World Computer Chess Championship

[mehmet karaman]

What a nice surprise to see a computer chess legend in the forum.

[Harvey Williamson]

Thanks for participating David.

Now I want to inquire about specifially ICGA's ruling regarding the potential participation of the Houdini Chess engine in the WCCC. Houdini is clearly the top 2 chess engine as its latest version is ahead of Komodo, and both of them a buried behind dozens of Stockfish-derived engines that I'll count as a single entity.

Houdini's origin is shrouded in controversy as its author claims it's an original engine while other programmers claim it used Ippolit/Robbolito as its base. I indeed recall using them together and despite its elo Houdini was not a good engine for analysis just like Ippolit/Robbolito were only good in the elo chase (this has changed with version 5 or 6 dramatically improving on this aspect).

What would the ICGA do about it?

Houdini has no problems participating in TCEC, and with the second best engine absent from the WCCC we wouldn't really know if it would have managed to win the championship if it participated, so a clear advanage of TCEC is not only number of participants, but the quality of them, and if ICGA's rules are stopping top engines to participate (note the best engine Stockfish is also absent - 4 engines per Championship is fine as long as they're the best 4 in the world) I think it's time to revise them.

To my knowledge neither Stockfish nor Houdini have ever tried to enter. I am sure Stockfish would be accepted providing at least one of the primary authors entered it. Robert would also need to enter Houdini and then the ICGA would decide to accept it or not as they do with all entries.

[Ovyron]

See? This is a problem where they rely on authors to be interested to participate for inclusion. I think the WCCC was designed to be relevant so that top authors would want to participate, but entered a cycle of "top authors aren't participating" followed by "it's hard to stay relevant because top authors aren't participating" followed by "top authors aren't participating because we have lost relevancy"...

This is the foundation of the problem and I don't think it's because of the travel and hotel costs, which haven't raised significantly compared to when the ICGA had many participants and they included the best engines of the world, have they?

[davidlevylondon]

Hi Ulysses,

For any engine that we are not sure about we consult an impartial expert who has the capability to investigate thoroughly and advise us. If we receive an application from Houdini we will carry out such an investigation and publicize the results. Our decision regarding acceptance or otherwise would be based on that investigation.

David

[mjlef]

Thanks for the detailed response which I forwarded to David Levy.

This guy, David Levy, has some problem with the keyboard? Or perhaps he has some problem interacting with mere mortals?

Which of the two?

If I am the chief of an organization that want to restart a new channel with the community, I would put myself on the front line. Letting know the people who I am and what I think, without the support of (kind) middlemen.

If he is not able to communicate with people then do yourself a favor, change him.

P.S: In my day job I am in a position that allows me to write what I write, knowing what I am writing.

David's email is right on the icga.org front page, so he is quite easy to contact. David had not been on talkchess for a while, so his account had to be unlocked or a new password assigned, which a moderator quickly did. And I see he has responded today later in the thread. Note he did read the posts yesterday but it took a while to get the account available to him. I might suggest avoiding inflammatory language is much more likely to get you what you want. In my experience, nice comes from nice.

[Ovyron]

Hi Ulysses,

For any engine that we are not sure about we consult an impartial expert who has the capability to investigate thoroughly and advise us. If we receive an application from Houdini we will carry out such an investigation and publicize the results. Our decision regarding acceptance or otherwise would be based on that investigation.

David

In my opinion, this way of treating the second strongest chess engine is unacceptable, it's the ICGA who should be applying to Houdini's author and trying to get him to play, and he who should be consulting experts to see if ICGA's WCCC is worthy of his time.

This backward thinking (mainly, that you don't really care about the strength of the competition, unlike other "World Championships" that actually ensure that the best in the world participate) is what is keeping ICGA in its hole, and the sitiation will not change at all because the problem is at the base of your philosophy.

So my two suggestions (which are mutually exclusive) are as follows:

1. Contact the top 12 chess engine authors, and get in direct discussion with them about why they're not participating in the WCCC. Make the required changes to make them happy, and hold an actual WCCC after meeting their conditions. The current model doesn't work if you have Kodomo as the only top engine applying. The strongest authors should decide on the rules for their championship.

If it takes years to arrange this, so be it, better to never have a WCCC again until you're capable of organizing something worthy of the name.

Or...

2. Change the name of the WCCC to ICGACC (International Computer Games Association Chess Championship) to stop pretending this is a real world championship, as the top contenders of the world aren't attending. Yeah, what really bothers me is that TCEC is working as a real World Computer Chess Championship but outsiders are being led to believe wrongly that Komodo is the World's champion, as if, it's the best and nobody else is stronger, while the truth is stronger engines aren't willing to follow ICGA's outdated rules/philosophy.

Otherwise, I'll expect Komodo to be the "world champion" for the years to come, but it'll be a meaningless title as it never gets to face the best engines in the world.

[Ovyron]

In my experience, nice comes from nice.

The truth hurts sometimes, but better to say it than hide it behind nice white lies.

[Henk]

I thought Alpha Zero is the strongest chess system at this moment. But I don't think it will play again.

[Harvey Williamson]

I thought Alpha Zero is the strongest chess system at this moment. But I don't think it will play again.

I would love to see them competing in, the WCCC, Stockholm.

[leavenfish]

It's...an anachronism. This is 2018...it could be done online and draw more participants.

So few games...so FEW people willing to participate...

I might as well hold a tourney here in BFE...get a local GM to come, a few class players, and call the winner the 'World Champion'.