Yakov Konoval

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Yakov Konoval,

a Russian chess player and programmer from Orenburg, born 1955. From 1968 until 1974, Yakov Konova studied at Botvinnik’s chess school [1]. In 1982 Yakov became a programmer and soon started to combine chess and programming. In 1986-1987 he wrote a program for solving chess problems - one of the fastest for that period, and later worked on Retrograde Analysis for Endgame Tablebases.

EGTB records

In October 2005, Yakov Konoval and Marc Bourzutschky announced that a position in the ending of a KRRNkrr requires 290 moves to convert to a simpler winning endgame [3]. The old record was 243 moves from a position in a rook and knight versus two knights endgame, discovered by Lewis Stiller in 1991 [4].

In March 2006 the wizards of 7-men endgames, Marc Bourzutschky and Yakov Konoval found a 330 moves win in KQBNkqb [5] and in May 2006 a 517 moves win in KQNkrbn [6] [7].

References

  1. Mikhail Botvinnik - Influence on the game from Wikipedia
  2. Current status of 7-men tablebases? by ZeroOne, CCRL Discussion Board Endgame Tablebases, May 07, 2007
  3. Subject: KRRNKRR win in 290: a new record by Marc Bourzutschky, CCC, October 16, 2005
  4. Chess endgame from Wikipedia
  5. 311. 31 March 2006: White plays and wins in 330 moves by Tim Krabbé
  6. OPEN CHESS DIARY 316. 26 May 2006: A 517-move win by Tim Krabbé
  7. Bernard W. Kobes (2008). The Apriori in Chess. pdf preprint (draft)

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