World Computer Chess Championship ?

[Uri Blass]

In Chess, we have the world chess champion Anand and the strongest player Carlsen. This also applies to Computer Chess, Junior and Houdini.

Between Ananad and Carlsen there aren't 300 ELO point of difference ! Following your analogy, is like if the world chess champion of 2012 would be a club player !

Between houdini and Junior there are also not 300 ELO point of difference
if we assume books and long time control.

Here is one list without books but with ponder on

http://www.husvankempen.de/nunn/40_20_P ... liste.html

Houdini's rating is 3016 and Junior13's rating is 2797

I strongly believe that the difference is smaller when program use their own book,more processors than one processor and slightly slower time control than 40/20 like people use in WCCC

I guess that the difference is only something like 150 elo in WCCC conditions and being 150 elo weaker than Carlsen is still a level of almost 2700 that is not a level of a club player.

For longer time control
I can find only 166 elo difference at 120/40

http://www.husvankempen.de/nunn//40120n ... liste.html

I can also find
at 20/40 the following

http://www.husvankempen.de/nunn/40_40%2 ... liste.html

3 Houdini 1.5a x64 4CPU 3088
17 Houdini 1.5a x64 1CPU 3014
80 Deep Junior 13 x64 4CPU 2883
197 Deep Junior 13 x64 1CPU 2762

You can see smaller difference with 4 cpu relative to 1 cpu.

Uri I am sorry if the truth hurts some people, but I see no use trying to sugar-coat it. The authors of these engines already know. Junior, for instance- with Houdini 1.5a, Strelka, a number of the Ivanhoes, a free Stockfish and Critter- I would not give you 10 bucks for Deep Junior. What would I do with it if I had it- throw beer cans at it?

This is about the least amount of sense I have ever heard you make.


gts

Sorry but I do not see the point of having Houdini1.5a Strelka and a number of IvanHoes at the same tournament.

It is the same as having
Houdini1.5a 64 bits 1 cpu and
Houdini1.5a 32 bits 1 cpu and
Houdini1.5a 64 bits 4 cpu and
Houdini1.5a 64 bits 2 cpu and
Houdini2 4 cpu
in the same tournament

My opinion is that only one Ippolit derivative in one tournament make sense.

[Sedat Canbaz]

[quote="rodolfoleoni" I guess Cozzie released his first Zappa before than Fruit was released. And I've no reason to doubt both Cozzie and Letouzey worked on their engines from scratch.

Dear Rodolfo,

I think your guess is wrong

Right now I found some information at WBEC:

17/03/2004:Fruit 1.0,first release
18/10/2004:Zappa 1.1,first release

In other words,it seems Fabien and Anthony worked together as teams in 2004 year
Probably this is the main reason about why we see similarities between both engines

Best,
Sedat

[geots]

In Chess, we have the world chess champion Anand and the strongest player Carlsen. This also applies to Computer Chess, Junior and Houdini.

Between Ananad and Carlsen there aren't 300 ELO point of difference ! Following your analogy, is like if the world chess champion of 2012 would be a club player !

Between houdini and Junior there are also not 300 ELO point of difference
if we assume books and long time control.

Here is one list without books but with ponder on

http://www.husvankempen.de/nunn/40_20_P ... liste.html

Houdini's rating is 3016 and Junior13's rating is 2797

I strongly believe that the difference is smaller when program use their own book,more processors than one processor and slightly slower time control than 40/20 like people use in WCCC

I guess that the difference is only something like 150 elo in WCCC conditions and being 150 elo weaker than Carlsen is still a level of almost 2700 that is not a level of a club player.

For longer time control
I can find only 166 elo difference at 120/40

http://www.husvankempen.de/nunn//40120n ... liste.html

I can also find
at 20/40 the following

http://www.husvankempen.de/nunn/40_40%2 ... liste.html

3 Houdini 1.5a x64 4CPU 3088
17 Houdini 1.5a x64 1CPU 3014
80 Deep Junior 13 x64 4CPU 2883
197 Deep Junior 13 x64 1CPU 2762

You can see smaller difference with 4 cpu relative to 1 cpu.

Uri I am sorry if the truth hurts some people, but I see no use trying to sugar-coat it. The authors of these engines already know. Junior, for instance- with Houdini 1.5a, Strelka, a number of the Ivanhoes, a free Stockfish and Critter- I would not give you 10 bucks for Deep Junior. What would I do with it if I had it- throw beer cans at it?

This is about the least amount of sense I have ever heard you make.


gts

Sorry but I do not see the point of having Houdini1.5a Strelka and a number of IvanHoes at the same tournament.

It is the same as having
Houdini1.5a 64 bits 1 cpu and
Houdini1.5a 32 bits 1 cpu and
Houdini1.5a 64 bits 4 cpu and
Houdini1.5a 64 bits 2 cpu and
Houdini2 4 cpu
in the same tournament

My opinion is that only one Ippolit derivative in one tournament make sense.

Ok, what about a free Houdini, a free Critter, a free Stockfish. I already have a free Rybka. I saw one of the weakest Ivanhoes beat Deep Junior on 4 cores, throwing out draws- by a score of 66 - 8. And you want to make an argument for it being worth a tenth of what he asked. Christ. Maybe he sells swampland also.


gts

[lucasart]

Ok this arrogant and fossilized organization called ICGA really made me get angry and I looked a bit in their site to know a bit more about them. Apart that it really seems "dead and buried", last interesting content is years ago old, I was really impressed by what they call: "World Computer Chess Championship" , the last edition of this farsa was in 2011 and below the list of participants:

http://www.grappa.univ-lille3.fr/icga/t ... php?id=239

Code: Select all

1	Junior	
2	Hiarcs	
2	Shredder	
4	Pandix	
4	Jonny		
6	The Baron	
7	Booot	
8	Rookie3.4	
9	Woodpusher 1997

Now the first question that comes to my mind is to what "world" they refer in the title of the event ? Mars ? Underwater world ? Surely not chess engines landscape in 2011, this is clear even to the dumbest. So how they have the presumption to call this marketing event, for the only benefit of legacy commercial engines, "World Computer Chess Championship" ? Because of historical reasons ? Sorry, this is not enough IMHO.

Nobody of the authors of the above listed engines (at least the ones I know, there are less known engines I don't know the authors) participates in forums, shares ideas / comments (even not talking about code), contributes in any way (again, I am talking of 2012) to chess engine community.

My opinion of Robet Houdart's Houdini is well known and I have publicly stated many times that I don't second many of his choices, nevertheless I value his contribution to this community much higher than everybody in that list. I have took Houdini example because it is considered the posterchild of "the evil clone" by many, and with this I want to highlight that even the most discussed characters contribute more than that live museum of pretending guys: I am not talking of the engine authors (which I respect all) but of the organization that shameless call itself "computer chess world" !

A very good summary of the ICGA. This whole organization is a farce, it belongs to the past, its relevance in today's world is non existant. The only thing that reliably determines chess engine's relative strength is rating lists, and by that I mean ones that are often updated like CEGT, CCRL, IPON etc. (SSDFexcluded because it has exactly the ICGA syndrom).
The only merit of the ICGA however, is to have unmasked Vasick Rajlich, but again that was way too late, years after the whole Rybka/Ippolit censorship/debate had been won by the infamous diffamator.

[lucasart]

Ok this arrogant and fossilized organization called ICGA really made me get angry and I looked a bit in their site to know a bit more about them. Apart that it really seems "dead and buried", last interesting content is years ago old, I was really impressed by what they call: "World Computer Chess Championship" , the last edition of this farsa was in 2011 and below the list of participants:

http://www.grappa.univ-lille3.fr/icga/t ... php?id=239

Code: Select all

1	Junior	
2	Hiarcs	
2	Shredder	
4	Pandix	
4	Jonny		
6	The Baron	
7	Booot	
8	Rookie3.4	
9	Woodpusher 1997

Now the first question that comes to my mind is to what "world" they refer in the title of the event ? Mars ? Underwater world ? Surely not chess engines landscape in 2011, this is clear even to the dumbest. So how they have the presumption to call this marketing event, for the only benefit of legacy commercial engines, "World Computer Chess Championship" ? Because of historical reasons ? Sorry, this is not enough IMHO.

Nobody of the authors of the above listed engines (at least the ones I know, there are less known engines I don't know the authors) participates in forums, shares ideas / comments (even not talking about code), contributes in any way (again, I am talking of 2012) to chess engine community.

My opinion of Robet Houdart's Houdini is well known and I have publicly stated many times that I don't second many of his choices, nevertheless I value his contribution to this community much higher than everybody in that list. I have took Houdini example because it is considered the posterchild of "the evil clone" by many, and with this I want to highlight that even the most discussed characters contribute more than that live museum of pretending guys: I am not talking of the engine authors (which I respect all) but of the organization that shameless call itself "computer chess world" !

It seems to me you have gone crazy in the last days. First you defend cloning in one post and now you 'value the contribution' of a known cloner
(BTW what contribution? I have seen nada)higher than long respected members of the chess scene e.g. Richard Pijil, SMK and Mark Uniacke and so on.
YOUR post makes me sick and angry, but I hope you find the right pills next time. Basta!

On the contrary, every single remark that Marco makes here is *spot on*.

Robert Houdart participates in the programmers forum, and contributes by exchanging ideas. OK he may not be the most active member, but I've never seen a single contribution from the authors of the engines in the above list.

The people who have made this field progress are developpers of *open source engines*, people like Robert Hyatt, Fabien Letouzey, Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba, and plenty of others. The developpers of Junior, Hiarcs, seriously what have these guys ever contributed to anything ? They do not exchange ideas on there, they only take and give nothing, put what they find in open source and add it to their proprietary source code...

that's what contributing means, perhaps you didn't know ?

[Guenther]

[quote="rodolfoleoni" I guess Cozzie released his first Zappa before than Fruit was released. And I've no reason to doubt both Cozzie and Letouzey worked on their engines from scratch.

Dear Rodolfo,

I think your guess is wrong :)

Right now I found some information at WBEC:

17/03/2004:Fruit 1.0,first release
18/10/2004:Zappa 1.1,first release

In other words,it seems Fabien and Anthony worked together as teams in 2004 year
Probably this is the main reason about why we see similarities between both engines :wink:

Best,
Sedat

Zappa 0.7 existed before Fruit 1.0 and was more than 100 elo stronger then.

[Gerd Isenberg]

that's what contributing means, perhaps you didn't know ?

May be you don't know. You should read more ICGA Journal or older postings from early CCC or rgcc times instead of the current garbage here. They have contributed a lot, even more in discussions at WCCC events.

Marcel van Kervinck (2002). The design and implementation of the Rookie 2.0 Chess Playing Program.
Ingo Althöfer, Jens Lieberum, Johan de Koning, Stefan Meyer-Kahlen, T. Rolle and Joerg Sameith (2003). Five visualizations of the k-best mode. ICGA Journal, Vol. 26, No. 3
Johannes Zwanzger (2004). Das Geheimnis der Schachprogramme. spektrum 3/04 (German)
Johannes Zwanzger (2007). Heuristic Construction Of "Good" Error-Correcting Linear Codes. University of Bayreuth
Amir Ban (2012). Automatic Learning of Evaluation, with Applications to Computer Chess.

[Guenther]

that's what contributing means, perhaps you didn't know ?

May be you don't know. You should read more ICGA Journal or older postings from early CCC or rgcc times instead of the current garbage here. They have contributed a lot, even more in discussions at WCCC events.

Marcel van Kervinck (2002). The design and implementation of the Rookie 2.0 Chess Playing Program.
Ingo Althöfer, Jens Lieberum, Johan de Koning, Stefan Meyer-Kahlen, T. Rolle and Joerg Sameith (2003). Five visualizations of the k-best mode. ICGA Journal, Vol. 26, No. 3
Johannes Zwanzger (2004). Das Geheimnis der Schachprogramme. spektrum 3/04 (German)
Johannes Zwanzger (2007). Heuristic Construction Of "Good" Error-Correcting Linear Codes. University of Bayreuth
Amir Ban (2012). Automatic Learning of Evaluation, with Applications to Computer Chess.

Well he is a newbie and even Marco is still a newbie, but I must say open
source arrogance is a well known phenomenon of the last years not only
in this specific community.

[mcostalba]

Well he is a newbie and even Marco is still a newbie, but I must say open
source arrogance is a well known phenomenon of the last years not only
in this specific community.

Yes we are newbies, but I have clearly written I was talking of current situation:

"Nobody of the authors of the above listed engines (at least the ones I know, there are less known engines I don't know the authors) participates in forums, shares ideas / comments (even not talking about code), contributes in any way (again, I am talking of 2012) to chess engine community."

And I also pourposely was referring to IGCA tournament of 2011, not old ones. Also Lucas is referring at today state: "its relevance in today's world is non existant".

It is also true that, in case we were involved in IGCA activities (journals/tournaments) in the past, today probably we would be less critical (due to perhaps some fond memory of the past), but the fact that we were not and so we speak clearly evaluating the situation of today with open and trasparent "arrogance" is not a limit IMHO, can be obnoxious for somone (I accept this), but is not a limit in the view of a broad and open discussion of current situation.

[Guenther]

Well he is a newbie and even Marco is still a newbie, but I must say open
source arrogance is a well known phenomenon of the last years not only
in this specific community.

Yes we are newbies, but I have clearly written I was talking of current situation:

"Nobody of the authors of the above listed engines (at least the ones I know, there are less known engines I don't know the authors) participates in forums, shares ideas / comments (even not talking about code), contributes in any way (again, I am talking of 2012) to chess engine community."

And I also pourposely was referring to IGCA tournament of 2011, not old ones. Also Lucas is referring at today state: "its relevance in today's world is non existant".

It is also true that, in case we were involved in IGCA activities (journals/tournaments) in the past, today probably we would be less critical (due to perhaps some fond memory of the past), but the fact that we were not and so we speak clearly evaluating the situation of today with open and trasparent "arrogance" is not a limit IMHO, can be obnoxious for somone (I accept this), but is not a limit in the view of a broad and open discussion of current situation.

Marco have you ever thought that a lot of people gave up on contributing
since cloning reached current level and the cloners are even praised by
people who should know better(at least I hope so).
(Note that I did not care for the ICGA part in your post, but about the comparison R. Houdart or N. Schmidt or whoever he is vs. current participants there)