Komodo and WCCC

[Henk]

Yes and we get computer, electricity for free too. (not)

Computer chess is part of computer science.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

I agree Stockfish should be allowed to partecipate. The official Stockfish 8 could be 10 ELO stronger than Komodo. And the fact Marco started this winning project severals years ago makes me feel proud to be Italian. But rules are rules. They are unfair, but still rules.

To let the event dies in silence isn't good for computer chess. We should all congratulate with K team, and then chess programmer should send an open letter to David Levy, if they want different rukes.

They should write:
"Dear David, while congratulating with Komodo we note the absence of..... We then propose 1...2....3....4.....99 as new rules for WCCC". The more programmers will sign it, the more impact it'll have.

While doing so, what's the cost of congratulations?

man, are not you Catalan?

btw., I am also proud that Marco started SF 8 years ago, because I feel European, down with those over-the-seas developers...

but then, many Americans contribute to SF too...

old rules are there to be abolished, once and for all.

what is the sense of Shredder or Komodo winning the WC, when we know SF is the best?

if rules do not conform to reality, they should be changed.

we are already living in another, emphatically-virtual world, so virtual reality, running thousands of test games in unofficial frameworks, is far more important than playing a couple of games, no matter the extent of oficiality of the event.

we all love Komodo, and Shredder too, but that does not make the event less meaningless.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

Number of participants is only a matter of money. If you pay large fees almost every engine owner wants to partcipate.

I wonder, if you live near Leiden, why did not you enter Skipper?

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

I agree Stockfish should be allowed to partecipate.

Stockfish is allowed to participate. Last year it was even explicitly invited to participate. Someone volunteered to operate it.

I can't then understand the reason why it didn't participate. It was invited, a volunteer was available for operating, and I gues hardware wasn't a problem. It remembers me Fischer. It's StockFischer.

precisely, but Fischer was the best.

[hgm]

what is the sense of Shredder or Komodo winning the WC, when we know SF is the best?

The point of course is that they are not really 'best', in any normal sense of the word. 10 Elo is an almost immeasurably small difference in performance. And it is obtained in a measurement made under conditions that do not always apply, through a method that is actually known to be flawed. If the rating difference between two human GM would be that small, no one would call foul play and demand his money back when the 'weaker' would win the tourney. People know it all depends on preparation, courage in choosing openings, playing style of the other participants, etc.

[Henk]

Number of participants is only a matter of money. If you pay large fees almost every engine owner wants to partcipate.

I wonder, if you live near Leiden, why did not you enter Skipper?

I don't live in Leiden and I have no car. Also Skipper still playing too badly.

See Skipper play In HGM's monthly tournament is already depressing enough.

I was there on Friday afternoon last week to see playoffs. Almost no visitors there. But other games had already finished in days before. Operators liked it better that 'stupid visitors' keep quiet. So maybe best to watch games only via internet.

[Rodolfo Leoni]

man, are not you Catalan?

I live 50 Km far from Alghero, which is an old Catalan town. My mother lives in Alghero. Many people speak Catalan there... I don't.

btw., I am also proud that Marco started SF 8 years ago, because I feel European, down with those over-the-seas developers...

but then, many Americans contribute to SF too...

old rules are there to be abolished, once and for all.

what is the sense of Shredder or Komodo winning the WC, when we know SF is the best?

if rules do not conform to reality, they should be changed.

we are already living in another, emphatically-virtual world, so virtual reality, running thousands of test games in unofficial frameworks, is far more important than playing a couple of games, no matter the extent of oficiality of the event.

we all love Komodo, and Shredder too, but that does not make the event less meaningless.

Stockfish is international now. And I agree, it's the best one. But to know it we need a lot of games. In few games randomness plays its role, and it could happen a weaker engine could win. There's hardware too. Jonny played with a 2400 cores machine.

All these things don't seem so relevant, anyway. The event didn't bring any attention to computer chess. Most chess players don't even know there was a WCCC at Leiden. Maybe a Carlsen-Komodo (or Stockfish) match would, as it has been for Kasparov-Deep Blue.

As for the Komodo "business", I don't look into their pockets, but I guess Rybka was a real business, because it was 600 ELO stronger than others. (I don't want to consider how it was ethically unfair..) A lot of free engines are around, and most chess players like the free, strongest one.

I think Komodo and other commercial engines should concentrate their efforts to become more user-friendly. But it's a bit off topic here.

[Henk]

I agree Stockfish should be allowed to partecipate.

Stockfish is allowed to participate. Last year it was even explicitly invited to participate. Someone volunteered to operate it.

I can't then understand the reason why it didn't participate. It was invited, a volunteer was available for operating, and I gues hardware wasn't a problem. It remembers me Fischer. It's StockFischer.

precisely, but Fischer was the best.

Best players never play or they are already dead for hundreds of years.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

man, are not you Catalan?

I live 50 Km far from Alghero, which is an old Catalan town. My mother lives in Alghero. Many people speak Catalan there... I don't.

btw., I am also proud that Marco started SF 8 years ago, because I feel European, down with those over-the-seas developers...

but then, many Americans contribute to SF too...

old rules are there to be abolished, once and for all.

what is the sense of Shredder or Komodo winning the WC, when we know SF is the best?

if rules do not conform to reality, they should be changed.

we are already living in another, emphatically-virtual world, so virtual reality, running thousands of test games in unofficial frameworks, is far more important than playing a couple of games, no matter the extent of oficiality of the event.

we all love Komodo, and Shredder too, but that does not make the event less meaningless.

Stockfish is international now. And I agree, it's the best one. But to know it we need a lot of games. In few games randomness plays its role, and it could happen a weaker engine could win. There's hardware too. Jonny played with a 2400 cores machine.

All these things don't seem so relevant, anyway. The event didn't bring any attention to computer chess. Most chess players don't even know there was a WCCC at Leiden. Maybe a Carlsen-Komodo (or Stockfish) match would, as it has been for Kasparov-Deep Blue.

As for the Komodo "business", I don't look into their pockets, but I guess Rybka was a real business, because it was 600 ELO stronger than others. (I don't want to consider how it was ethically unfair..) A lot of free engines are around, and most chess players like the free, strongest one.

I think Komodo and other commercial engines should concentrate their efforts to become more user-friendly. But it's a bit off topic here.

by 600 elo, you mean 100-150 elo, right?

[Rodolfo Leoni]

by 600 elo, you mean 100-150 elo, right?

Maybe not 600 ELO, but I really mean A LOT.

About 10 years ago Fruit by F. Letouzey was the strongest engine.

Fruit 2.1 2695 (CCRL)

Then, it suddenly appeared Rybka. Since first version it was clearly stronger, and it fastly grew until Rybka 4. I only take note of Rybka 3, because it was the (seemingly) decompiled version.

Rybka 3 64-bit 3051 (CCRL)

Other engines was growing much slower. I don't exactly remember which one was the second. Toga (a Fruit derivative) was strong. Glaurung 2.1 and its first Stockfish derivates were interesting. But they still were far, far from Rybka strenght.

One day, someone decided it was time to put an end to Rybka reign and he decompiled it. He also decided to give it a name, Ippolit, and to pretend it wasn't a decompiled Rybka. Code was almost unreadable. Robbolito has been une of the first "Ippo-derivates" around. Many programmers looked at its code to understand its working...

As a result we now have many very strong engines. Most ideas were from Rybka author, Vasik Railich. To take ideas and to encode them without doing a mere copy is absolutely legal, of course.

To end this summary, Rybka author was found guilty of copying parts of Fruit code (evaluation) and Crafty code (move generator).

A pity. V.R. has been a genius, but he wasted all of his work by cloning parts of other programs. With some more genuine effort we could possibly have a Rybka 10 version now.