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**[[Home]] * [[People]] * Yngvi Björnsson**
|| [[image:yb.jpg link="http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/"]] ||~ || **Yngvi Björnsson**,
an Icelandic computer scientist and games researcher. After a B.S in Computer Science at the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Iceland|University of Iceland]], and a few years in the industry (1988-1994), Yngvi studied at the [[University of Alberta]] in Canada <ref>[[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/BjornssonCV.pdf|Yngvi Björnsson Curriculum Vitae]] (pdf)</ref> . As member of the //Games research group// <ref>[[http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/%7Egames/|Games research group]]</ref>, he co-authored the chess program [[The Turk]] along with [[Andreas Junghanns]], which competed at the [[WMCCC 1996]] in Jakarta <ref>[[http://www.game-ai-forum.org/icga-tournaments/person.php?id=110|Yngvi Björnsson's ICGA Tournaments]]</ref> , developed the [[Lines of Action]] program and three times gold medal winner [[http://www.game-ai-forum.org/icga-tournaments/program.php?id=117|YL]], co-authored the [[Hex]] program [[http://www.game-ai-forum.org/icga-tournaments/program.php?id=276|Mongoose]] and made his Ph.D. thesis in Computer Science, //Selective Depth-First Game-Tree Search// at the [[University of Alberta]] in 2002 <ref>[[Yngvi Björnsson]] (**2002**). //[[http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=935848|Selective Depth-First Game-Tree Search]]//. Ph.D. thesis, [[University of Alberta]]</ref> advised by [[Tony Marsland|Professor Tony Marsland]]. Yngvi contributed with [[Uncertainty Cut-Offs]] <ref>[[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Tony Marsland]], [[Jonathan Schaeffer]], [[Andreas Junghanns]] (**1997**). //Searching with Uncertainty Cut-offs.// [[ICGA Journal#20_1|ICCA Journal, Vol. 20, No. 1]]</ref> <ref>[[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Tony Marsland]], [[Jonathan Schaeffer]], [[Andreas Junghanns]] (**1997**). //Searching with Uncertainty Cut-offs//. [[Advances in Computer Chess 8]]</ref>, and invented [[Multi-Cut|Multi-Cut Pruning]] <ref>[[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Tony Marsland]] (**2001**). //Multi-cut Alpha-Beta Pruning in Game Tree Search.// Theoretical Computer Science, Vol. 252, [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/BjornssonM01a.pdf|pdf]]</ref> .
Since 2004, Yngvi Björnsson is associate professor at the School of Computer Science, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reykjav%C3%ADk_University|Reykjavík University]], Iceland. He served as Vice-President of the [[ICGA]] from 2005 until 2011 and organized the [[WCCC 2005]] in Reykjavík. ||
|| Yngvi Björnsson <ref>Photo from [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/|Yngvi Björnsson's homepage]]</ref> ||~ ||^ ||
[[toc]]
=Photos=
|| [[image:loa.jpg width="560" link="http://spaz.ca/aaron/gallery/england2000/games.html"]] ||
|| [[Mark Winands]], Yngvi (Gold), [[Darse Billings]], [[5th Computer Olympiad#LOA|London 2000]] <ref>[[http://spaz.ca/aaron/gallery/england2000/games.html|Mind Sports Olympiad, England, August 2000]] by [[Aaron Davidson]]</ref> ||
||~ ||
|| [[image:AnthonyWithShannonTrophy1.jpg width="560"]] ||
|| Yngvi Björnsson awards [[Anthony Cozzie]]
first prize for [[Zappa]], [[WCCC 2005|Reykjavik 2005]], Photo by [[Gerd Isenberg]] ||
||~ ||
|| [[image:group_photo_cropped.JPG width="560" link="http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/%7Echinook/authors/"]] ||
|| Chinook team:: Back: Yngvi Björnsson, [[Neil Burch]], [[Rob Lake]], [[Joe Culberson]]
Front: [[Paul Lu]], [[Jonathan Schaeffer]], [[Steve Sutphen]] <ref>[[http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~chinook/authors/|Authors - Chinook - World Man-Machine Checkers Champion]]</ref>||
=Chinook=
Yngvi Björnsson is member of the [[http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/%7Echinook/|Chinook team]] around [[Jonathan Schaeffer]], recently solving [[Checkers]] <ref>[[http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/%7Echinook/authors/|Chinook Authors]]</ref> :
{{Yngvi’s major contribution to the project was with the Chinook endgame databases. His research interests include heuristic search in artificial intelligence.}}
=General Game Playing=
Yngvi Björnsson is involved in the successful development of the [[General Game Playing]] program //Cadiaplayer// from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reykjav%C3%ADk_University|Reykjavik University]], which won the General Game Playing world-champion in 2007 and 2008 <ref>[[http://cadia.ru.is/wiki/public:cadiaplayer:main|Cadiaplayer - A powerful general game-playing engine]]</ref> .
=Selected Publications=
<ref>[[http://ilk.uvt.nl/icga/journal/docs/References.pdf|ICGA Reference Database]](pdf)</ref> <ref>[[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/w_publications.html|Yngvi Björnsson's Publictions]]</ref> <ref>[[http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Author/201447/yngvi-bjornsson|Yngvi Björnsson]] from [[Microsoft Academic Search]]</ref>
==1996 ...==
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Mark Brockington]], [[Andreas Junghanns]], [[Aske Plaat]] (**1996**). //Report on the Advances in Computer Chess 8 Conference//. [[ICGA Journal#19_3|ICCA Journal, Vol. 19, No. 3]] » [[Advances in Computer Chess 8]]
* [[Tony Marsland]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]]. (**1997**). //From MiniMax to Manhattan//. In Deep Blue Versus Kasparov: The Significance for Artificial Intelligence. AAAI Workshop 1997. [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/MarslandB97.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Andreas Junghanns]], [[Jonathan Schaeffer]], [[Mark Brockington]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Tony Marsland]] (**1997**). //Diminishing Returns for Additional Search in Chess//. [[Advances in Computer Chess 8]], [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/JunghannsSBBM97.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Tony Marsland]], [[Jonathan Schaeffer]], [[Andreas Junghanns]] (**1997**). //Searching with Uncertainty Cut-offs.// [[ICGA Journal#20_1|ICCA Journal, Vol. 20, No. 1]], [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/BjornssonMSJ00.pdf|pdf preprint]]
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Tony Marsland]], [[Jonathan Schaeffer]], [[Andreas Junghanns]] (**1997**). //Searching with Uncertainty Cut-offs//. [[Advances in Computer Chess 8]]
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Tony Marsland]] (**1998**). //Risk Management in Game-tree Pruning//. Technical Report TR 98-07, Department of Computing Science, [[University of Alberta]], Edmonton, Alberta.
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Tony Marsland]] (**1998**). //[[http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/3-540-48957-6_2|Multi-cut Pruning in Alpha-Beta Search]]//. [[CG 1998]], see also [[Yngvi Björnsso#MC2001|MC2001]] for an expanded version.
==2000 ...==
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Tony Marsland]] (**2000**). //Risk Management in Game-tree Pruning//. Information Sciences, 122(1):23–41, 2000. [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/BjornssonM00.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]] (**2000**). //YL wins Lines of Action Tournament.// [[ICGA Journal#23_3|ICGA Journal, Vol. 23, No. 3]] » [[5th Computer Olympiad#LOA|5th Computer Olympiad]]
* [[Tony Marsland]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]] (**2000**). //From Minimax to Manhattan//. in [[Jaap van den Herik]], [[Hiroyuki Iida]] (eds.) (**2000**). //Games in AI Research//. [[Maastricht University|Universiteit Maastricht]]
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Tony Marsland]] (**2000**). //Selective Depth-First Search Methods//. in [[Jaap van den Herik]], [[Hiroyuki Iida]] (eds.) (**2000**). //Games in AI Research//. [[Maastricht University|Universiteit Maastricht]], [[http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/%7Etony/RecentPapers/nec97w.pdf|pdf preprint]]
* [[Darse Billings]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]] (**2000**). //Mona and YL’s Lines of Action// [[http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/%7Edarse/LOA|LOA Page]]
**2001**
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Tony Marsland]] (**2001**). //Learning Search Control in Adversary Games//. [[Advances in Computer Games 9]], [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/BjornssonM01b.pdf|pdf]]
* [[#MC2001]][[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Tony Marsland]] (**2001**). //Multi-cut Alpha-Beta Pruning in Game Tree Search.// Theoretical Computer Science, Vol. 252, [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/BjornssonM01a.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Tony Marsland]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]] (**2001**). //Variable-Depth Search.// [[Advances in Computer Games 9]], [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/MarslandB01.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Mark Winands]] (**2001**). //YL wins Lines of Action tournament//. [[ICGA Journal#24_3|ICGA Journal, Vol. 24, No. 3]] » [[6th Computer Olympiad#LOA|6th Computer Olympiad]]
**2002**
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]] (**2002**). //[[http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=935848|Selective Depth-First Game-Tree Search]]//. Ph.D. thesis, [[University of Alberta]]
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Tony Marsland]] (**2002**). //Learning Control of Search Extensions//. Proceedings of the 6th Joint Conference on Information Sciences (JCIS 2002), [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/BjornssonM02.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Mark Winands]] (**2002**). //YL wins Lines of Action tournament//. [[ICGA Journal#25_3|ICGA Journal, Vol. 25, No. 3]] » [[7th Computer Olympiad#LOA|7th Computer Olympiad]]
**2003**
* [[Darse Billings]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]] (**2003**). //Search and Knowledge in Lines of Action//. [[Advances in Computer Games 10]], [[http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~darse/Papers/skloa-sub.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Ryan Hayward]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Michael Johanson]], [[Morgan Kan]], [[Nathan Po]], [[Jack van Rijswijck]] (**2003**). //Solving 7x7 Hex: Virtual Connections and Game-state Reduction//. [[Advances in Computer Games 10]], [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/HaywardBJKPR03.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Jonathan Schaeffer]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Neil Burch]], [[Rob Lake]], [[Paul Lu]], [[Steve Sutphen]] (**2003**). //Building the Checkers 10-Piece Endgame Databases.// [[Advances in Computer Games 10]]
**2004**
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Vignir Hafsteinsson]], [[Ársæll Jóhannsson]], [[Einar Jónsson]] (**2004**). //Efficient Use of Reinforcement Learning in a Computer Game//. in Computer Games: Artificial Intellignece, Design and Education (CGAIDE'04), [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/BjornssonHJJ04.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Jan Willemson]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]] (**2004**). //Six wins Hex tournament//. [[ICGA Journal#27_3|ICGA Journal, Vol. 27, No. 3]] » [[9th Computer Olympiad#Hex|9th Computer Olympiad]]
==2005 ...==
* [[Ryan Hayward]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Michael Johanson]], [[Morgan Kan]], [[Nathan Po]], [[Jack van Rijswijck]] (**2005**). //Solving 7x7 Hex with domination, fill-in, and virtual connections//. Theoretical Computer Science, 349(2):123–139, 2005. [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/HaywardBJKPR05.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Jonathan Schaeffer]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Neil Burch]], [[Akihiro Kishimoto]], [[Martin Müller]], [[Rob Lake]], [[Paul Lu]], [[Steve Sutphen]] (**2005**). //Solving Checkers//. [[Conferences#IJCAI2005|IJCAI 2005]], [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/SchaefferBBKMLLS05.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Markus Enzenberger]], [[Robert Holte]], [[Jonathan Schaeffer]] (**2005**). //Fringe Search: Beating A* at Pathfinding on Game Maps//. [[http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~emarkus/publications/cig2005.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Jonathan Schaeffer]], [[Nathan Sturtevant]] (**2005**). //[[http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/11922155_2|Partial Information Endgame Databases]]//. [[Advances in Computer Games 11]], [[http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~nathanst/papers/partialEndgameDatabases.pdf|pdf]], [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/BjornssonSS06.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Jaap van den Herik]] (**2005**). //The 13th World Computer-Chess Championship//. [[ICGA Journal#28_3|ICGA Journal, Vol. 28, No. 3]] » [[WCCC 2005]]
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]] (**2005**). //Report on the 13th World Computer Chess Championship//. [[http://ii.tudelft.nl/bnvki/|BNVKI]] Newsletter, October 2005, [[https://ii.tudelft.nl/bnvki/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/22.5.pdf|pdf]]
**2006**
* [[Jaap van den Herik]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Nathan S. Netanyahu]] (eds.) (**2006**). //Computers and Games: 4th International Conference//. [[CG 2004]]
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Ryan Hayward]], [[Michael Johanson]], [[Jack van Rijswijck]] (**2006**). //Dead Cell Analysis in Hex and the Shannon Game.// In Graph Theory in Paris: Proceedings of a Conference in Memory of [[Mathematician#CBerge|Claude Berge]] (CT'04 Paris), [[http://sites.google.com/site/javhar1/DeadCellAnalysis.zip|zipped ps]]
* [[Sverrir Sigmundarson]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]]. (**2006**). //Value Back-Propagation vs. Backtracking in Real-Time Search.// In Proceedings of the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence ([[AAAI]]), Workshop on Learning For Search, AAAI Press, [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/SigmundarsonB06b.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Jónheiður Ísleifsdóttir]] (**2006**). //Tools for debugging large game trees//. [[http://www.computer-shogi.org/gpw/gpw11_e.html|11th Game Programming Workshop]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakone,_Kanagawa|Hakone]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan|Japan]]
**2007**
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Jónheiður Ísleifsdóttir]] (**2007**). //GTQL: A Query Language for Game Trees//. [[CGW 2007]] <ref>[[Jónheiður Ísleifsdóttir]] (**2007**). //GTQL: A Query Language for Game Trees//. M.Sc. thesis, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reykjav%C3%ADk_University|Reykjavík University]], [[http://www.ru.is/lisalib/getfile.aspx?itemid=9655|pdf]]</ref>
* [[Vadim Bulitko]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Mitja Luvstrek]], [[Jonathan Schaeffer]], [[Sverrir Sigmundarson]] (**2007**). //Dynamic Control in Path-Planning with Real-Time Heuristic Search.// In Proceedings of the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS'07), September 22-26, Providence, RI, USA, 2007. [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/BulitkoBLSS07.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Jonathan Schaeffer]], [[Neil Burch]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Akihiro Kishimoto]], [[Martin Müller]], [[Rob Lake]], [[Paul Lu]], [[Steve Sutphen]] (**2007**). //[[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/317/5844/1518.abstract|Checkers is Solved]]//. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_%28journal%29|Science]], Vol. 317, no. 5844
**2008**
* [[Hilmar Finnsson]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]]. (**2008**). //Simulation-Based Approach to General Game Playing.// In The Twenty-Third AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, [[AAAI]] Press, 2008. Accepted. [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/FinnssonB08a.pdf|pdf]], [[http://www.aaai.org/Papers/AAAI/2008/AAAI08-041.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Mark Winands]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]]. (**2008**). //Enhanced Realization Probability Search.// New Mathematics and Natural Computation, Vol. 3, No. 6
* [[Mark Winands]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Jahn-Takeshi Saito]] (**2008**). //[[http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-87608-3_3|Monte-Carlo Tree Search Solver]]//. [[CG 2008]], [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/WinandsBS08.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Jónheiður Ísleifsdóttir]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]]. (**2008**). //[[http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-87608-3_20|GTQ: A Language and Tool for Game-Tree Analysis]]//. [[CG 2008]], [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/IsleifsdottirB08.pdf|pdf]]
**2009**
* [[Mark Winands]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]] (**2009**). //Evaluation Function Based Monte-Carlo LOA//. [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/WinandsB09.pdf|pdf]] <ref>[[http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=886|Monte Carlo in LOA]] by [[Mark Watkins|BB+]], [[Computer Chess Forums|OpenChess Forum]], December 30, 2010</ref>
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Vadim Bulitko]], [[Nathan Sturtevant]] (**2009**). //TBA*: Time-Bounded A*//. [[Conferences#IJCAI2009|IJCAI 2009]], [[http://web.cs.du.edu/~sturtevant/papers/TBA.pdf|pdf]]
==2010 ...==
* [[Pálmi Skowronski]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Mark Winands]] (**2010**). //[[http://www.sciweavers.org/publications/automated-discovery-search-extension-features|Automated Discovery of Search-Extension Features]]//. [[Advances in Computer Games 12]], [[http://www.hr.is/faculty/yngvi/pdf/SkowronskiBW09.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Nathan Sturtevant]], [[Vadim Bulitko]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]] (**2010**). //On Learning In Agent-Centered Search//. AAMAS 2010. [[http://web.cs.du.edu/~sturtevant/papers/RIBS.pdf|pdf]]
* [[Mark Winands]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Jahn-Takeshi Saito]] (**2010**). //[[http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=5523941|Monte Carlo Tree Search in Lines of Action]]//. [[IEEE#TOCIAIGAMES|Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games]], Vol. 2, No. 4
* [[Yngvi Björnsson]], [[Stephan Schiffel]] (**2013**). //[[http://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=jRcb4G4AAAAJ&citation_for_view=jRcb4G4AAAAJ:7PzlFSSx8tAC|Comparison of GDL Reasoners]]//. [[Conferences#IJCAI2013|IJCAI 2013]] <ref>[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Description_Language|Game Description Language from Wikipedia]]</ref>
* [[Tristan Cazenave]], [[Mark Winands]], [[Yngvi Björnsson]] (eds.) (**2014**). //[[http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319149226|Computer Games]]//. [[ECAI CGW 2014]] <ref>[[Mark Winands]], [[Tristan Cazenave]] (**2014**). //ECAI Computer Games Workshop//. [[ICGA Journal#37_4|ICGA Journal, Vol. 37, No. 4]]</ref>
=External Links=
* [[http://www.ru.is/faculty/yngvi/|Yngvi Björnsson's homepage]]
* [[http://www.game-ai-forum.org/icga-tournaments/person.php?id=110|Yngvi Björnsson's ICGA Tournaments]]
* [[http://genealogy.impa.br/id.php?id=72348|The Mathematics Genealogy Project - Yngvi Bjornsson]]
* [[http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Author/201447/yngvi-bjornsson|Yngvi Björnsson]] from [[Microsoft Academic Search]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yngvi|Yngvi from Wikipedia]]
=References=
<references>
=What links here?=
[[include page="Yngvi Björnsson" component="backlinks" limit="100" ]]
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