow the game:

    http://www.stmintz.com/ccc/index.php?id=415289

  • Jonny at 2011-06-07

    I really liked MeinStein_c! I played over 2 hours in a row against him. Nice and crasy too :-))

    Once we both, MeinStein_c and i, have so high points, that we are in the near of the next coulor “green” what means, the high level like 2000 here on this server.

    Theo and i said, that we play so long that one get “green”. That was a strong night for us… many emotions are in memory of Theo…

    Jonny

  • luiser at 2011-06-08

    I tried to get “green” against MeinStein_c too. I also have a lot of memorys of this night. Playing against his programm was almost like playing against Theo. I liked it a lot to have him around on inetplay.

  • opmp at 2011-06-08

    Thanks Luise, you are absolute right. MeinStein_c was just faster then Theo :-)) he was a great thinker.

  • KPT at 2011-06-09

    what exaclty is MeinStein_c ?

    How i can play with him?

    Thanks.

  • Jonny at 2011-06-10

    Hello kpato, Ingo wrote:

    Theo played EWN on the German server Inetplay (where

    also Richard M. came across the game). He also wrote

    a strong computer bot, named “MeinStein”. And of course,

    Theo helped to make EWN so popular on LittleGolem.

    On Inetplay, Theo had several German friends and fans.

    Legendary is his 2005 duel (over 50 games) with “Madam”.

    Theo won by 29-21.

  • KPT at 2011-06-10

    Yes but i tried to find EWN in Inetplay, but i couldnt

  • opmp at 2011-06-10

    Ok, EWN is taken from this server. And MeinStein_c just play, when Theo is there. Not like Rororo. So you never can play against MeinStein_c. Sorry, thats now history.

  • kitaktus at 2011-06-10

    Why did they take EWN from the inetplay-server? Is there any understandable reason?

  • Ingo Althofer at 2011-06-10

    Hello,

    > Why did they take EWN from the inetplay-server?

    > Is there any understandable reason?

    I am the inventor of EWN and also the owner of the rights

    with the name “EinStein wuerfelt nicht”. In Summer 2008 (or

    was it 2007 already?!) the ownership of “Inetplay” changed.

    With the new owners (a company from Hamburg) I made a contract

    for one year to see which direction Inetpley would take. It

    turned out that the development was negative from my point of

    view: “They” put lots of advertisement

    on the server, including links to pages with erotic and pornographic

    content. As a reaction, a large part of the inetplay-EWN community left

    the server. I gave the owners two warnings: go back to old inetplay-style

    or the EWN license will not be prolonged.

    They reacted only very reluctantly. So I did not prolong the license.

    Ingo.

    PS. Luckily I am lightyears more happy with the way, Richard Malaschitz

    is running Little Golem. Thank you, Richard.

  • KPT at 2011-06-10

    Wow, that was a very good move from a Son of God.

    Hey Ingo, i downloaded MeinStein_c from a website, but i can use it.

    Or maybe i don't know how. It is playable, or it is just for analyzing things and that stuff?

  • Ingo Althofer at 2011-06-11

    Hi kpato, unfortunately I can not help you.

    When I understood correctly, the file for download

    is source code in C, and you have to compile it.

    Ingo.

  • Ingo Althofer at 2011-06-11

    Now I took some time to translate the report on

    the 2005 EWN tournament - with Theo van er Storm -

    also to English.

    Click here.

    Ingo.

  • Jan Krabbenbos at 2011-07-12

    Great idea for this memorial! Just joined it.

    For those who want to play against his program, you can download it from the CSVN website: http://bit.ly/ny6JGB.

    Jan

  • KPT at 2011-07-18

    Thanks for the link,

    it works?

  • Jan Krabbenbos at 2011-07-31

    It should work, except maybe for an error in the batch file.

    And you need a Java Runtime available, as it is a Java program.

  • Ingo Althofer at 2011-09-09

    Some messages above I had linked to the Ewn tournament

    in Jena, in November 2005.

    I now found time to take photos of the nice text that

    Theo wrote in my guest book when he was in Jena for

    that tournament.

    Upper part

    Lower part, including Theo's chain product formula

    which made MeinStein so strong.

    Ingo.

  • MarleysGhost at 2011-09-09

    What is the background on the chain product formula? At first I thought the 1 through 6 were die roll outcomes, but on a closer look, I think XPi is the probability that player X wins on ply i, given that the game gets that far, and YPi is similarly the probability that player Y wins on ply i. If so, Ptot is the probability of death for player Y (Witz).

  • Ingo Althofer at 2011-09-11

    Hello Ghost,

    > What is the background on the chain product formula?

    Theo explained me in 2005. And I still know - at least partially -

    the meaning.

    > At first I thought the 1 through 6 were die roll outcomes, but

    > on a closer look, I think XPi is the probability that player X

    > wins on ply i,

    Not directly.

    The xp(i) come from a “solitair race” where only the stones

    of player I are involved. The yp(j) come from an analogous

    “solitair race” where only the stones of player II are involved.

    xp(i) is the probability that the solitair position for I leads

    to a reaco of the goal in exactly i moves.

    Some simplifying assumption of independence leads to the

    product of probabilities.

    Stefan Schwarz had developed a simpler model (for Hanfried) where only the

    expected values of the solitair races were taken into account.

    To distinguish between the two approaches I had coined the terms

    “Schwarz tables” and “van der Storm chains”.

    Ingo.

  • KPT at 2012-12-18

    Congrats to Gambler the Bot
    The winner of the First STORM tournament!

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