[2] One of his classmates at school was future Estonian President Lennart Meri, whose father was serving as Estonia's ambassador to Germany.
He also won the 1953 New York State Championship (the first win by a non-New Yorker), the 1956 Eastern States Open directed by Norman Tweed Whitaker in Washington, D.C., ahead of William Lombardy, Nicolas Rossolimo, Bobby Fischer (at age 13) and Arthur Feuerstein, and the 1957 Champion of Champions tournament.
He won the 5th World Correspondence Chess Championship, beginning the final game on April 1, 1965, and finishing three years later.
[8] He won with the score of 14/16 (twelve wins, four draws), a margin of victory of three points, thrice that of any other winner in these championships.
[11] Berliner started a new career in 1969, enrolling in the doctoral program at Carnegie Mellon University to study computer science, under the supervision of Allen Newell.
Early versions of BKG played badly even against poor players, but Berliner noticed that its critical mistakes were always at transitions.
He applied principles of fuzzy logic to smooth out the transition between phases,[citation needed] and by July 1979, BKG 9.8 was strong enough to play against the ruling world champion Luigi Villa.
Berliner states that the victory was largely a matter of luck, as the computer received more favorable dice rolls.
[17] Yakov Estrin–Hans Berliner, 5th CC World Ch Final 1965; Two Knights Defense, Ulvestad Variation (ECO C57) Bibliography