World Computer Chess Championship ?

[Rebel]

I think it is absurd to talk of ICGA. It'is simply dead.

Are they overplaying their hand with this new round of accusations ?

[syzygy]

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 !

Try this: the Netherlands are the official world champions in baseball.

[Daniel Shawul]

You seem to be ok with a dictator at the helm. No need to form a new organization as the community is what makes the association. Vote the leaders off. I have a lot of respect for author of Thinker and Loop's too. They have been here for a long time and contributed much. Thinker is the only engine that can chat! Reul is the only active chess programmer that actually did a PHD out of chess. And yet the current president only cares about pleasing a certain group of people (commercial & egostic reasons). I say enough of this crap and lets have a vote or something to make sure he is what we want.

[rodolfoleoni]

I've nothing against Loop and Thinker. AFAIK, the reason why Thinker is under investigation is that engine shows no output, nothing else.

But I'll be very curious to see what comes up with this new "association". Members, rules, events, and so on. I guess it very troubled to get into agreement Don Dailey and Bob Hyatt from one side, with the Ippo-derivative authors on the other side...

Let us see!

[mcostalba]

No need to form a new organization as the community is what makes the association.

I fully agree with this. An association should have a reason to be created and to exist. What we would want from a chess engine association ? To share technical info and ideas ? To discuss about chess engine related topics ? To have people testing engine and making tournaments both for fun and for comparing engines strengths ? We already have all of this here. I don't see what a new association could bring to the table more than what we already have.

With "here" I mean this forum plus related sites like the awesome http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/, a real source of precious technical info for the developers (light years more specific and useful than what you can find ICGA).

But the most important point for anything, association, forum or anything else, is to be alive, something you cannot find in ICGA where the only sign of life is to exhume mums buried years ago and throwing stones at them with the only reason to show to the world there is still life here: sad and pity !

[Daniel Shawul]

But I'll be very curious to see what comes up with this new "association". Members, rules, events, and so on. I guess it very troubled to get into agreement Don Dailey and Bob Hyatt from one side, with the Ippo-derivative authors on the other side...

Let us see!

You certainly don't seem to read though I said lets keep _our_ organization (ICGA) sane by getting rid of people who are using it for their own benefit. There are many people who can replace Levy and understand the current state of chess more than him. Ed Schroeder for instance! My point is it doesn't take much to fix this situation, despite the picture you are trying to paint here.

[mcostalba]

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.

Uri, there are 15 (!) engines between the world champion (!) and the top: http://www.inwoba.de/index.html

Considering that chess engines are much less than people playing chess (even professional), it is like there would be some hundreds players stronger than the current chess world champion !

I know you like to indulge in "splitting the hair in 4 parts" as we say in Italy, but please try to look at the big picture at least once and try to get the "meaning" of what we are talking about here.

[syzygy]

I said lets keep _our_ organization (ICGA) sane by getting rid of people who are using it for their own benefit.

Just curious... how many here are member of the ICGA?

[Daniel Shawul]

I said lets keep _our_ organization (ICGA) sane by getting rid of people who are using it for their own benefit.

Just curious... how many here are member of the ICGA?

Well I am sure many have given up their membership with the current president, so I can't say. Also some can not afford to pay the fee for registration in tournaments or getting publications. Anyway If there aren't so many chess programmers left then abandoning it all in all is an option.

[hgm]

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.

What exactly is your problem? You say you are not interested on going to tournaments. And now you think that gives you the right to dump on people that do???