Leveling The Playing Feild

[AdminX]

I don't know about you, but I feel it's about time they started to level the playing field hardware wise. Things were getting out of hand. I would not call 4 cores vs 20 cores a fair match.

Quote From: David Levy

"The ICGA feels that the time has come to take stock of this trend of hunting for astronomic numbers of cores, and to bring matters back to Earth. We see no point in organizing an event that can be won by a simple weight of processing power, when just about all the competing programs are able to use computers with only a handful of processors. By allowing 20 cores, or 40, or 80, at the present time, we would be saying to the vast majority of chess programmers that, if they want their program to be able to give of its best, they must first acquire the use of an expensive computer system with a very large number of processors. That is not what we believe the World Computer Chess Championship should be about. One should not be able to buy the title in this way."

Read More:
http://www.hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2008

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Fully agreed Ted

[Dirt]

I don't know about you, but I feel it's about time they started to level the playing field hardware wise. Things were getting out of hand. I would not call 4 cores vs 20 cores a fair match.

Quote From: David Levy

"The ICGA feels that the time has come to take stock of this trend of hunting for astronomic numbers of cores, and to bring matters back to Earth. We see no point in organizing an event that can be won by a simple weight of processing power, when just about all the competing programs are able to use computers with only a handful of processors. By allowing 20 cores, or 40, or 80, at the present time, we would be saying to the vast majority of chess programmers that, if they want their program to be able to give of its best, they must first acquire the use of an expensive computer system with a very large number of processors. That is not what we believe the World Computer Chess Championship should be about. One should not be able to buy the title in this way."

Read More:
http://www.hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2008

I think it's a stupid decision, and removes any point of holding a WCCC at all. Better just to use the CEGT or other tester's lists.

[AdminX]

I don't know about you, but I feel it's about time they started to level the playing field hardware wise. Things were getting out of hand. I would not call 4 cores vs 20 cores a fair match.

Quote From: David Levy

"The ICGA feels that the time has come to take stock of this trend of hunting for astronomic numbers of cores, and to bring matters back to Earth. We see no point in organizing an event that can be won by a simple weight of processing power, when just about all the competing programs are able to use computers with only a handful of processors. By allowing 20 cores, or 40, or 80, at the present time, we would be saying to the vast majority of chess programmers that, if they want their program to be able to give of its best, they must first acquire the use of an expensive computer system with a very large number of processors. That is not what we believe the World Computer Chess Championship should be about. One should not be able to buy the title in this way."

Read More:
http://www.hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2008

I think it's a stupid decision, and removes any point of holding a WCCC at all. Better just to use the CEGT or other tester's lists.

So Greg then answer me this:

Whats the point in organizing an event that can be won by a simple weight of processing power?

[Harvey Williamson]

I don't know about you, but I feel it's about time they started to level the playing field hardware wise. Things were getting out of hand. I would not call 4 cores vs 20 cores a fair match.

Quote From: David Levy

"The ICGA feels that the time has come to take stock of this trend of hunting for astronomic numbers of cores, and to bring matters back to Earth. We see no point in organizing an event that can be won by a simple weight of processing power, when just about all the competing programs are able to use computers with only a handful of processors. By allowing 20 cores, or 40, or 80, at the present time, we would be saying to the vast majority of chess programmers that, if they want their program to be able to give of its best, they must first acquire the use of an expensive computer system with a very large number of processors. That is not what we believe the World Computer Chess Championship should be about. One should not be able to buy the title in this way."

Read More:
http://www.hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2008

I think it's a stupid decision, and removes any point of holding a WCCC at all. Better just to use the CEGT or other tester's lists.

They are not proposing a level playing field just an upper limit. Opening books also will still be used.

[michiguel]

I don't know about you, but I feel it's about time they started to level the playing field hardware wise. Things were getting out of hand. I would not call 4 cores vs 20 cores a fair match.

Quote From: David Levy

"The ICGA feels that the time has come to take stock of this trend of hunting for astronomic numbers of cores, and to bring matters back to Earth. We see no point in organizing an event that can be won by a simple weight of processing power, when just about all the competing programs are able to use computers with only a handful of processors. By allowing 20 cores, or 40, or 80, at the present time, we would be saying to the vast majority of chess programmers that, if they want their program to be able to give of its best, they must first acquire the use of an expensive computer system with a very large number of processors. That is not what we believe the World Computer Chess Championship should be about. One should not be able to buy the title in this way."

Read More:
http://www.hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2008

I think it's a stupid decision, and removes any point of holding a WCCC at all. Better just to use the CEGT or other tester's lists.

Very stupid. There is an assumption here that running 40 CPUs gives you 40x without any programming effort.

The whole idea of no limits is offering the possibility of innovation. How can I get the best combination of hardware and software possible?

Besides, there were other supercomputers in the past or hardware that was not available on the shelves. The only thing that changed today is... it is cheaper to have a cluster than before!

Miguel

[Spock]

It is naive to think that event that can be "won by a simple weight of processing power". That devalues the efforts of, and is insulting to, all the programmers.

It certainly looks to me as though all the programmers have ganged up on Rybka and lobbied the ICGA for their own means. Nevertheless, I support this decision. I *do not* like to see such a huge hardware differential, it takes some of the fun and competition out of it. I would however have made the maximum 4 cores not 8. An 8 core machine can be bought off specialist suppliers, but you can't walk into PC World and buy one.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

It is naive to think that event that can be "won by a simple weight of processing power". That devalues the efforts of, and is insulting to, all the programmers.

It certainly looks to me as though all the programmers have ganged up on Rybka and lobbied the ICGA for their own means. Nevertheless, I support this decision. I *do not* like to see such a huge hardware differential, it takes some of the fun and competition out of it. I would however have made the maximum 4 cores not 8. An 8 core machine can be bought off specialist suppliers, but you can't walk into PC World and buy one.

Building such a machine is not that hard Ray even for amateurs like me in the computer hardware field....

[Zach Wegner]

Unbelievably stupid. I for one will not participate.

[Harvey Williamson]

It is naive to think that event that can be "won by a simple weight of processing power". That devalues the efforts of, and is insulting to, all the programmers.

It certainly looks to me as though all the programmers have ganged up on Rybka and lobbied the ICGA for their own means. Nevertheless, I support this decision. I *do not* like to see such a huge hardware differential, it takes some of the fun and competition out of it. I would however have made the maximum 4 cores not 8. An 8 core machine can be bought off specialist suppliers, but you can't walk into PC World and buy one.

I get the impression that a majority of programmers may not like this rule change but a majority of Computer Chess fans will. Time will tell.