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Don Dailey Dies Shortly Before Seizing Unofficial World Programming Championship
By Priscilla Kaufman
The Komodo chess engine’s developer, Don Dailey, along with co-author Grandmaster Larry Kaufman, age 66, achieved his lifelong dream of creating the number one chess engine in the world. But Dailey, 57, passed away only nine days before Komodo won the worldwide Thoresen Chess Engine Competi- tion (TCEC). Komodo is now the number one engine in classsical, as opposed to blitz, chess. This is an unofficial world championship.
TCEC is a competition among 38 chess engines. It culminates with a 48-game match between the top two programs, broadcast over the Internet from Skog, Sweden.
The two baby boomers accomplished this feat that is normally reserved for 20-some- things. In this high-tech, youth-driven era, the two soon-to-be senior citizens created Komodo, named after the dragon. The oppos- ing engine Stockfish was the collaborative worldwide effort of more than 20 program- mers and many other testers. Yet the two men triumphed over the competition.
Dailey, a computer programmer by training, worked with Kaufman for three years to com- plete Komodo. They worked remotely, Dailey from Roanoke, Virginia, and Kaufman in Potomac, Maryland. The two both had an MIT connection; Dailey was the head of sys- tems administration for the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science in the 1990s, and Kauf- man was a student in the 1960s. Amazingly, Dailey never graduated from high school or attended college, instead opting for a GED.
The pair worked twelve-hour days, indefati- gably perfecting Komodo, getting their program ready for launch and for the com-
Dailey and Kaufman continued to tweak the program even as it entered the championship, Don working from his hospice bed. Suddenly Kaufman also took ill and was rushed to the hospital for
emergency, life-saving intestinal surgery. As they had in the past, the two fought the battle to collaborate from their separate hospitals.
petition. In the meantime, Dailey was diagnosed with leukemia, but instead of slowing down, their efforts intensified as Dailey dealt with his fatal illness. The dream kept them going.
Dailey and Kaufman continued to tweak the program even as it entered the championship, Don working from his hospice bed. Suddenly Kaufman also took ill and was rushed to the hospital for emergency, life-saving intestinal surgery. As they had in the past, the two fought the battle to collaborate from their separate hospitals.
Nine days after the tournament started, Komodo emerged as the winner by a 25 to 23 score over rival Stockfish, thus laying an arguable claim to being the strongest chess-playing entity on earth.
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