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The 2011 Fifth Annual ACCA World Computer Rapid Chess Championships is tentatively scheduled for the weekend of July 23/24 2011. It is tentative only to give others a chance to tell me of a serious timing conflict. After looking around the usual tournaments, I couldn't find a conflict.

The time control and rules are mostly as they have been. The only change may be that all participants provide a binary of the version entering. This is for tracking purposes and ease of catching clones. I haven't completely decided on that rule yet. It is open for discussion.

I will have the web pages up this week. You can respond here or PM me if you have any questions, comments or requests.

I'm not so sure about handing out a binary copy of Symbolic. However, I can and will post very detailed log files of the program's interaction and calculation for and during any event.

Thanks!

CRoberson wrote:The 2011 Fifth Annual ACCA World Computer Rapid Chess Championships is tentatively scheduled for the weekend of July 23/24 2011. It is tentative only to give others a chance to tell me of a serious timing conflict. After looking around the usual tournaments, I couldn't find a conflict.

The time control and rules are mostly as they have been. The only change may be that all participants provide a binary of the version entering. This is for tracking purposes and ease of catching clones. I haven't completely decided on that rule yet. It is open for discussion.

I will have the web pages up this week. You can respond here or PM me if you have any questions, comments or requests.

The time control and rules are mostly as they have been. The only change may be that all participants provide a binary of the version entering. This is for tracking purposes and ease of catching clones. I haven't completely decided on that rule yet. It is open for discussion.

I changed binary almost every after game, to adjust time control codes and adjust evaluation values. In this case I have to send everytime I change binary.

Just a suggestion, organizer to request source codes of engines (not necessarily all participants). Commecial engines are optional, good if they submit source codes (understandable product protection). Organizer to identify and inform paticipants of the person who knows the submitted source codes.
One person is probably enough as a source code reviewer (the only person who knows the source code). It is up to the reviwer wether engine will ultimately enter the tournament. It is also helpful if reviewer informs participants of what is allowed and not allowed although it is really up to him to decide (participants should just trust this person).

Ferdy wrote:

CRoberson wrote:The 2011 Fifth Annual ACCA World Computer Rapid Chess Championships is tentatively scheduled for the weekend of July 23/24 2011. It is tentative only to give others a chance to tell me of a serious timing conflict. After looking around the usual tournaments, I couldn't find a conflict.

The time control and rules are mostly as they have been. The only change may be that all participants provide a binary of the version entering. This is for tracking purposes and ease of catching clones. I haven't completely decided on that rule yet. It is open for discussion.

I will have the web pages up this week. You can respond here or PM me if you have any questions, comments or requests.

The time control and rules are mostly as they have been. The only change may be that all participants provide a binary of the version entering. This is for tracking purposes and ease of catching clones. I haven't completely decided on that rule yet. It is open for discussion.

I changed binary almost every after game, to adjust time control codes and adjust evaluation values. In this case I have to send everytime I change binary.

Just a suggestion, organizer to request source codes of engines (not necessarily all participants). Commecial engines are optional, good if they submit source codes (understandable product protection). Organizer to identify and inform paticipants of the person who knows the submitted source codes.

If you change the code after every round, I cannot see the advantage of sending sources rather than binaries.

I do not mind any rule, but it should be universal. I do not like one rule for commercials and another for amateurs.

Sending a binary is a good compromise.

Miguel

One person is probably enough as a source code reviewer (the only person who knows the source code). It is up to the reviwer wether engine will ultimately enter the tournament. It is also helpful if reviewer informs participants of what is allowed and not allowed although it is really up to him to decide (participants should just trust this person).

michiguel wrote:

Ferdy wrote:

CRoberson wrote:The 2011 Fifth Annual ACCA World Computer Rapid Chess Championships is tentatively scheduled for the weekend of July 23/24 2011. It is tentative only to give others a chance to tell me of a serious timing conflict. After looking around the usual tournaments, I couldn't find a conflict.

The time control and rules are mostly as they have been. The only change may be that all participants provide a binary of the version entering. This is for tracking purposes and ease of catching clones. I haven't completely decided on that rule yet. It is open for discussion.

I will have the web pages up this week. You can respond here or PM me if you have any questions, comments or requests.

The time control and rules are mostly as they have been. The only change may be that all participants provide a binary of the version entering. This is for tracking purposes and ease of catching clones. I haven't completely decided on that rule yet. It is open for discussion.

I changed binary almost every after game, to adjust time control codes and adjust evaluation values. In this case I have to send everytime I change binary.

Just a suggestion, organizer to request source codes of engines (not necessarily all participants). Commecial engines are optional, good if they submit source codes (understandable product protection). Organizer to identify and inform paticipants of the person who knows the submitted source codes.

If you change the code after every round, I cannot see the advantage of sending sources rather than binaries.

I do not mind any rule, but it should be universal. I do not like one rule for commercials and another for amateurs.

Sending a binary is a good compromise.

Miguel

One person is probably enough as a source code reviewer (the only person who knows the source code). It is up to the reviwer wether engine will ultimately enter the tournament. It is also helpful if reviewer informs participants of what is allowed and not allowed although it is really up to him to decide (participants should just trust this person).

If you change the code after every round, I cannot see the advantage of sending sources rather than binaries.

I can see the advantage for the organizer. The organizer can easily verify if the source and binary will match. They don't have to guess whether binary_one refers to source_one or source_two, and we might not know that our changes are already unacceptable by the organizer.

First, I want to say I have no problem with this.

But, I doubt it will accomplish anything. Proving cloning through binary analysis is very difficult. You will at best stumble upon some obvious case.

On the other hand, the Rybka case nicely illustrates that those old binaries can come in useful at some point...

How could it be guaranteed that what the participants submit is actually the binary they use?

Would it be an idea to let the organizers pack the submitted binaries into a 'wrapper' that would kibitz some ID tag derived from each move (through an algorithm only know to the organizers)? And then send the thus modified binary back to the user, so he could use it during the tournament?

hgm wrote:How could it be guaranteed that what the participants submit is actually the binary they use?

Difficult, though if the provided binary plays many moves differently, or for example won't play some moves regardless of the given thinking time, and scores them much worse than the moves that were actually played, etc. it would increase suspicion.

Would it be an idea to let the organizers pack the submitted binaries into a 'wrapper' that would kibitz some ID tag derived from each move (through an algorithm only know to the organizers)? And then send the thus modified binary back to the user, so he could use it during the tournament?

That's going to be very painful with multiple OS's, and is pointless when the wrapped binary is getting information from the outside about what moves to play. (opening books, egtbs, learning info, clustering, ....)

hgm wrote:How could it be guaranteed that what the participants submit is actually the binary they use?

Would it be an idea to let the organizers pack the submitted binaries into a 'wrapper' that would kibitz some ID tag derived from each move (through an algorithm only know to the organizers)? And then send the thus modified binary back to the user, so he could use it during the tournament?

We've had this discussion within the ICGA investigation. The binary has to be validated during the event by running it on a few positions and comparing the output to the kibitzed scores during the game. Otherwise, as you point out, it would be worthless and could be a binary of anything.