Donald Roy (Don) Dailey, (March 10, 1956 - November 22, 2013)
was an American computer games and chess researcher and programmer, and along with long-term collaborator Larry Kaufman primary author of the world class chess engine Komodo. Don started chess programming in the 80s, and was author and co-author of multiple commercial as well as academical chess programs. He has been active poster in computer chess forums and computer Go newsgroups [1] , and was founding member of this Chess Programming Wiki. He was raised as a Jehovah's Witness and served in recent years as an elder in the church [2].
In October 2013, Don Dailey announced the release of Komodo 6 and also bad news concerning the future status of Komodo due to his fatal illness of a acute form of Leukemia[3] , and introduced Mark Lefler as new member of the Komodo team [4] . Don Dailey died November 22, 2013, in Roanoke, Virginia at age 57, just about the same time that Komodo pulled ahead of Stockfish by winning game 2 in the TCEC final[5][6] .
At ACM 1993, which was won by Don's program Titan aka Socrates II on an IBM PC ahead of Cray Blitz, he met Bradley Kuszmaul and Charles Leiserson from MIT competing with StarTech, and asking him to help them to develop a new parallel chess program. Some time later when Heuristic went out of business, Don Dailey started to work for Charles at the lab at MIT on the new parallel program *Socrates part time, beside his duty as official system administrator. *Socrates played a strong WCCC 1995, finally losing the playoff against Fritz. Don continued his cooperation with Charles Leiserson on Cilkchess.
Quote from History of *Socrates by Chris Joerg from his Ph.D. Thesis [10] :
Additionally, Don further worked with Larry Kaufman for the commercial entry Corel Chess and competed with the serial program Mini at the WCCC 1999 (beside Cilkchess), which was simultaneously the 16th WMCCC.
Doch and Komodo
Don's 2009/2010 program Doch as well as its successor Komodo[11] are again a joint effort in collaboration with Larry Kaufman[12].
was an American computer games and chess researcher and programmer, and along with long-term collaborator Larry Kaufman primary author of the world class chess engine Komodo. Don started chess programming in the 80s, and was author and co-author of multiple commercial as well as academical chess programs. He has been active poster in computer chess forums and computer Go newsgroups [1] , and was founding member of this Chess Programming Wiki. He was raised as a Jehovah's Witness and served in recent years as an elder in the church [2].
In October 2013, Don Dailey announced the release of Komodo 6 and also bad news concerning the future status of Komodo due to his fatal illness of a acute form of Leukemia [3] , and introduced Mark Lefler as new member of the Komodo team [4] . Don Dailey died November 22, 2013, in Roanoke, Virginia at age 57, just about the same time that Komodo pulled ahead of Stockfish by winning game 2 in the TCEC final [5] [6] .
Table of Contents
Rex
Don Dailey's first chess program in the 80s, first in collaboration with Sam Sloan and later with Larry Kaufman, Rex, competed at various ACM North American Computer Chess Championships and World Computer Chess Championships. Rex was further improved and marketed as RexChess [8] .Heuristic Software
In the early 90s Don started to work with chess master and computer chess programmer Julio Kaplan within his company Heuristic Software. The program they developed was called Heuristic Alpha, which later evolved to Socrates, Titan aka Socrates II, Mini, and the mass-market entry Kasparov's Gambit [9] .MIT Connection
At ACM 1993, which was won by Don's program Titan aka Socrates II on an IBM PC ahead of Cray Blitz, he met Bradley Kuszmaul and Charles Leiserson from MIT competing with StarTech, and asking him to help them to develop a new parallel chess program. Some time later when Heuristic went out of business, Don Dailey started to work for Charles at the lab at MIT on the new parallel program *Socrates part time, beside his duty as official system administrator. *Socrates played a strong WCCC 1995, finally losing the playoff against Fritz. Don continued his cooperation with Charles Leiserson on Cilkchess.Quote from History of *Socrates by Chris Joerg from his Ph.D. Thesis [10] :
Corel and Mini
Additionally, Don further worked with Larry Kaufman for the commercial entry Corel Chess and competed with the serial program Mini at the WCCC 1999 (beside Cilkchess), which was simultaneously the 16th WMCCC.Doch and Komodo
Don's 2009/2010 program Doch as well as its successor Komodo [11] are again a joint effort in collaboration with Larry Kaufman [12].Images & Games
WCCC 1986
WCCC 1999
Don's Programs
Alphabetic ListArimaa
Chess
Go
Khet
Selected Publications
[20]Forum Posts
1998 ...
2008 ...
2010 ...
2012 ...
External Links
Don Dailey
Interviews
Interview with Don Dailey - TCEC - Immortal Chess
Don's Avatars
References
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