CCT: Update to rules for future events

[Peter Skinner]

Hello everyone,

I have tweaked the rules for future CCT events:
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Registration:

1. FICS has agreed to facilitate computer accounts for the CCT tournament. Authors should sign up a human account first, then contact the Tournament Director with their desired engine account name to register their program account. The Tournament Director will then get the account registered, and an email will be dispatched to the participating author with their account password. This usually will take no longer than 24 hours. (Registration form will handle the above if properly filled out)

1a. It is preferred that your computer account name be the same as your engine name. If this is not possible, please contact the Tournament Director.

2. Only the original author, Operator or a team member of the original program may enter and operate. The definition of a team member is as follows:

An individual who has internal knowledge of the program and is recognized by the author as a member of the development team.. i.e. Developer, book maker. This person must have advanced knowledge of the program, such as how the program is designed, hashing schemes, book making procedures..

2a. Operators will only be allowed under the following conditions:
i. The author must be online during the tournament to participate in discussions in channel 64, and in the event there is an issue with their program they can provide real time support to their operator.
ii. The operator must use the account that the author has signed up. No exceptions will be made.
iii. No operator can operate more than one program. No exceptions will be made.
iv. In the event the author can not attend the event, but has a reliable operator, the Tournament Director may allow the program to participate.

*** This rule was added under the premise that we would rather have the program participate than not at all. There was sufficient support prior to CCT12 for the inclusion of this rule. ***

3. Book authors will be required to enter with only one team. Two teams (entrants) will not be able to use the same book author. Books can be as unique as a chess program, thus should follow the same rules as one program per author.

4. To enter, you need to be an established author. This means that a program of yours must have a track record in some public environment such as previous official tournaments participation. If your program has not competed in a previous CCT tournament, or in live events like the WCCC, IPCCC, Leiden, then you must take one of the steps below before registration will be accepted.

4a. Ways to establish yourself as a recognized author are:

i. If Private, your engine should have an history of official tournament participation (WCCC, ACCA, CCT, Chesswar, Paderborn etc)

ii. If private, send the engine to the testing team to get their approval or release of the engine to the public.

iii. Send your engine to be tested with the CCRL.

**All new engine authors undergo this screening test, so this is normal.

Clone/Derivatives Rules

1. Each participant (engine) must an original work. No entry can contain code from another program, or be a "clone" of another program. This includes any "personality" settings of an originating program. This includes opening books.

2. Any engine that is found to be "clone" of another program or close to it (e.g. engine output, pondering information, analysis of positions) will be declared void by the Tournament Director after seeking advice from notable sources. The notable sources will be individuals that have no active standing in other projects, and are respected within the computer chess community.

3. The Tournament Director can ask for the compiled executable and corresponding source to the participating version of an engine to let it be examined by the previous mentioned notable sources. If the author of the engine that is suspect were to refuse to confirm the originality of his own work, the engine and the author will be disqualified from the CCT, and will no longer be able to participate in future events.

Rules:

1. Registration will be limited to one entry per author. The registrant engine must also have a verifiable author. If an author has two programs, they must choose which one to enter. This is now extended to book authors, which must decide to enter with one team only. There will be no exceptions.

2. No manually operated programs, and all programs must kibitz their evaluation, and book moves/TB hits if possible. Providing as much information as possible for the viewers and participants is key. It should also be noted that 1-3 lines of text is sufficient. Whispering is not the same as kibitzing, as the opponent can not see your evaluation. If your program is found to be whispering instead of kibitzing, you will be asked to disconnect, correct the issue, and return. This disconnection will count towards rule 5.

3. Participants can use any hardware they can attain. Participants choosing to use remotely located hardware are recommended to have a suitable back up solution in the event of an uncorrectable malfunction.

4 . In the event that there is a late withdrawal or uneven amounts of players, the TD can substitute a program in place of the departing entrant to keep the numbered entries the same. And to avoid a bye round.

5. In the event that the wrong colors are played, the programs will have 5 minutes to make the correction, or the program that issued the match request will forfeit the game.

Disconnection/Forfeit Rules

1. In the event of a disconnection, the party will be given 10 minutes to return to complete the game and no more than 2 disconnections per game will be allowed. On the third time, the game will be a forfeit. It will be required to request the forfeited win immediately upon the third disconnection.

2. In the event that a program can not continue a game due to interface or program issues, it will forfeit the game. Under no circumstances will a new game be formed or the game restarted.

3. If a program is not open for matches or arrives late for a scheduled round, after 20 minutes the game will be considered a forfeit. This is to eliminate one game holding up the tournament.

*** All forfeit requests must be claimed at the time of the infraction by the team member operating the registered program. At no time will a request be considered after the game has been resumed. ***

Seeding Criteria

1. Seeding will be based on the FICS Standard rating, as there is no way of manually seeding.
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Of course discussion is always welcome.

Peter Skinner
CCT TD

[Ferdy]

Hello everyone,

I have tweaked the rules for future CCT events:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Registration:

1. FICS has agreed to facilitate computer accounts for the CCT tournament. Authors should sign up a human account first, then contact the Tournament Director with their desired engine account name to register their program account. The Tournament Director will then get the account registered, and an email will be dispatched to the participating author with their account password. This usually will take no longer than 24 hours. (Registration form will handle the above if properly filled out)

1a. It is preferred that your computer account name be the same as your engine name. If this is not possible, please contact the Tournament Director.

2. Only the original author, Operator or a team member of the original program may enter and operate. The definition of a team member is as follows:

An individual who has internal knowledge of the program and is recognized by the author as a member of the development team.. i.e. Developer, book maker. This person must have advanced knowledge of the program, such as how the program is designed, hashing schemes, book making procedures..

2a. Operators will only be allowed under the following conditions:
i. The author must be online during the tournament to participate in discussions in channel 64, and in the event there is an issue with their program they can provide real time support to their operator.
ii. The operator must use the account that the author has signed up. No exceptions will be made.
iii. No operator can operate more than one program. No exceptions will be made.
iv. In the event the author can not attend the event, but has a reliable operator, the Tournament Director may allow the program to participate.

*** This rule was added under the premise that we would rather have the program participate than not at all. There was sufficient support prior to CCT12 for the inclusion of this rule. ***

3. Book authors will be required to enter with only one team. Two teams (entrants) will not be able to use the same book author. Books can be as unique as a chess program, thus should follow the same rules as one program per author.

4. To enter, you need to be an established author. This means that a program of yours must have a track record in some public environment such as previous official tournaments participation. If your program has not competed in a previous CCT tournament, or in live events like the WCCC, IPCCC, Leiden, then you must take one of the steps below before registration will be accepted.

4a. Ways to establish yourself as a recognized author are:

i. If Private, your engine should have an history of official tournament participation (WCCC, ACCA, CCT, Chesswar, Paderborn etc)

ii. If private, send the engine to the testing team to get their approval or release of the engine to the public.

iii. Send your engine to be tested with the CCRL.

**All new engine authors undergo this screening test, so this is normal.

Clone/Derivatives Rules

1. Each participant (engine) must an original work. No entry can contain code from another program, or be a "clone" of another program. This includes any "personality" settings of an originating program. This includes opening books.

2. Any engine that is found to be "clone" of another program or close to it (e.g. engine output, pondering information, analysis of positions) will be declared void by the Tournament Director after seeking advice from notable sources. The notable sources will be individuals that have no active standing in other projects, and are respected within the computer chess community.

3. The Tournament Director can ask for the compiled executable and corresponding source to the participating version of an engine to let it be examined by the previous mentioned notable sources. If the author of the engine that is suspect were to refuse to confirm the originality of his own work, the engine and the author will be disqualified from the CCT, and will no longer be able to participate in future events.

Rules:

1. Registration will be limited to one entry per author. The registrant engine must also have a verifiable author. If an author has two programs, they must choose which one to enter. This is now extended to book authors, which must decide to enter with one team only. There will be no exceptions.

2. No manually operated programs, and all programs must kibitz their evaluation, and book moves/TB hits if possible. Providing as much information as possible for the viewers and participants is key. It should also be noted that 1-3 lines of text is sufficient. Whispering is not the same as kibitzing, as the opponent can not see your evaluation. If your program is found to be whispering instead of kibitzing, you will be asked to disconnect, correct the issue, and return. This disconnection will count towards rule 5.

3. Participants can use any hardware they can attain. Participants choosing to use remotely located hardware are recommended to have a suitable back up solution in the event of an uncorrectable malfunction.

4 . In the event that there is a late withdrawal or uneven amounts of players, the TD can substitute a program in place of the departing entrant to keep the numbered entries the same. And to avoid a bye round.

5. In the event that the wrong colors are played, the programs will have 5 minutes to make the correction, or the program that issued the match request will forfeit the game.

Disconnection/Forfeit Rules

1. In the event of a disconnection, the party will be given 10 minutes to return to complete the game and no more than 2 disconnections per game will be allowed. On the third time, the game will be a forfeit. It will be required to request the forfeited win immediately upon the third disconnection.

How about - If 10 minutes is exceeded would it be just fair to forfeit the game as well.
If only there's a system where disconnection time will be charged as consumed time

2. In the event that a program can not continue a game due to interface or program issues, it will forfeit the game. Under no circumstances will a new game be formed or the game restarted.

Just let the game continue. 1 program will be flagged anyway. Do we really need this rule?

3. If a program is not open for matches or arrives late for a scheduled round, after 20 minutes the game will be considered a forfeit. This is to eliminate one game holding up the tournament.

I remember this situation before, "not open for matches", Just before next round pairing in regular tourney, I pre-registered for blitz tourney. After the registration, the program is no longer open for next pairing in regular tourney.

Late participant will get remaining time, not the initial allocated time.

*** All forfeit requests must be claimed at the time of the infraction by the team member operating the registered program. At no time will a request be considered after the game has been resumed. ***

Seeding Criteria

1. Seeding will be based on the FICS Standard rating, as there is no way of manually seeding.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course discussion is always welcome.

Peter Skinner
CCT TD

[Don]

1. In the event of a disconnection, the party will be given 10 minutes to return to complete the game and no more than 2 disconnections per game will be allowed. On the third time, the game will be a forfeit. It will be required to request the forfeited win immediately upon the third disconnection.

Why can't we have rules that are evenly apply and not based on the whims of your opponents?

With this rule, you can take 2 hours as long as your opponent is too afraid to request the win. And I think most people will be afraid to claim a win since it is considered bad sportmanship. So you put people in this catch-22 where you can claim the win, but will be chastised if you do.

In my opinion there should not be a time-out of disconnect rule - if you disconnect for 15 minutes your clock should just continue to run. I don't know if the server handles that - but if it does it's the most even-handed way to apply the rules without making someone feeling guilty for wanting the rules enforced.

Anyone for instance that plays my program is going to have a big advantage because we have decided to never claim a win - so my opponents can stay disconnected for as long as they want. According to YOUR rules, this game could last indefinitely since it is "required" that the win be asked for.

[Peter Skinner]

Anyone for instance that plays my program is going to have a big advantage because we have decided to never claim a win - so my opponents can stay disconnected for as long as they want.

Even if it is bad sportsmanship, you still claimed a win at the last CCT almost 60 minutes after your operator said it was fine to continue. YOU claimed the win well after the fact. That is why I am stating the OPERATOR must claim the win.

Then at Leiden, when you were unable to start your game on time, no one enforced the rules and made you forfeit. So you have been on both sides of the rule and seem to have come out ok.

The only reason I stated the team request the win, is there are 20 boards going, and I can't possibly see if/when/how many times a participant has disconnected. So if your opponent disconnects 3 times, request the win. That is what the rules are there for. I would love to have the server keep the clock going, but it isn't possible. This is the only way to make sure games finish on time before the next round.

Peter

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Not good enough yet....a lot of holes hangs out there....
Dr.D

[Peter Skinner]

Not good enough yet....a lot of holes hangs out there....
Dr.D

Then by all means, provide me with suggestions and let's openly talk about them.

I _encourage_ people to make suggestions. This is after all _your_ tournament. I hold it purely as my contribution to this community for everything it has given me in the way of enjoying chess programs for the last 17 yrs or so.

Do you _really_ think it is fun to have to stay up all night waiting for games to finish, record the games, deal with childish sniping, and above all be bored half to death at times because no one is chatting?

I try to make it as fair as possible for everyone.

Input is not only accepted, it is encouraged.

Peter

[bob]

Not good enough yet....a lot of holes hangs out there....
Dr.D

Then by all means, provide me with suggestions and let's openly talk about them.

I _encourage_ people to make suggestions. This is after all _your_ tournament. I hold it purely as my contribution to this community for everything it has given me in the way of enjoying chess programs for the last 17 yrs or so.

Do you _really_ think it is fun to have to stay up all night waiting for games to finish, record the games, deal with childish sniping, and above all be bored half to death at times because no one is chatting?

I try to make it as fair as possible for everyone.

Input is not only accepted, it is encouraged.

Peter

My suggestion is simple. ICC/FICS really can't handle disconnects very well. You can either disallow them completely (one disconnect = loss) or you allow an infinite number, which is also bad. I wish there was an option where you set it to N, rather than 0 (infinite disconnects) or 1 (no disconnects) so that it would terminate the game on the nth disconnect. Since this is not possible, I think the rule should simply be purely draconian. 3rd disconnect is a forfeit. Someone informs the TD, the game ends. Don't require it to be a team member, or the operator, every game has observers, let any of them send the TD a tell, the TD can verify without using that person's name, the game ends, life goes on. I don't like the "out" that one _could_ continue to play on. I'd like to play on beyond mate at times. For me, rules without exceptions are far easier to deal with, cause fewer arguments, and keep things totally fair.

[frankp]

Is there a published schedule for these events?
Opened a (new) searcherFICS account a while ago, but seem to have been missing them.
Agree with Bob about identical rules (and implementation) for all participants. If this means one disconnect = loss, then OK. Yet another way to loose :-)

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Not good enough yet....a lot of holes hangs out there....
Dr.D

Then by all means, provide me with suggestions and let's openly talk about them.

I _encourage_ people to make suggestions. This is after all _your_ tournament. I hold it purely as my contribution to this community for everything it has given me in the way of enjoying chess programs for the last 17 yrs or so.

Do you _really_ think it is fun to have to stay up all night waiting for games to finish, record the games, deal with childish sniping, and above all be bored half to death at times because no one is chatting?

I try to make it as fair as possible for everyone.

Input is not only accepted, it is encouraged.

Peter

I am in no way underestimating your efforts....your contribution is much appreciated....it's just that there are all kinds of people with all kinds of how they accept the rules or role it out....that was my intention of the post....
Dr.D

[michiguel]

Hello everyone,

[snip]

Clone/Derivatives Rules

1. Each participant (engine) must BE an original work. No entry can contain code from another program, or be a "clone" of another program. This includes any "personality" settings of an originating program. This includes opening books.

Just a typo

[snip]

2. No manually operated programs, and all programs must kibitz their evaluation, and book moves/TB hits if possible. Providing as much information as possible for the viewers and participants is key. It should also be noted that 1-3 lines of text is sufficient. Whispering is not the same as kibitzing, as the opponent can not see your evaluation. If your program is found to be whispering instead of kibitzing,

you will be asked to disconnect, correct the issue, and return. This disconnection will count towards rule 5.

you will be asked to correct the issue. For this reason, you may need to disconnect and return. One disconnection towards rule 5 will be counted, whether you need to disconnect or not.

I suggest the blue text replaces the green. It is more general. Some programs can fix this through a zippy command (now Gaviota can do this), but they deserve the punishment anyway for having a careless set up. But, they do not need to be "forced" to disconnect.

Miguel

Peter Skinner
CCT TD