ICGA's 2015 World Computer Chess Championship/Events

[PaulieD]

Adam,

I believe we should deal with what exists now...

The best is determined by what is out now. One could say wait until Stockfish 7, Houdini 5 or Gull 4 is released...THEN we'll know who the real champ is.
We can only deal with what is presently available now to determine which is the best now. Everything else is pure conjecture.

[Isaac]

I am confused. We try to maintain the komodochess.com website with the most current information. If we drop from first place on various lists, we edit the site the reflect the current results. Sometime this takes a day or two depending on when I and the webmaster has times.

The most current information is that Stockfish 6 appears to be rated higher than Komodo 8 on all the rating lists they are both included in. So calling Komodo 8 the #1 and directly linking to a list where SF6 hasn't been included (and where SF5 is only 2 points below K8 with huge error bars) does not relfect the whole story.

As for who is best in the world, that will depend on time controls, and the machine. We have not released a new version of Komodo since last summer. I do not see how anyone can claim who is best in the world without access to the development versions of Komodo. I do not even know myself, and I have access to Komodo! But if you look at recent TCEC events, we won two out of the last 3.

Correction: Komodo won 2 out of 3 of the last TCEC events. So we have won twice.

When I said that Komodo 8 won one TCEC only I meant Komodo 8, not Komodo in general and I think K8 participated in only one TCEC.
I agree that we do not know who is the best between Kdev and SF dev at long time controls and high cores number though claiming to be the best based on no game or very few games is not solid enough especially because the elo difference between the two programs in these hardware and time conditions is certainly not huge.

Overall I hope that Komodo will keep getting better and at a fast pace as not to fall behind Stockfish at least in long time control.

About the Stockfish website claiming it to be the strongest chess engine when K8 was leading on all (or almost all) the rating lists is as insulting as what's happening now in Komodo's website.

I can understand both teams to be upset. There need to be some recognition and fairness.

[Gerd Isenberg]

At least for me, the conference seems more interesting than the chess tournament (even if it was completely and totally legitimate). I'd like to attend it at least once - not necessarily this year - as it seems like a really interesting event. However, I've never been to a conference so I don't know anything about them, which leads to the question: are there any restrictions on participation, i.e. do you have to be in academia to be able to attend the conference (not submit papers, just be there to learn)? It would be pretty weird if that was the case as most people developing chess programs are at least no longer in academia, and these people would be excluded for no reason.

Joint WCCC and ACC/ACG/CG I experienced (1999, 2004, 2006 as WCCC participant, 2011 as visitor) had overlapping scheduling and as computer chess participant with two long rounds a day over at least a week, it was usually not possible to join the conference. IIRR in 2011 there was a fee for conference visitors. I can encourage you and others to attend the championship, to meet other chess and games programmers for interesting discussions, and to read some papers from the more elitist academic game community later.

I'll intend to visit Leiden to report for cpw, also fits quite nice with North Sea Jazz this year

[mjlef]

the stockfish.org site still claimed "The strongest chess engine in the world."

I don't remember was ever written like this. I remember was written "among the strongest", I am not the webmaster and I seldom look at the site, but I fully trust that Daylen is very fair and correct.

Fortunately, we do not have to remember, since we have the marvelous wayback machine to do that for us. For example:

https://web.archive.org/web/20141230053 ... chess.org/

and:

https://web.archive.org/web/20141009214 ... chess.org/

For the period from September 2014 (when Komodo 8 was released and hit the top of most rating lists) through December when Komodo beat Stockfish in the TCEC (and even today) it clear stated "The strongest chess engine in the world." Neither fair nor correct for those time periods.

You complain about us linking, accurately, to a rating list we have done well on (and we swiftly have remove links that are no longer true), while your website says untrue things for months at a time. I will note, we never once complained about your site's inaccuracies until you attacked our site. I am not our site's webmaster, but I do take responsibility for what it posted there, and I will continue trying to keep it as accurate as the data I have available allows me.

[APassionForCriminalJustic]

Adam,

I believe we should deal with what exists now...

The best is determined by what is out now. One could say wait until Stockfish 7, Houdini 5 or Gull 4 is released...THEN we'll know who the real champ is.
We can only deal with what is presently available now to determine which is the best now. Everything else is pure conjecture.

The fact is, is that Komodo development versions are out there; there is nothing more to speculate. I would imagine that K9 development must be within 30 Elo over Komodo 8. We do know that over 20 Elo has been achieved admittedly stated by Larry. Unfortunately, we just need to wait. Komodo 9 will not surpass Stockfish in blitz most likely. That being said, Komodo development is all about LTC games/tournament games.

[PaulieD]

Adam,

I believe we should deal with what exists now...

The best is determined by what is out now. One could say wait until Stockfish 7, Houdini 5 or Gull 4 is released...THEN we'll know who the real champ is.
We can only deal with what is presently available now to determine which is the best now. Everything else is pure conjecture.

The fact is, is that Komodo development versions are out there; there is nothing more to speculate. I would imagine that K9 development must be within 30 Elo over Komodo 8. We do know that over 20 Elo has been achieved admittedly stated by Larry. Unfortunately, we just need to wait.

No,
The fact is Komodo 9 has not been released yet..."out there" has no meaning and is nothing but speculation. It is not available at their site, so it is not available.....yet.

[Peter Berger]

Rather the other way around. SF will not participate in this tournament, because it's a big farce. Everything about this ICGA tournament is wrong:
* one game elimination = statistically meaningless results
* we would have to fly to Leiden with our hardware + hotel for a week, at our own expense. all that for what? to prove that SF can beat the shit out of all these patzer like Pandix, Crafty, Nightmare, Hiarcs, Junior etc.
* different hardware and different book, makes comparisons meaningless.

SF team should never lower themselves to participate in any ICGA event, IMO. ICGA is a dying dinosaur. Live and let die.

The only world championship is TCEC, and that's what we look forward to.

Your post wouldn't past any "fishtest". You obviously have no clue what you are talking about.
In ICGA tournaments your hardware setup can reside anywhere on the planet, as long as you are able to connect to it from the tournament hall. Hint: they do provide internet connection. You don't have to bring your hardware there.
Somone obviously still would have to fly over to Leiden to operate Stockfish. I have no clue about actual current regulations but amateur entries usually used to get some financial ICGA support when it is about this.
The title "world championship" is a lable that depends on the credibility ( of the public) connected with the event. It is difficult to beat the fact that FIDE recognizes ICGA events when it is about this.
The philosophy behind these events is that whatever you can come up with and that abides by the tournament rules is valid. Why do you consider hardware and book meaningless then? Especially as the Stockfish guys flamed Crafty for not scaling too well on 16+ cores just a few days ago? The ability to use big hardware to your advantage is part of the challenge.
Book is similar. I wouldn't know how to provide Stockfish with a decent opening book myself, as I'd see a decent chance to weaken it with any human intervention, but if someone could come up with an opening book that helps its performance, that's kind of creative work too and part of the silicon chess entity participating.
Everyone using the same book is clearly not the only kind of fair setup that can be conceived.
The setup of TCEC is just as arbitrary as that of an ICGA event ( I won't go into this now).
But it is clearly evident from the past that e.g. underestimating Junior in an ICGA event is clearly not that great an idea, even when you are way ahead of it in some rating list with your engine. To use an analogy from the human chessworld: Kasparov should have beaten Kramnik like a stepchild in 2000 rating-wise, yet it was not to be.

[APassionForCriminalJustic]

Adam,

I believe we should deal with what exists now...

The best is determined by what is out now. One could say wait until Stockfish 7, Houdini 5 or Gull 4 is released...THEN we'll know who the real champ is.
We can only deal with what is presently available now to determine which is the best now. Everything else is pure conjecture.

The fact is, is that Komodo development versions are out there; there is nothing more to speculate. I would imagine that K9 development must be within 30 Elo over Komodo 8. We do know that over 20 Elo has been achieved admittedly stated by Larry. Unfortunately, we just need to wait.

No,
The fact is Komodo 9 has not been released yet..."out there" has no meaning and is nothing but speculation. It is not available at their site, so it is not available.....yet.

Whatever you say man.

[mcostalba]

the stockfish.org site still claimed "The strongest chess engine in the world."

I don't remember was ever written like this. I remember was written "among the strongest", I am not the webmaster and I seldom look at the site, but I fully trust that Daylen is very fair and correct.

Fortunately, we do not have to remember, since we have the marvelous wayback machine to do that for us. For example:

https://web.archive.org/web/20141230053 ... chess.org/

and:

https://web.archive.org/web/20141009214 ... chess.org/

For the period from September 2014 (when Komodo 8 was released and hit the top of most rating lists) through December when Komodo beat Stockfish in the TCEC (and even today) it clear stated "The strongest chess engine in the world." Neither fair nor correct for those time periods.

You complain about us linking, accurately, to a rating list we have done well on (and we swiftly have remove links that are no longer true), while your website says untrue things for months at a time. I will note, we never once complained about your site's inaccuracies until you attacked our site. I am not our site's webmaster, but I do take responsibility for what it posted there, and I will continue trying to keep it as accurate as the data I have available allows me.

I am not the webmaster nor in a position to dictate to Daylen what to do, but I will propose to him to evaluate removing "strongest engine in the world".

We are not a commercial entity so we don't need this (and personally I don't like it a lot) nor we want to damage commercial engines marketing startegies: I understand there are customers that are not so involved in CC and just look at what is written on the site to decide to buy, becuase we don't want to harm Komodo sales (nor any other commercial engine sale) I will ask Daylen to remove that line.

[Michel]

I am not the webmaster nor in a position to dictate to Daylen what to do, but I will propose to him to evaluate removing "strongest engine in the world".

In the last few post you suddenly started using apologetic language!

Very different from the tone of your earlier posts which described the Komodo team as pathetic and flat earthers.

So would you now also describe these earlier posts as needlessly offensive?