Mark Winands

Last Updated: 12-02-2010 15:53 MIA 4.5 won the Computer Olympiad +++++ Received the 2004 ChessBase Best-Publication Award I am back!!!!

Mark Winands

Dr. Mark H.M. Winands

*University:* Maastricht University
*Faculty:* Faculty of Humanities & Sciences	Email:
*Department:* Department of Knowledge Engineering P.O. Box 616 6200 MD Maastricht The Netherlands	ICQ:	8864910

Mark's history...

I studied Knowledge Engineering from 1996-2000 at the Universiteit Maastricht. During this period, the bachelors degree Computer Science was given to me in 1998. Was first banished to Baylor University (September 1998) and next to LUC (1998 -1999). Received my M.Sc. degree Knowledge Engineering in 2000. Signed for another four years at the Universiteit Maastricht as a Ph.D. student. After three years they sent me to Shizuoka University, Japan for three months. At 1-12-2004 I have received my Ph.D since. I got a job as software engineer at Statistics Netherlands. But left after a year to do a post-doc at Reykjavik University. Since 1-9-2006 I am working again at Universiteit Maastricht. I was appointed to assistant professor in 2009.

Research

I investigate and develop new variants or enhancements for intelligent search techniques such as Proof-number Search, Monte-Carlo Tree Search or alpha-beta. The game Lines of Action is mainly used as a test idomain.

Teaching

Current:

Intelligent Search techniques
Software Engineering
Data Structures and Algorithms
Games and AI

Former:

1.2 Inleiding Informatica 2 (lab)

Publications

Here are some (scientific) publications of mine. Papers, which cannot be downloaded, are available on request.

Books / Proceedings

Herik, H.J. van den, Xu, X., Ma, Z, Winands, M.H.M. (eds.) (2008). Computers and Games (CG 2008), Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS 5131), Springer, ISBN 978-3-540-87607-6
Herik, H.J. van den, Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M., Winands, M.H.M., and Schadd, M.P.D. (eds.) (2007). Computer Games Workshop 2007 (CGW 2007). Proceedings. MICC Technical Report Series, 07-06. MICC, Universiteit Maastricht, Maastricht. ISSN 0922-8721.
Winands, M.H.M. (2004). Informed Search in Complex Games. Ph.D. thesis. Universiteit Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands. ISBN 90-5278-429-9. Universitaire Pers Maastricht. Received the 2004 ChessBase Best-Publication Award.

Books Chapters

Herik, H.J. van den, and Winands, M.H.M. (2008). Proof-Number Search and its Variants. Oppositional Concepts in Computational Intelligence, Vol. 155 of Studies in Computational Intelligence, (eds. H.R. Tizhoosh and M. Ventresca), Chapter 6, pp. 91-118. Springer, ISBN 978-3-540-70826-1.

Journal Articles

Werf, E.C.D. van der, and Winands, M.H.M. (2009). Solving Go for Rectangular Boards. ICGA Journal, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 77-88.

Chaslot, G.M.J-B., Winands, M.H.M, Szita, I., and Herik, H.J. van den (2008). Cross-Entropy for Monte-Carlo Tree Search. ICGA Journal, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp 145-156.

Winands, M.H.M. and Björnsson, Y. (2008). Enhanced Realization Probability Search. New Mathematics and Natural Computation, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 329-342. © World Scientific Publishing Company.

Chaslot, G.M.J-B., Winands, M.H.M., Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M., Herik, H.J. van den, and Bouzy, B. (2008). Progressive Strategies for Monte-Carlo Tree Search. New Mathematics and Natural Computation, Vol. 4, No. 3. pp. 343-357. © World Scientific Publishing Company.

Schadd, M.P.D., Winands, M.H.M., Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M., Herik, H.J. van den, and Bergsma M.H.J. (2008). Best Play in Fanorona Leads to Draw. New Mathematics and Natural Computation, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 369-387.

Werf, E.C.D. van der, Winands, M.H.M., Herik, H.J. van den, and Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M. (2005). Learning to Predict Life and Death from Go Game Records. Information Sciences, Vol. 175, No. 4, pp. 258-272. ISSN 0020-0255.

Winands, M.H.M., Herik, H.J. van den, Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M., and Werf, E.C.D. van der (2005). Enhanced Forward Pruning. Information Sciences, Vol. 175, No. 4, pp. 315-329. ISSN 0020-0255.

Winands, M.H.M., Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M., and Herik, H.J. van den (2004). An Effective Two-Level Proof-Number Search Algorithm. Theoretical Computer Science. Vol. 313, No.3, pp. 511-525.

Winands, M.H.M, Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M., and Herik, H.J. van den (2001). The Quad Heuristic in Lines of Action. ICGA Journal, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp 3-15. ISSN 0920-234X.

Conference Articles

Schadd, M.P.D., and Winands, M.H.M. (2009). Quiescence Search for Stratego. In Proceedings of the Twenty-First Benelux Conference on Artificial Intelligence (BNAIC 2009) (eds. T. Calders, K. Tuyls, and M. Pechenizkiy). pp. 225-232.
Schadd, M.P.D., Winands, M.H.M., and Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M. (2009).ChanceProbcut: Forward Pruning in Chance Nodes. In 2009 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG'09) (ed. P.L. Lanzi), pp.178-185. IEEE. ISBN: 978-1-4244-4815-9.
Winands, M.H.M. and Björnsson, Y. (2009). Evaluation Function Based Monte-Carlo LOA. In Advances in Computer Games (ACG 2009). To appear in LNCS.
Saito, J-T., Winands, M.H.M., and Herik, H.J. van den (2009). Randomized Parallel Proof-Number Search. In Advances in Computer Games (ACG 2009). To appear in LNCS.
Skowronski, P., Björnsson, Y. and Winands, M.H.M. (2009). Automated Discovery of Search-Extension Features. In Advances in Computer Games (ACG 2009). To appear in LNCS.
Winands, M.H.M., Björnsson, Y., Saito J-T. (2008). Monte-Carlo Tree Search Solver. In Computers and Games (CG 2008), Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS 5131), pp. 25-36.© Springer, Berlin Heidelberg.
Chaslot, G.M.J-B., Winands, M.H.M., Herik, H.J. van den (2008). Parallel Monte-Carlo Tree Search. In Computers and Games (CG 2008), Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS 5131), pp. 60-71.© Springer, Berlin Heidelberg.
Schadd, M.P.D., Winands, M.H.M., Chaslot, G.M.J-B, Herik, H.J. van den, Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M. (2008). Single-Player Monte-Carlo Tree Search. In Computers and Games (CG 2008), Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS 5131), pp. 1-12. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg.
Winands, M.H.M. and Björnsson, Y. (2007). Enhanced Realization Probability Search. Proceedings of the 10th Joint Conference on Information Sciences (JCIS 2007) (eds. P. Wang et al.), pp. 643-649. World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Chaslot, G.M.J.B., Winands, M.H.M., Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M., Herik, H.J. van den, and Bouzy, B. (2007). Progressive Strategies for Monte-Carlo Tree Search. Proceedings of the 10th Joint Conference on Information Sciences (JCIS 2007) (eds. P. Wang et al.), pp. 655-661. World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Schadd, M.P.D., Winands, M.H.M., Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M., Herik, H.J. van den, and Bergsma, M.H.J. (2007). Best Play in Fanorona Leads to Draw. Proceedings of the 10th Joint Conference on Information Sciences (JCIS 2007) (eds. P. Wang et al.), pp. 635-642. World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Saito J-T., Winands, M.H.M., Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M., and van den Herik, H.J. (2007). Grouping nodes for Monte-Carlo Go. BNAIC 2007 (eds. M.M. Dastani and E. de Jong), pp. 276-283.
Smirnov, E.N., Winands, M.H.M., Spronck, P.H.M, and Schadd, M.P.D. (2007). Constructing Reliable Classifiers for Road Side Assistance. Benelearn 2007. (eds. M. van Someren, S. Katrenko, and P. Adriaans), pp 105-111.

Kocsis, L., Szepesvári, Cs,. and Winands, M.H.M. (2006). RSPSA: Enhanced Parameter Optimisation in Games. Advances in Computer Games Conference (ACG 2005), Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS 4250). (eds. H.J. van den Herik, S.-C. Hsu, T.-S. Hsu, and H.H.L.M. Donkers), pp. 39-56. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.

Winands, M.H.M., Werf, E.C.D. van der, Herik, H.J. van den, and Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M. (2006). The Relative History Heuristic. Computers and Games, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS 3846) (eds. H.J. van den Herik, Y. Björnsson, and N.S. Netanyahu), pp. 262-272.

Winands, M.H.M., Herik, H.J. van den, and Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M (2003). An Evaluation Function for Lines of Action. Advances in Computer Games 10. (eds. H. van den Herik, H. Iida and E. Heinz), pp. 249-260. Kluwer Academic Publishers/Boston, copyright 2003 by IFIP.

Winands, M.H.M, Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M., and Herik, H.J. van den (2003). PDS-PN: A New Proof-Number Search Algorithm: Application to Lines of Action. Computers and Games, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS 2883) (eds. J. Schaeffer, M. Müller and Y. Björnsson), pp.61-74. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.

Werf, E.C.D. van der, Winands, M.H.M., Herik, H.J. van den, and Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M. (2003) Learning to Predict Life and Death from Go Game Records. Proceedings of the 7th Joint Conference on Information Sciences (JCIS 2003). (eds. P. Wang et al.), pp. 501-504.

Winands, M.H.M., Herik, H.J. van den, Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M, and Werf, E.C.D van der (2003). Enhanced Forward Pruning. Proceedings of the 7th Joint Conference on Information Sciences (JCIS 2003). (eds. P. Wang et al.), pp. 485-488.

Winands, M.H.M, Kocsis, L., Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M., and Herik, H.J. van den (2002). Temporal Difference Learning and the Neural MoveMap Heuristic in the Game of Lines of Action. GAME-ON 2002 3rd International Conference on Intelligent Games and Simulation (eds. Quasim Mehdi, Norman Gough and Marc Cavazza), pp. 99-103. SCS Europe Bvba. ISBN 90-77039-10-4.

Winands, M.H.M, Kocsis, L., Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M., and Herik, H.J. van den (2002). Learning in Lines of Action. Proceedings of the Fourteenth Belgium-Netherlands Conference on Artificial Intelligence (BNAIC 2002) (editors H. Blockeel and M. Denecker), pp. 371-378.

Winands, M.H.M, Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M., and Herik, H.J. van den (2001). Combining Proof-Number Search with Alpha-Beta Search. Proceedings of the Thirteenth Belgium-Netherlands Conference on Artificial Intelligence (BNAIC 2001) (editors B. Kröse, M. de Rijke, G. Schreiber and M. van Someren), pp. 299-306.

Research Notes / Letters (Refereed)

Winands, M.H.M (2008). 6×6 LOA is Solved. ICGA Journal, Vol. 31, No. 4, pp 234-238.

Workshop Articles

Chaslot, G.M.J-B., Hoock, Perez, J.,. Rimmel, A, Teytaud O., and Winands M.H.M. (2009). Meta Monte-Carlo Tree Search for Automatic Opening Book Generation. Proceedings of the IJCAI’09 Workshop on General Intelligence in Game Playing Agents. pp. 7-12.

Schadd, M.P.D., Winands, M.H.M., van den Herik, H.J., and Aldewereld, H. (2008). Addressing NP-Complete Puzzles with Monte-Carlo Methods. Proceedings of the AISB 2008 Symposium on Logic and the Simulation of Interaction and Reasoning, Vol. 9, pp. 55–61, The Society for the study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour, Brighton, UK.
Saito J-T., Winands, M.H.M., Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M., and Herik, H.J. van den (2007). Grouping nodes for Monte-Carlo Go. Computer Games Workshop 2007 (CGW 2007), (eds. H.J. van den Herik, J.W.H.M. Uiterwijk, M.H.M. Winands, and M.P.D. Schadd), pp. 125-132.
Winands, M.H.M., and Herik, H.J. van den (2006). MIA: A World Champion LOA Program. The 11th Game Programming Workshop in Japan (GPW 2006), pp. 84-91.
Saito, J.-T., Chaslot, G, Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M., Herik, H.J. van den, and Winands, M.H.M. (2006). Developments in Monte-Carlo Proof-Number Search. The 11th Game Programming Workshop in Japan (GPW 2006), pp. 27-31.
Winands, M.H.M, Kocsis, L., Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M., and Herik, H.J. van den (2002). Learning in Lines of Action. The Sixth Computer Olympiad: Computer-Games Workshop Proceedings (editor J.W.H.M. Uiterwijk). Technical Reports in Computer Science, CS 02-03. IKAT, Department of Computer Science, Universiteit Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands. ISSN 0922-8721.
Winands, M.H.M. and Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M. (2001). PN, PN² and PN^* in Lines of Action. The CMG Sixth Computer Olympiad: Computer-Games Workshop Proceedings (editor J.W.H.M. Uiterwijk). Technical Reports in Computer Science, CS 01-04. IKAT, Department of Computer Science, Universiteit Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands. ISSN 0922-8721.
Winands, M.H.M. and Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M. (2000). Analysis and Implementation of Lines of Action. The Fifth Computer Olympiad: Computer-Games Workshop Proceedings (editor J.W.H.M. Uiterwijk), CS 00-03. IKAT, Universiteit Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands. ISSN 0922-8721.

Technical papers / Notes / Abstracts / M.Sc Thesis

Saito J-T., Winands, M.H.M., and Herik, H.J. van den (2009). Randomized Parallel Proof-Number Search. In Proceedings of the Twenty-First Benelux Conference on Artificial Intelligence (BNAIC 2009) (eds. T. Calders, K. Tuyls, and M. Pechenizkiy). pp. 365-366.
Winands, M.H.M., Björnsson, Y., Saito J-T. (2008). Monte-Carlo Tree Search Solver. In Proceedings of the Twentieth Belgian-Dutch Artificial Intelligence Conference (BNAIC 2008) (eds. A. Nijholt, M. Pantic, M. Poel, and H. Hondorp). pp. 383-384.
Schadd, M.P.D., Winands, M.H.M., Chaslot, G.M.J-B, Herik, H.J. van den, Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M. (2008). In Proceedings of the Twentieth Belgian-Dutch Artificial Intelligence Conference (BNAIC 2008) (eds. A. Nijholt, M. Pantic, M. Poel, and H. Hondorp). pp. 361-362.
Winands, M.H.M. (2007) Enhanced Realisation Probability Search. Liber Amicorum H. Jaap van den Herik. pp. 49-57.
Lupascu T. and Winands M. (2007). State Based Expert System with Information Entities. BNVKI Newsletter Vol. 24., No. 2, pp 28-31.
Schadd, M.P.D., Winands M.H.M., Bergsma M.H.J., Uiterwijk J.W.H.M. and van den Herik, H.J. (2007). Fanorona is a draw, ICGA Journal, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 43-45.
Winands, M. (2002). Computer LOA: Een nieuwe uitdaging? Computerschaak, Vol.22, No. 5, pp. 14-15. In Dutch
Winands, M.H.M. (2000). Analysis and Implementation of Lines of Action. M.Sc. thesis. Universiteit Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands.

Reports / Editorials:

Winands, M. (2009). MIA wins Lines of Action Tournament. ICGA Journal, Vol. 32, No. 2, p. 113.
Winands, M. (2009). Many Faces of Go Wins Go Tournament. ICGA Journal, Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 54-55.
Winands, M. (2009). De 14de Computer Olympiade. Computerschaak, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 18-19. In Dutch.
Winands, M. (2008). SIA Wins Surakarta Tournament. ICGA Journal, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 187.
Herik, H.J. van den, Winands, M., Hellemons, J. (2008). The 13^rd Computer-Games Championship. ICGA Journal, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 186.
Winands, M. (2008). De 13de Computer Olympiade. Computerschaak, Vol. 28, No. 5, pp. 12-13. In Dutch.
Winands, M. (2008). The 16^th World Computer Chess Championship and the 13^th Computer Olympiad. BNVKI Newsletter, Vol. 25, No. 5, pp. 105-106.
Winands, M. (2007). The 10^th Joint Conference on Information Sciences. ICGA Journal, Vol. 30, No. 4, pp. 242.
Winands, M. (2007). SIA Wins Surakarta Tournament. ICGA Journal, Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 162.
Winands, M. (2007). 8QP wins Amazons Tournament. ICGA Journal, Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 163.
Herik, H.J. van den, Winands, M.H.M., Hellemons, J.W. (2007). The 12^th Computer Olympiad (Continued). ICGA Journal, Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 158.
Winands, M. (2007). De 12de Computer Olympiade. Computerschaak, Vol.27, No. 4, pp. 10-11. In Dutch.
Herik, H.J. van den, Winands, M.H.M., Hellemons, J.W. (2007). The 12^th Computer Olympiad. ICGA Journal, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 108.
Winands M. (2007). The 15th World Computer Chess Championship and the 12th Computer Olympiad. BNVKI Newsletter, Vol. 24. No. 3, pp 62-63.
Winands, M. (2006). MIA 4.5 Wins Lines of Action Tournament. ICGA Journal, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 162.
Winands, M. (2006). De 11de Computer Olympiade. Computerschaak, Vol.26, No. 4, pp. 11-13. In Dutch.
Winands, M. (2006). PAN Wins Clobber Tournament. ICGA Journal, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 106-107.
Willemson, J., and Winands, M. (2005). MILA wins Clobber Tournament. ICGA Journal, Vol. 28, No. 3, pp. 188-190.

Winands, M.H.M. (2004). MIA 4.5 wins Lines of Action Tournament. ICGA Journal, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 174-175.

Winands, M.H.M., Herik, H.J. van den, Hellemons, J.W. (2004) The 9^th Computer Olympiad. Vol. 27, No. 3, 168.

Winands, M., van den Herik, H.J., and Hellemons, J.W. (2003). The 8^th Computer Olympiad. ICGA Journal, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 260.

Winands, M. (2003). MIA IV wins Lines of Action Tournament. ICGA Journal, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 264-265.

Björnsson, Y. and Winands, M. (2002). YL wins Lines of Action Tournament. ICGA Journal, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 185-186.

Winands, M. (2002). The 7^th Computer Olympiad. BNVKI Newsletter, Vol. 19, No. 5, pp. 105-107.

Winands, M. (2001). The CMG 6^th Computer Olympiad and the Computer-Games Workshop. BNVKI Newsletter, Vol. 18, No. 5, pp. 115-118.
Björnsson, Y. and Winands, M. (2001). YL wins Lines of Action Tournament. ICGA Journal, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 180-181.