Mr. Frederic Alois Friedel

A German graduate linguist, science-, chess- and computer chess journalist, in 1986 with game database developer Matthias W?llenweber co-founder and participator of ChessBase. He studied Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of Hamburg and in Oxford, graduating with a thesis on speech act theory and moral language. He started a university career but switched to science journalism, producing documentaries for German TV. He also joined the American skeptical society CSICOP (now the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry) and investigated/debunked several paranormal claims. In the late 70s and early 80s, he featured computer chess on German television; one match being that of David Levy versus Chess 4.8, with Volker Arzt, ZDF 1979. In the early 1980s he did a feature on computer chess and artificial intelligence, making friends with many top chess players in the process. In 1985 he met Garry Kasparov and soon after that co-founded the chess database company ChessBase, which has been said to be the Microsoft and Apple of chess software. From the first edition in 1983 until 2004, along with his fellow Dieter Steinwender, he was publisher and editor of Computerschach & Spiele, the biggest computer chess magazine in the world (the magazine recently became an online publication). He has been in close contact with many of the world's top chess players, including Kasparov, Anand, Kramnik, Carlsen, Leko, Topalov, Svidler, Short, the Polgar sisters and many others. Today he spends most of his time editing the chess news page ChessBase.com. Among the many publications he has authored or co-authored are: In 1980,. Computerschach. (German); in 1984, Move from the East. Report of the WMCCC 1983, Personal Computer World, January 1984; in 1992, with Michael Valvo, The 7th World Computer-Chess Championship. Results and Games. ICCA Journal, Vol. 15, No. 4; in 1994, Pentium Genius Beats Kasparov: A Report on the Intel Speed Chess Grand Prix in London. ICCA Journal, Vol. 17, No. 3; in 1994 with Frans Morsch, The Intel World Chess Express Challenge. ICCA Journal, Vol. 17, No. 2; in 1995 with Dieter Steinwender, Schach am PC Bits und Bytes im k?niglichen Spiel, Markt und Technik Buch 1995, ISBN: 978-3-87791-522-6 (German); and in 2001 with Helmut Pfleger, Cheating in Chess. Advances in Computer Games 9.