12th ACCA World Computer Rapid Chess Championships

[CRoberson]

The web pages are up and registration is open.
The web pages are at http://aigames.net/ACCA/ACCAWCRCC/2018A ... WCRCC.html

There may be more than one division this year if enough programs with a diverse enough rating range enter.
So, If you think your program is too weak to enter then you are wrong.

[CRoberson]

Entry:
DesuX by Albert Silver based on Leela. Erdo will operate.

[CRoberson]

Entry:
Goldbar by Bart Goldhoorn from Zeist, The Netherlands

Tournament pages here: http://aigames.net/ACCA/ACCAWCRCC/2018A ... WCRCC.html

[CRoberson]

Entry:

Arasan by Jon Dart.

Tournament pages here: http://aigames.net/ACCA/ACCAWCRCC/2018A ... WCRCC.html

[CRoberson]

Entry:
The Baron by Richard Pijl

Tournament pages here http://aigames.net/ACCA/ACCAWCRCC/2018A ... WCRCC.html

[CRoberson]

Entry:
Komodo by Mark Lefler, GM Larry Kaufman and Don Daily.

Tournament pages here: http://aigames.net/ACCA/ACCAWCRCC/2018A ... WCRCC.html

[leavenfish]

Always running from the stronger engine to get a title. Kudos...

[carldaman]

Always running from the stronger engine to get a title. Kudos...

Sometimes I wish that just one of the gazillion Stockfish developers/authors would choose to enter their engine into these contests.
What's stopping them? Do the tournament rules allow this? It is odd that SF is always conspicuous by its absence from developers' tourneys.

[MikeB]

Always running from the stronger engine to get a title. Kudos...

Sometimes I wish that just one of the gazillion Stockfish developers/authors would choose to enter their engine into these contests.
What's stopping them? Do the tournament rules allow this? It is odd that SF is always conspicuous by its absence from developers' tourneys.

The qualifying rules are written in such a way as to exclude any Stockfish entry except for those that are listed as the official stockfish web page as the authors (BTW, I agree with this rule 100%.) Either they or somebody they pick as the approved operator must operate the self supplied computer. One must have an ICC account. You must have your own opening book, The time zone is in the US, for the most part the Stockfish team is based in Europe. The Stockfish team is blessed with many excellent programmers - but not all programmers have experience as the actual operator, and it does not take much of glitch, if you are not 100% familiar with how that process works, to quickly turn your participation into a catastrophe. The ACCA was actually designed for authors to gather at one location for some fellowship activities. In short tournament like this, almost any decent engine could win it, the best engine will not necessarily win when you only play 9 games. The open source and collaboration nature of Stockfish is not conducive to entry in a such a tournament like this or others a that are similar in nature, such as the ICGA. And quite frankly, my guess is that authors who have enter in these tournaments are fine with this. So in summary, for an engine like Stockfish, you have high risk and little reward with, potentially, a lot of aggravation as well in an environment that is not conducive for an open source engine to enter. The TCEC is much easier for Stockfish to enter since they do not have worry about hardware, the operator, the opening book etc, and the likelihood of a statistical upset is much less. These are just my own personal opinions as I do not speak for anyone else. And lastly, although I believe the interest in the ACCA Championship is down from the earlier years ( as it is for computer chess in general), this tournament has a place and is a great opportunity for anyone writing their own chess program to interact with other chess programmers.

[hgm]

The reason is actually much simpler than that: the main Stockfish authors have a grudge against events where programmers participate and gather, and hope they can bring about their disappearance by boycotting them.