Vasik Rajlich
Encyclopedia
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
and the author of Rybka
Rybka
Rybka is a computer chess engine designed by International Master Vasik Rajlich. , Rybka is one of the top-rated engines on chess engine rating lists and has won many computer chess tournaments...
, one of the strongest chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
playing programs
Computer chess
Computer chess is computer architecture encompassing hardware and software capable of playing chess autonomously without human guidance. Computer chess acts as solo entertainment , as aids to chess analysis, for computer chess competitions, and as research to provide insights into human...
in the world. Rajlich is a dual Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
n-American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
citizen by birth; he was born in the United States of America to Czech parents, at that time graduate students, but grew up in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
. He later spent years in the United States as a student, graduating from MIT.
He married Iweta
Iweta Rajlich
Iweta Rajlich is a Polish chess International Master and Woman Grandmaster, multiple winner of Women Chess Championships of Poland. As of April 2009, she is the 54th ranked female chess player in the world with an Elo rating of 2424.She married Vasik Rajlich on 19 August 2006. Vasik is the author...
(née Radziewicz) on 19 August 2006. Iweta, who is also an International Master in chess, helps him with the development of Rybka as its tester. The couple presently live in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
.
Rajlich's handle on the Internet Chess Club
Internet Chess Club
The Internet Chess Club is a commercial Internet chess server devoted to the play and discussion of chess and chess variants. ICC currently has over 30,000 subscribing members...
is "vrajlich".
WCCC disqualification and banning
On 28 June 2011, the International Computer Games AssociationInternational Computer Games Association
The International Computer Games Association was founded as the International Computer Chess Association in 1977 by computer chess programmers to organise championship events for computer programs and to facilitate the sharing of technical knowledge via the ICCA Journal.Renamed the 'ICGA' in...
(ICGA) determined that Rajlich had plagiarized
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
two other chess software programs: Crafty
Crafty
Crafty is a chess program written by UAB professor Dr. Robert Hyatt. It is directly derived from Cray Blitz, winner of the 1983 and 1986 World Computer Chess Championships....
and Fruit. The ICGA sanction for Vasik Rajlich and Rybka was the disqualification from the World Computer Chess Championship
World Computer Chess Championship
World Computer Chess Championship is an annual event where computer chess engines compete against each other. The event is organized by the International Computer Games Association...
(WCCC) of 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. Vasik Rajlich is banned for life from competing in the WCCC or any other event organized by or sanctioned by the ICGA. Rajlich had already responded to these charges with an e-mail to David Levy, president of the ICGA, in which he stated: