Hans Secelle

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Hans Secelle [1] Hans Secelle,

a Belgian tax mediator [2], computer chess programmer, opening book author, journalist ( Computerschaak) [3], chess and shogi player, first ever European Shogi champion (1985, with a 7-0 score) and former FESA (Federation of European Shogi Associations) president [4]. Hans was arbiter of the Livingston Chess960 Computer World Championship at the Chess Classic in Mainz, the Chess960CWC 2007 [5], Chess960CWC 2008 and Chess960CWC 2009 [6].

Photos

Albrecht Heeffer and Hans as Rastafari, ICT 2001 [7]

Stefan Meyer-Kahlen, Vlastimil Hort and arbiter Hans Secelle, Chess960CWC 2009 [8]

Bionic

Hans started computer chess programming in the early 90s. With his program Bionic (Believe It Or Not It’s Checkmate) written in Basic, he participated at four Dutch Open Computer Chess Championships, DOCCC 1994, DOCCC 1995, DOCCC 1996 and DOCCC 1997, and three Aegon Tournaments, Aegon 1995, Aegon 1996 and Aegon 1997.

Bionic Impakt

In collaboration with Albrecht Heeffer, Hans Secelle started an approach based on Crafty called Bionic Impakt. As a strong chess player, Hans added a lot of knowledge in the prescan routines and evaluation. There were no attempts to “hide” anything from Hans’ and Albrecht’s side [9], and despite lack of explicit permission of Robert Hyatt [10] Bionic Impakt was allowed to participate at the DOCCC 1998. While it did quite well, other participants complained and raised forum discussions about using open source programs [11] and cloning [12], also because during the two weekends of the tournament, the playing version appeared to have changed [13], claiming some the program played the first weekend was more Crafty like [14], but explicitly later denied by Heeffer [15]. However, as a consequence Hans and Albrecht retired on Bionic Impakt and joined forces with Tom Vijlbrief on his program Ant [16] [17].