Rybka disqualified and banned from World Computer Chess Cham

[kranium]

For now ChessBase is still selling Rybka.

clearly, he can keep selling it.

wouldn't further action would be needed, i.e. an expensive and victorious law suit,
brought by...FSF or Ryan Benitez, or Bob Hyatt for damages...hmmm
loss of income? no i guess not

well who knows?

this however is simply a disqualification from a gaming association, a rather harsh 'slap' on the fanny, and go stand in the corner,
(thanks John Conway for the nice image and apt analogy)

sorry, but it probably won't faze them one bit IMO, and it's clearly a product for which there's a demand.

[Rubinus]

Usual user secrete to some ICGA. Engine skill is interesting.

[Terry McCracken]

http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/rybka ... pionships/

In case people haven't read that.

I suppose people like Bob, Theron and Zach are happy. They managed to help get rid of competition they were never smart enough to beat. On the way out, 2 things: 1. If i wanted a world champion engine, I would never be stupid enough to get anything from Crafty. Thats's like copying from VWagen to improve a Rolls Royce. Nobody is that f***ing stupid. 2. Concerning the picture in the post with Karpov and the horse.... and the explanation of the one on the "left" and the one on the "right" would have been crucial if it had been a picture of Hyatt, Zach or Christophe and the horse was turned around. One would wonder if mods are brave enough to leave this thread. My money is on chicken-shit. Rest of my money would ride on "I don't give a rats ass."

Your vile accusations against Bob, Zach, Christophe et al are reprehensible. You're talking out of you ass as usual filling the forum with a vile stench! I wouldn't bat an eye if you were banned or even sued. You've asked for it!

As for Vas, he was that stupid. Vas is a hack and I hope Fabien sues his ass.

As for the skills of Bob Hyatt you haven't a clue and if Christophe wanted the best program all he would have needed to do is take the same route Vas did and it would be better than Rybka or Houdini as he's that talented !

All you condemn, the pioneers of chess, have far more talent then a plagerist!

The earth is flat in your world. You're a fanatic.

Tony, or Tim, or whatever the hell your name is- I wouldn't give you a nickel for the whole bunch that railroaded Vas. And the above 3 mentioned couldnt write a championship program if they were the only 3 writing programs. But on my way out of here-I GOT AN EVEN DEAL FOR YOU. Hold both your hands out. Shit in one and wait for me to give a damn what you think about anything I say or do in the other- and see which hand fills up first.

Adios, Einstein.

My name is visible to those that can read, cretin.

[Terry McCracken]

http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/rybka ... pionships/

In case people haven't read that.

I suppose people like Bob, Theron and Zach are happy. They managed to help get rid of competition they were never smart enough to beat. On the way out, 2 things: 1. If i wanted a world champion engine, I would never be stupid enough to get anything from Crafty. Thats's like copying from VWagen to improve a Rolls Royce. Nobody is that f***ing stupid. 2. Concerning the picture in the post with Karpov and the horse.... and the explanation of the one on the "left" and the one on the "right" would have been crucial if it had been a picture of Hyatt, Zach or Christophe and the horse was turned around. One would wonder if mods are brave enough to leave this thread. My money is on chicken-shit. Rest of my money would ride on "I don't give a rats ass."

Your vile accusations against Bob, Zach, Christophe et al are reprehensible. You're talking out of you ass as usual filling the forum with a vile stench! I wouldn't bat an eye if you were banned or even sued. You've asked for it!

As for Vas, he was that stupid. Vas is a hack and I hope Fabien sues his ass.

As for the skills of Bob Hyatt you haven't a clue and if Christophe wanted the best program all he would have needed to do is take the same route Vas did and it would be better than Rybka or Houdini as he's that talented !

All you condemn, the pioneers of chess, have far more talent then a plagerist!

The earth is flat in your world. You're a fanatic.

Vas is not stupid.
The facts are that there are other programmers who started from free source code without a success(for example El-chinito is based on Crafty and did not get significantly better than Crafty and Kaissa or Patriot also never got the first place inspite of using free sources) .

We do not know what Christophe could do taking the same path as Vas
and it is not responsible to assume that he could make something stronger than Rybka at the same time(of course today with stockfish of today that is very close to Rybka's strength it should be relatively easy)

Christophe said it would be easy, I agree. There are several here that have produced stronger programs then any commercial engines by stealing code. These people have damaged the computer chess community and have stolen income from honest programmers.

I'd say they're all pretty stupid.

[rbarreira]

For now ChessBase is still selling Rybka.

clearly, he can keep selling it.

wouldn't further action would be needed, i.e. an expensive and victorious law suit,
brought by...FSF or Ryan Benitez, or Bob Hyatt for damages...hmmm
loss of income? no i guess not

well who knows?

this however is simply a disqualification from a gaming association, a rather harsh 'slap' on the fanny, and go stand in the corner,
(thanks John Conway for the nice image and apt analogy)

sorry, but it probably won't faze them one bit IMO, and it's clearly a product for which there's a demand.

I noticed in the investigation report that two people from ChessBase were also in the panel:

Albert Silver (software designer for Chess Assistant (1999-2002); currently editor of Chessbase News (2010-present))

Frederic Friedel (Chessbase.com)

It seems they were at least interested in the outcome, what they'll do I don't know.

[Shaun]

The similarity in search and eval are not very condemnatory in my view.

The duplication of errors and dead code is.

I do not think that it has been demonstrated that Rybka has broken the law. But it seems to me that their finding is not unreasonable as far as breaking the conditions of the contest. While he does cite the named programs as sources of information, I find that things like initializations that only have purpose for Steven J. Edwards tablebase files being duplicated should make everyone uneasy about it.

To date, I haven't written much about the purported Rybka cloning topic as I hadn't read any of the investigatory papers. But as you can imagine, by interest in the matter grew somewhat when I first heard about the reported lifting of the en passant tablebase avoidance code from Crafty.

Bob had written this code at my request way back in the mid-1990s. Its purpose was to avoid probing any of my tablebase files if an en passant capture might influence the result and it was necessary because my tablebase generator did not understand retrograde en passant captures.

I have since read one of the referenced analysis papers that gives Crafty's code for this and a disassembly of its counterpart from Rybka.

After that and as far as I'm concerned, any further discussion deciding the copying issue is wholly unnecessary. It is far beyond any reasonable doubt that the en passant tablebase avoidance code could be innocently duplicated.

Incidentally, my current program still has its own version of the avoidance code:

Code: Select all

    bool IsTablebaseEligible&#40;void&#41; const &#123;return &#40;ccmc <= TBMaxManLen&#41; && !BothHavePawns&#40;);&#125;

Hi Stephen,

I am not going to comment in detail but I would like to suggest that this is not a smoking gun.

When Vas looked at the crafty code he would have seen that TBs were avoided in the case mentioned...
so he assumed that the issue applied to the TBs being used and replicated the code in Rybka??? I don't see how this is proof of wrng doing.

Shaun

P.S. I don't know what happened in the Rybka case, but I am convinced that if other engines were put under such determined scrutiny many would be condemed and more suspect.

[Sylwy]

"The ICGA demands that Vasik Rajlich return to the ICGA the four replicas of the Shannon Trophy presented at the World Computer Chess Championships in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, and to return to the ICGA all prize money awarded for Rybka’s performances in those events."

Well at least they get their "ICGA Prize Money and Trophies" returned!

Some hours ago:
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... ?tid=22236

Even my post was cloned ?

CCC must ban you !

O tempora o mores !

SilvianR

[AdminX]

"The ICGA demands that Vasik Rajlich return to the ICGA the four replicas of the Shannon Trophy presented at the World Computer Chess Championships in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, and to return to the ICGA all prize money awarded for Rybka’s performances in those events."

Well at least they get their "ICGA Prize Money and Trophies" returned!

Some hours ago:
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... ?tid=22236

Even my post was cloned ?

CCC must ban you !

O tempora o mores !

SilvianR

[Uri Blass]

http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/rybka ... pionships/

In case people haven't read that.

I suppose people like Bob, Theron and Zach are happy. They managed to help get rid of competition they were never smart enough to beat. On the way out, 2 things: 1. If i wanted a world champion engine, I would never be stupid enough to get anything from Crafty. Thats's like copying from VWagen to improve a Rolls Royce. Nobody is that f***ing stupid. 2. Concerning the picture in the post with Karpov and the horse.... and the explanation of the one on the "left" and the one on the "right" would have been crucial if it had been a picture of Hyatt, Zach or Christophe and the horse was turned around. One would wonder if mods are brave enough to leave this thread. My money is on chicken-shit. Rest of my money would ride on "I don't give a rats ass."

Your vile accusations against Bob, Zach, Christophe et al are reprehensible. You're talking out of you ass as usual filling the forum with a vile stench! I wouldn't bat an eye if you were banned or even sued. You've asked for it!

As for Vas, he was that stupid. Vas is a hack and I hope Fabien sues his ass.

As for the skills of Bob Hyatt you haven't a clue and if Christophe wanted the best program all he would have needed to do is take the same route Vas did and it would be better than Rybka or Houdini as he's that talented !

All you condemn, the pioneers of chess, have far more talent then a plagerist!

The earth is flat in your world. You're a fanatic.

Vas is not stupid.
The facts are that there are other programmers who started from free source code without a success(for example El-chinito is based on Crafty and did not get significantly better than Crafty and Kaissa or Patriot also never got the first place inspite of using free sources) .

We do not know what Christophe could do taking the same path as Vas
and it is not responsible to assume that he could make something stronger than Rybka at the same time(of course today with stockfish of today that is very close to Rybka's strength it should be relatively easy)

Christophe said it would be easy, I agree. There are several here that have produced stronger programs then any commercial engines by stealing code. These people have damaged the computer chess community and have stolen income from honest programmers.

I'd say they're all pretty stupid.

I do not agree that it is easy and the facts are that nobody except Vas could get advantage of more than 100 elo from the second place even by illegal means and there are people who tried.

[sje]

When Vas looked at the crafty code he would have seen that TBs were avoided in the case mentioned...
so he assumed that the issue applied to the TBs being used and replicated the code in Rybka??? I don't see how this is proof of wrng doing.

If he had understood why the code was present, then he would not have copied it.

It is the copying without understanding, without authorization, and without disclosure that is the smoking gun. Bang, bang, bang.