Houdini wrote:
I have consistently and repeatedly shown a complete lack of interest to participate in your tournaments.
Despite my obvious disinterest, each time you seem to feel an irresistible urge to create "polls", then pretend that a lot of people have responded or that you are getting "flamed" for it, to finally decide to "ban" Houdini.
There's no need for this charade, just continue to organize your tournaments and I will continue to not participate in them.
Please be so kind to stop abusing Houdini to generate some extra attention for your tournament.
Have fun,
Robert
It is not me who brings up the issue each time _any_ tournament is being run.
If you hadn't abused stolen source code for monetary gain, we wouldn't be in this situation would we? At least my tournaments are REALLY original at the source code level...
Peter
I was kicked out of Chapters because I moved all the Bibles to the fiction section.
Peter Skinner wrote:It is not me who brings up the issue each time _any_ tournament is being run.
If you hadn't abused stolen source code for monetary gain, we wouldn't be in this situation would we? At least my tournaments are REALLY original at the source code level...
Peter
Thank you for confirming my analysis of the situation.
Please refrain from abusing Houdini for your marketing, and have fun with your tournament.
Dan Honeycutt wrote:In your last post in the other thread you said you favored letting them participate. What changed your mind?
Best
Dan H.
I simply believe that more programmers will participate with them not included.
This is something I am willing to change, but there would have to be a massive show of support by programmers for it.
Quite frankly, I am tired of getting flamed for even suggesting they be allowed to participate. Being tomorrow is the ACCA event, I will get a chance to speak to several programmers and get their thoughts.
Hopefully there will be quite a few who didn't register still attending in support of the ACCA. Charles does a fantastic job with it.
Peter
"I simply believe that more programmers will participate with them not included."
I can't believe that quote came from you. With only one dozen words you have shot to hell the credibility of the whole thing. If they were the only 2 that showed up- with the right time control and number of cpus used- you would end up with a more legitimate champion than you would get from 30 others playing w/o them present.
Not meaning to disparage any engine- but I'm gonna get real excited watching Hiarcs and Bam-Bam fight it out in the finals.
Last night I did some hard thinking about the state of Computer Chess and the direction if any, that I can help steer it towards.
Whether any of us like it, our sport has changed. With the release of the Ippolit code base, anyone can take bits or pieces and design a very strong chess program with a good deal of effort. I suppose it goes even further back than that with the release of the Fruit code. It was very clean and simple to read. People could take that code base and improve upon it, and create a very strong program as well, and we got to see just that.
I've never liked the thought of a life time ban from any sport, and I have said it many times that I believe Rybka 3+ to be Fruit free. Recently I have been catering to the few instead of the masses when trying to put together an event, and as a promoter/organizer, that is simply the wrong way to do things.
So I have made a decision for the upcoming IWCCC.
Rybka and Houdini will be allowed to participate if they choose to do so. This is a final decision that will also carry over to the CCT events. Being that I want to hold the strongest tournaments, with the highest amount of participants, this seems like the best decision I can make and draw a line in the sand.
There will be those that won't like it and will choose to boycott my events. Since I can't do anything to change their minds, I believe that 90% of this community would rather play than sit on the sidelines. If I'm wrong, then my tournaments will die, and I will go back to being a spectator of other events like today's ACCA (I'm operating Crafty for the ACCA this year).
This is a chance I am willing to take and believe it to be the correct course of action.
I will update the rules on the CCT website later today to reflect this decision and move forward with the event as planned.
Sincerely,
Peter
I was kicked out of Chapters because I moved all the Bibles to the fiction section.
I fully support your initiative Peter, bravo. It takes a lot of courage to stand up against a group of angry programmers who are using the ICGA verdict as a stick to beat and to exclude the strongest (and fruit-free) chess entity on the Planet from participation in all eternity.
More power to you for your courage to stand up against this programmer ban. It has been long enough by now whether you are VII or VIG and the best thing for computer chess would be if things would normalize.
And part of the normalizing process is that one (likely) will lose from the strongest engine. Again. It's normal.
A big plus Peter.
Most of the people testing engines include them . And it is ok by most people in the computer chess field. Most of the GM's train with Houdini and Rybka. Houdini and Rybka etc. is used by the GM's and the everyday computer people including me. Good to hear you will include them in your events.
Best to you,
Gerold.
P.S. Maybe we will see the real world computer chess champion soon. .
.