Ingo Althöfer

Ingo Althöfer, Musical 2008

Ingo Althöfer (born February 11, 1961 in Lage (Lippe) ) is a German mathematician , computer scientist and game inventor.

Live and act

Ingo Althöfer, Chess Computer World Championship 1999

Althöfer received his doctorate in 1986 in Bielefeld with Rudolf Ahlswede on the subject of Asymptotic Properties of Certain Competition Systems in Artificial Intelligence and Ecology . In mathematics, his main research interests lie in the areas of game theory , combinatorial optimization and the design of combinatorial space trajectories . Since 1994 he has held the chair for mathematical optimization at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena . Together with Christian Deppe and Ulrich Tamm, he publishes Rudolf Ahlswede's Lectures on Information Theory (by January 2019 Springer-Verlag had published five of the planned ten volumes).

In 1985 Althöfer introduced the 3-brain concept in chess: A human player (the third brain) makes the final selection from the suggested moves by two different chess computers. In many experiments (between 1985 and 1997) 3-brains were shown to be 200 Elo points stronger than the components involved.

Together with Timo Klaustermeyer, Althöfer introduced the principle of freestyle chess in 2004 . A team consists of any number of people and computer help in any form. The first freestyle blitz tournament was held online by the two inventors in August 2004. Since autumn 2018 there have also been freestyle tournaments in the Go game .

As a game inventor, Althöfer also developed several games with computer help. His most famous games are EinStein dice not dice (2004), Zoff der Guilds (2005), Torjäger (2010), Rapa Nui (2005, with Reinhold Wittig ) and Galtoni (2013). He published his games partly in his own publishing house 3-Hirn-Spiele as well as in the edition Perlhuhn by Reinhold Wittig, individual games were also published by larger publishers such as Noris Spiele , Kosmos Spiele and others.

Althöfer has experimentally investigated how Lego bricks combine to form random complexes when they are washed in the washing machine.

On December 13, 2018, he gave a chess lecture in the math lecture hall of Friedrich Schiller University Jena.

Works (selection)

Books

13 years 3-Hirn: My chess experiments with human-machine combinations. 3-Hirn-Verlag, 1998.
with Roland Voigt: Games, puzzles, numbers: Fascinating things about Lasker-Mühle, Sudoku variants, Havannah, EinStein does not roll dice, Yavalath, 3-brain chess , ... Springer Spectrum, 2014.
with Hartmut Menzer: Number theory and number games: seven selected topics . De Gruyter, 2014.
Lothar Collatz between 1933 and 1950 - A partial biography. 3-Hirn-Verlag, Lage (Lippe), 2019.

Selected essays

The three brains - decision sharing in chess. Magazine Computerschach & Spiele , December 1985, pp. 20–22 as pdf
Nim games with arbitrary periodic moving orders . International Journal of Game Theory, Volume 17, 1988, 165-175
Asymptotic properties of level regular decision trees with randomly evaluated leaves. Probability Theory and Related Fields, Volume 80, 1989, 381-394
Data compression using an intelligent generator: the storage of chess games as an example . Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 52, 1991, 109-113
with Gautam Das, David Dobkin, Deborah Joseph and José Soares: On sparse spanners of weighted graphs. Discrete & Computational Geometry, Volume 9, 1993, pp. 81-100
On sparse approximations to randomized strategies and convex combinations . Linear Algebra and Applications, Volume 199, 1994, pp. 339-355
with Imre Leader : Correlation of Boolean functions and pathology in recursion trees . SIAM Journal of Discrete Mathematics, Volume 8, 1995, pp. 526-535
with Walter Wenzel: 2-best solutions under distance constraints: the model and exemplary results for matroids . Advances in Applied Mathematics, Volume 22, 1999, pp. 155-185
with Raymond Georg Snatzke: Playing Games with Multiple Choice Systems . In the conference volume "Computer Games 2002" (editors J.Schaeffer and others), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 2883, pp. 142–153, 2003.
Improved game play by multiple computer hints . Theoretical Computer Science, Volume 313, 2004, pp. 315-324
Evolution of Complexes from LEGO ™ Bricks in a Washing Machine. Annals of Improbable Research, Volume 20, 2014, issue March – April. as PDF
Lothar Collatz - student, teacher, person. OR-News, issue 64, November 2018, pp. 28–34. as PDF

Ludography (selection)

2004: Parking until you drop (3-Hirn-Verlag)
2004: EinStein does not roll the dice! (3-Hirn-Verlag and Edition Guinea Fowl , Göttingen Games)
2005: The Rainbow Caravan (3-Hirn-Verlag)
2005: Play Gauss (with Reinhold Wittig ; 3-Hirn-Verlag and Edition Perlhuhn, Göttinger Spiele)
2005: Zoff of the guilds (3-Hirn-Verlag)
2005: Rapa Nui (with Reinhold Wittig; 3-Hirn-Verlag and Edition Perlhuhn, Göttinger Spiele)
2005: Parade (3-Hirn-Verlag and Edition Guinea Fowl, Göttingen Games)
2005: Jena Tower (3-Hirn-Verlag and Edition Guinea Fowl, Göttingen Games)
2005: Hermann and Thusnelda beat up the Romans (3-Hirn-Verlag)
2005: Final ( Noris Spiele , until 2009) alias Torjäger ( Kosmos Spiele , since 2010)
2005: EinStein does not roll the dice! Extension for three or four players (3-Hirn-Verlag)
2005: Blitz! (3-Hirn-Verlag)
2007: Sisyphus (Guinea Fowl Edition, Göttingen Games)
2007: Seasons of the Sun (3-Hirn-Verlag)
2007: Big Balls (with Jakob J. Lübke ; 3-Hirn-Verlag)
2007: 1558: Hanfrieds Erbe (3-Hirn-Verlag)
2008: Omba , later Docker (with Hilko Drude and Reinhold Wittig; Edition Perlhuhn, Göttinger Spiele, 1-2-3-Games Éditions, Jactalea, Blue Orange)
2007: Galtoni (Edition Guinea Fowl, Göttingen Games)