World Computer Chess Championship

[Henk]

Better not start discussion about originality of chess programs. Just forget what happened with Rybcka in the past.

Even if an ape tosses a coin that decides which engine is allowed to play on wccc.

[mjlef]

Mark

I think a world title is very important to Komodo.
Their arguments may be legal, but they conflict with fairness.
It shouldn't take another candidate for you to resign.
In fact, his publications show a little bit of partiality.
Suppose a program with doubts is presented and the leadership of Komodo lurks.....
If you are now a commercial programmer, it seems that your place is not impartial.

In any event that both a version of Komodo was present and some other program with a claim of violating and ICGA rule, I would recuse myself from the investigation. But I am all for someone else becoming Programmers Representative. As far as I know, no one else has asked for the position. Any takers?

[Ovyron]

Presence
Meeting other programmers in person is an important reason to join in-person tournaments.

Important for who? It doesn't seem like Robert Houdart, Tord Romstad, or Marco Costalba have any interest about meeting other programmers, so the WCCC is screwed if the programmers of the top chess engines aren't interested and they don't care about attempting to register.

The problem is the WCCC organizers don't care either if the best join or not, this makes the tourney and "World Champion" title shams.

The WCCC is a basement tourney purporting to be something else. The main change needed is approaching the best authors for their inclusion.

[pijl]

Presence
Meeting other programmers in person is an important reason to join in-person tournaments.

Important for who? It doesn't seem like Robert Houdart, Tord Romstad, or Marco Costalba have any interest about meeting other programmers, so the WCCC is screwed if the programmers of the top chess engines aren't interested and they don't care about attempting to register.

You are quite selective in what you're quoting, aren't you?
First: Tord did participate in person in at least two tournaments. Once in Mainz (where I met him and found him a very enjoyable person to talk to), and once in Poland (where I did not participate).
Second: There are reasons not to join as well that may be more important. Both tournaments where Tord joined had favourable conditions for participants (i.e. expenses paid) and did not take more than a few days. Cost and time may be a big reason not to join in a tournament. The ICGA tournaments have been notoriously bad at both but seem to address to cost bit (unfortunately for me the time bit is a bit more critical).

Richard.

[Vizvezdenec]

Idk but for me moving chess pieces on your own while you recreate move of a 3400 elo engine (or even 3000, doesn't matter) is somewhat similar as if you build supercar to have competition with other supercar but then you push it in it back as well as your opponent...
Chess engines and their development have made a long road and for now the best one is not only fully open source but also uses fully distributed development both in terms of machine usage and in terms of people who develop it, basically proving itself that you don't need to know anyone IRL to develop really successfull chess engine.
For me WCCC looks like an artifact from the past, competition of software most popular of which is developed thru internet logically is in internet, nothing more.

[leavenfish]

If I may wax philosophical (and take whatever shots some my way because I don't intend to argue this point)...

We humans are many generation derivatives of things that crawled out of the ocean...as are monkeys...as are horses: two ears, two eyes, two appendages...

Does this permutation from the original source code in any way 'invalidate' us?

To bring this around to chess: If a 2800 non-commercial chess engine begets something decidedly stronger...does that in any meaningful way invalidate the descendant?

To me...the only way a case can be made is if the original was an intellectual property used for commercial gain. If so, and the descendant was also used for commercial gain...then, yes, we have an issue.

Strelka was open source code.

I'm not a lawyer....don't have a dog in the hunt either. But do we need to hunt down the person who built the first boat...point to them and say: "Everyone hereafter who built some permutation of this 'boat', should at least pay this man for their resulting gain...or cease and desist from building their version of this thing called a 'boat'"?

Okay, back to my meds....

[pijl]

My best experience by far in a computer-chess tournament was the Programmers Tournament, organized by Richard Pijl. This is the kind of tournament I'd like to participate in again.

Thanks
Next to the CSVN tournaments in Leiden I can recommend the International GSEI tournament (Italy) as well. I participated there twice and the atmosphere is great. Not sure when the next one will be but I'm sure it will be announced here.
Richard.

[pijl]

Idk but for me moving chess pieces on your own while you recreate move of a 3400 elo engine (or even 3000, doesn't matter) is somewhat similar as if you build supercar to have competition with other supercar but then you push it in it back as well as your opponent...

Yet the WCCC is a tournament where any type of software/hardware combination can participate. Although you can argue that most entities will run in a gui supporting connections to an ICS, that rules out engines that run in custom GUIs or even custom hardware that does not have these capabilities.

Regarding your analogy I do not really agree. The example you gave would be more like writing a program and then trying to calculate things by hand instead of using the computer it was built for. But to use the supercar analogy you could argue that the WCCC is more like using real-drivers, while tournaments like TCEC is more like installing a 3rd party self-driving software in the car to remove the human factor. Or let Top Gear decide which one is best by ranking The Stig's laptimes.

Chess engines and their development have made a long road and for now the best one is not only fully open source but also uses fully distributed development both in terms of machine usage and in terms of people who develop it, basically proving itself that you don't need to know anyone IRL to develop really successfull chess engine.

Some people like to meet others in person, others do not find that important or even don't like that. No problem with me. There are sufficient alternatives to have tournaments over the net so you don't have to meet others.

Richard.

[Rebel]

It's strange to see this fight of illustrious programmers.

Don't worry, computer chess anno 2018 is just fine. I have a couple of things to say when it's about the ICGA and it's about ethics, nothing personal.

[Rebel]

I don't really know how +200 elo engine can be a "derivative".
It's like... All engines are derivatives of Crafty, Fruit, Stockfish in some ways. If someone takes stockfish code and improves it by 200 elo, well, it's not stockfish anymore either way.

As you can read in the snippet of my previous post one reason the ICGA insists participants to have written their code from scratch is that programmers have complained Rybka had an unfair advantage by starting from Fruit, which BTW did not even happen. So no derivatives allowed, unfair competition.

It's crazy to see an organization to promote computer chess has become an obstacle to progress. The world has changed, everyone has moved on except for the ICGA that still wants to live in the previous century with outdated rules.

I see Ed has reformatted the same misleading information. I recommend anyone interested in seeing the data compiled by the investigation panel review it themselves her: http://icga.wikispaces.com/Rybka-Fruit%20Controversy. You will find links and summaries of the information all there.

You entirely missing the point I was making and in your reply only concentrate on the "which BTW" part which was added to avoid that folks get the impression I have changed my mind.

Therefore allow me to say it more blunt - by banning Rybka --- since the ICGA called it a derivative --- you have set a precedent that will hunt you until you come to your senses. Basically your organization insist that every participant is obliged to have his engine written from scratch.

In the meantime (and 7 years after) I expected something better but it is still the same old angry men gang that insists talented programmers to go through the same old shit (from scratch) because they had to.

You are a laugh to computer chess.

"come to my senses"? What is that supposed to mean? Your words sound full of anger, not mine. Anyway, I in no way feel "hunted". You are the only one seeming to hunt me, if by hunting presenting the same flawed arguments. The decision was made by other people, not me. Remember this was an investigation by a group of programmers and was simply fact finding. I feel your arguments are flawed and invite anyone interested to read the evidence directly.

You are entirely missing the point, see the red above. And secondly I address you in your role as ICGA representative and as I said to Jose there is nothing personal.

So please as an ICGA representative, do you or do not accept engines that started from an open source and added considerable ELO (say +150) to it and due the changes created an engine with its own positional characteristics and easily would pass the similarity test.

To make it more specific, the obvious example is Houdini, started from an open source, added significant ELO, has (IMO) one of the most attractive playing styles, would you (as ICGA) accept this engine in your tournament?

And I am saying -- if you want to be consistent and ethical -- that you (as ICGA) are obliged to say NO.