Home * People * Mark Watkins

		Mark James Watkins, an American mathematician affiliated with the School of Mathematics and Statistics [1], University of Sydney, and member of its Computational Algebra Group [2]. In computer chess forums, Mark Watkins is well known under the pseudonym "BB+" as an expert poster and publisher of recognized papers concerning the Rybka controversies (both Ippolit and then Fruit). In February 2011, Mark Watkins disbanded his anonymity when involved in the ICGA Investigations regarding Fruit and Rybka.
Mark Watkins [3]

Solving Losing Chess

Since late 2011 Mark Watkins worked on his long-term goal to weakly solve the game of Losing Chess, presumably by showing that 1. e3 wins for White. As of summer 2014 ^[4], leaving b6 and c5 as the remaining Black responses ^[5], all other responses to 1.e3 are indeed White wins, along with earlier work done by Ben Nye and others, as demonstrated by Proof-Number Search combined with Endgame Tablebases. On February 02, 2015, 1. e3 c5 was announced solved, on October 10, 2016, 1. e3 b6, proving 1.e3 wins ^[6].

Selected Publications

2000 ...

• Mark Watkins (2000). Class Numbers of Imaginary Quadratic Fields. Ph.D. thesis, University of Georgia, advisor Carl Bernard Pomerance ^[7]
• Mark Watkins (2004). Real Zeros of Real Odd Dirichlet L-Functions. Mathematics of Computation, Vol. 73 , No. 245, pdf ^[8]
• Noam Elkies, Mark Watkins (2004). Elliptic Curves of Large Rank and Small Conductor. arXiv:math/0403374, LNCS 3076
• Mark Watkins (2006). A Note on Integral Points on Elliptic Curves. Journal de Theorie des Nombres de Bordeaux, Vol. 18, No. 3, pdf

2010 ...

• Mark Watkins (2010). A comparison of Rybka and IPPOLIT. pdf^[9] » Rybka, Ippolit
• Mark Watkins (2011). Computing with Hecke Grössencharacters. Publications Mathematiques de Besancon, pdf ^[10]
• Mark Watkins (2011). A comparison of Rybka 1.0 Beta and Fruit 2.1, pdf, February 12, 2011 Version ^[11]
• Mark Watkins (2011). A comparison of Rybka 1.0 Beta and Fruit 2.1, pdf, February 24, 2011 Version
• Mark Watkins (2011). A comparison of Rybka 1.0 Beta and Fruit 2.1, pdf, March 11, 2011 Version » Rybka, Fruit
• Mark Watkins (2011). Review of the Rybka case. pdf from OpenChess Forum ^[12]
• Mark Watkins (2012). Another 80-Dimensional Extremal Lattice. Journal de Theorie des Nombres de Bordeaux, Vol. 24, No. 1, pdf
• Mark Watkins (2012). A Critical Aanalysis of the four parts of Riis. pdf ^[13]
• Mark Watkins (2012). A status report on Losing Chess. pdf
• Mark Watkins (2013). Review of the Rybka case. pdf
• Don Dailey, Adam Hair, Mark Watkins (2014). Move Similarity Analysis in Chess Programs. Entertainment Computing, Vol. 5, No. 3, preprint as pdf ^[14]
• Mark Watkins (2014). Solved Openings in Losing Chess. ICGA Journal, Vol. 37, No. 2, preprint as pdf
• Mark Watkins (2017). Losing Chess: 1. e3 Wins for White. ICGA Journal, Vol. 39, No. 2

Forum Posts

2010 ...

• "Automated Discovery of Search Extensions" by BB+, OpenChess Forum, June 22, 2010 » Extensions
• Some tablebase formats by BB+, OpenChess Forum, November 25, 2010 » Endgame Tablebases
• Retrograde tablebase methods by BB+, OpenChess Forum, November 26, 2010 » Retrograde Analysis
• Bad/good bishops in R3 and IPPOLIT/IvanHoe by BB+, OpenChess Forum, November 30, 2010
• Hard pruning history by BB+, OpenChess Forum, December 10, 2010
• Brief Q&A about Rybka 1.0 Beta and Fruit 2.1 by BB+, OpenChess Forum, December 14, 2010
• Monte Carlo in LOA by BB+, OpenChess Forum, December 30, 2010 » Monte-Carlo Tree Search, Lines of Action

2011

• Node counting by BB+, OpenChess Forum, January 20, 2011
• Revisiting Strelka/Rybka by BB+, OpenChess Forum, January 25, 2011
• Feb 12 version: Rybka 1.0 Beta / Fruit 2.1 document by BB+, OpenChess Forum, February 12, 2011
• Attack of the Clones (ChessVibes) by BB+, OpenChess Forum, 19 February, 2011
• Loop 2007 / Fruit 2.1 by BB+, OpenChess Forum, Apr 18, 2011 » Loop, Fruit
• Node counts at a given depth/iteration in search by BB+, OpenChess Forum, May 23, 2011 » Branching Factor, Depth, Iterative Deepening, Odd-Even Effect
• The ICGA Process by BB+, OpenChess Forum, July 01, 2011
• Deep Fritz 11 eval by BB+, OpenChess Forum, October 23, 2011

2012

• Re: ChessBase: A Gross Miscarriage of Justice in Computer Chess by BB+, OpenChess Forum, January 02, 2012 ^[15]
• Re: Hyatt Is Gone! by BB+ OpenChess Forum, Jan 03, 2012
• Rybka evidence recapitulation by BB+, OpenChess Forum, January 03, 2012

2013

• LOS by BB+, OpenChess Forum, March 31, 2013 » Match Statistics, LOS Table

2015 ...

• Another GHI example in SF (maybe) by BB+, OpenChess Forum, December 30, 2015 » Graph History Interaction, Stockfish
• Losing Chess: 1. e3 wins by BB+, OpenChess Forum, October 10, 2016 » Losing Chess
• Alpha Zero by BB+, OpenChess Forum, December 06, 2017 » AlphaZero

External Links

• The Mathematics Genealogy Project - Mark Watkins
• M_Watkins - USyd Maths & Stats
• Mark Watkins
• Losing Chess by Mark Watkins

References

1. ^ School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sydney
2. ^ Computational Algebra Group
3. ^ M_Watkins - USyd Maths & Stats
4. ^ Mark Watkins (2014). Solved Openings in Losing Chess. ICGA Journal, Vol. 37, No. 2
5. ^ Losing Chess 1 e3 e6 by John Beasley, August 2014
6. ^ Losing Chess: 1. e3 wins by BB+, OpenChess Forum, October 10, 2016
7. ^ Quadratic field from Wikipedia
8. ^ Dirichlet L-function from Wikipedia
9. ^ BB's Rybka/Ippolit comparison by Zach Wegner, OpenChess General Forum, June 13, 2010
10. ^ Hecke character from Wikipedia
11. ^ Feb 12 version: Rybka 1.0 Beta / Fruit 2.1 document by Mark Watkins, OpenChess General Forum, February 12, 2011
12. ^ Rybka evidence recapitulation by BB+, OpenChess Forum, January 03, 2012
13. ^ A Gross Miscarriage of Justice in Computer Chess by Søren Riis
14. ^ A Pairwise Comparison of Chess Engine Move Selections by Adam Hair, hosted by Ed Schröder
15. ^ A Gross Miscarriage of Justice in Computer Chess (part one) by Søren Riis, ChessBase News, January 02, 2012

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