World Computer Chess Championship

[Rebel]

Regarding your loan rejection, in the United States, anytime you apply for credit becomes a part of your credit record. This is because people who apply for a lot of credit often are bad credit risks. And since any loans you do take out become part of your credit report, it is not hard for a future lender to see you were rejected (although they would not know why).

A future lender yes, and there are strict controls as to who can access your credit record, and even then only with your permission. Certainly not available to the public at large.

I think rejecting an engine and not letting others know why is lack of transparency. All of this is up to the ICGA Board,

Not a lack of transparency at all, it is a matter of Privacy. Only if you think laws have been broken would you go further, and then you'd pass the information on to the appropriate authorities, not the world at large.

Give it up, it's still the same "name and shame them on the internet" mentality what's driving them.

While in the meantime Komodo (and many others) has taken more stuff from other sources than Vas ever did from Fruit.

Ah, I see you are trying the Tu Quoque Fallacy now.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque The thing is, saying someone else breaks a rule in no way lessens the fact that the original person broke that rule.

You also present no evidence at all that "Komodo (and many others) has taken more stuff from other sources than Vas ever did from Fruit." It is not true for Komodo.

When I talk about Komodo it's not automatically about you. Don has been quite openly about his work, from the README of his first release -

Also, much credit goes to the authors of open source chess programs. Many of the ideas and techniques for doch have been borrowed from these wonderful works of art.

Secondly there are many postings (here in the archives and perhaps in Rybka forum as well) of Don (and Larry) that openly admit how they plundered the source code of Ippolit and friends, that Richard Vida sent Don the source of Critter in order (using his words) to shake the tree at the top.

So yes, adding things up, I stick to my former statement. You might have missed all those discussions but I really don't see the difference. Vas took a lot of ideas from an open source but so did Don.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against programmers taken ideas from open sources, as after all that's probably the idea of the programmer that put it online in order that others can profit.

And last but not least quoting Don again - Many of the ideas and techniques for doch have been borrowed from these wonderful works of art. Without them (the open sources) computer chess wouldn't be on its current level.

So maybe it's time for you as ICGA that you rethink your position about open sources and its usuage.

[mcostalba]

This can be an open forum. So, lets get started.

If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain


Why ICGA does not organize a on-line chess tournament like TCEC?

1. In 2018 this is the way to go: people can enjoy and chat (not only authors or their strict friends)

2. Wide scope on many and different medium: Twitch, Chessbomb, etc..

3. Wide number of participants....if you want to (ab)use the word "World" somewhere in your pitch you have to give at least some resemble meaning to it.

4. ICGA could recover some visibility that, in a second step will be useful also to their on site tournaments, to attract more participants/sponsors/etc. (look at TCEC, http://www.chessdom.com/ gain good visibility with the clever move of hosting this tournament).


Of course rules should be clear and transparent. To me the first rule is to drop any committee. People fears committee, I personal hate this word because it makes me think of closed doors, people deciding out of their hat, etc.

Committee have killed the confidence on your organization.

Organizers should stay out of any issue regarding engines and tournament content. They should focus on the logistic and infrastructure part only.

[Rebel]

This can be an open forum. So, lets get started.

If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain


Why ICGA does not organize a on-line chess tournament like TCEC?

1. In 2018 this is the way to go: people can enjoy and chat (not only authors or their strict friends)

2. Wide scope on many and different medium: Twitch, Chessbomb, etc..

3. Wide number of participants....if you want to (ab)use the word "World" somewhere in your pitch you have to give at least some resemble meaning to it.

4. ICGA could recover some visibility that, in a second step will be useful also to their on site tournaments, to attract more participants/sponsors/etc. (look at TCEC, http://www.chessdom.com/ gain good visibility with the clever move of hosting this tournament).


Of course rules should be clear and transparent. To me the first rule is to drop any committee. People fears committee, I personal hate this word because it makes me think of closed doors, people deciding out of their hat, etc.

Committee have killed the confidence on your organization.

Organizers should stay out of any issue regarding engines and tournament content. They should focus on the logistic and infrastructure part only.

And with participants that gives the title WC for what it stands for.

[Vizvezdenec]

For me as a pretty recent viewer of computer chess tournaments some things look really strange in ICGA - their contribution that I see is simply prohibiting some engines from participating for kinda strange reasons and them just abusing title "world" championship w/o providing any decent competition (90% of online tournaments have engines of higher caliber participating in them then in that so-called world championship).
I understand that maybe thing like this was good in 90-early 2000, but now all that thing looks outdated by 15 or so years.
And they think that the main problem is travelling cost and stuff... It's not. Engine authors don't see a reason to participate there because there are a lot of tournaments with stronger competitors that they can participate in w/o leaving their house.

[mjlef]

This can be an open forum. So, lets get started.

If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain


Why ICGA does not organize a on-line chess tournament like TCEC?

1. In 2018 this is the way to go: people can enjoy and chat (not only authors or their strict friends)

2. Wide scope on many and different medium: Twitch, Chessbomb, etc..

3. Wide number of participants....if you want to (ab)use the word "World" somewhere in your pitch you have to give at least some resemble meaning to it.

4. ICGA could recover some visibility that, in a second step will be useful also to their on site tournaments, to attract more participants/sponsors/etc. (look at TCEC, http://www.chessdom.com/ gain good visibility with the clever move of hosting this tournament).


Of course rules should be clear and transparent. To me the first rule is to drop any committee. People fears committee, I personal hate this word because it makes me think of closed doors, people deciding out of their hat, etc.

Committee have killed the confidence on your organization.

Organizers should stay out of any issue regarding engines and tournament content. They should focus on the logistic and infrastructure part only.

First, tanks for your feedback. A few comments:

I have proposed we have an online tournament, and it has been discussed at programmers meetings before the tournament. We have take some baby steps toward this with live displays online of the games, including a chat box so number 1 above was done. I think adding twitch is a good idea (we used another chat system before). I even proposed to David Levy that a site like TCEC hosts events. I would be in favor of ahing this completely online, but this could limit the Tournaments Directors ability to ensure that people in the WCSC, which require identical machines, are not somehow cheating and using a more powerful machine. Fully automated play could solve this, but that would require the teams hand over their opening books, which many might not be willing to do. Perhaps you could suggest technical solutions for these issues?

As for number 3, yes we want a large number of participants, but you do not mention a way to attract them. I agree more online participation could help attract more entries and steps toward this, like a facebook page, have been made. There are discussion being made to move the website to a more flexible place (it is currently being hosted on a university server which limits what can be done with it).

I am not sure what you mean by "committee". If you mean the ICHA Board, I am not sure they approve anything related to the WCCC events, other than to try and find a suitable venue. The Tournament Director is responsible for determining suitable entries, and very few of them are rejected. What rejections I have heard of are based on the rules, like an entrant entering a renamed Crafty without the Crafty authors approval. The ICGA Board mostly just reviews submissions for the CGA Journal. Perhaps yu are thinking ot the ICGA Investigation Panel? That was a one time event and no longer exists.

[mcostalba]

We have take some baby steps toward this with live displays online of the games.

This is not an easy thing to do, I am not sure you have the expertise to do this, you need people that eats burgers and HTML for breakfast

If I was the chief of your organization I would have _already_ knocked at, say, lichess door saying something like: "Hey guys, what about to do something big? A big, amazing and wonderful online tournament? Something that makes TCEC look like "space invaders" old arcade?"

You should ask for support/collaboration/sharing...for really many reasons:

1. You are not able to do by yourself

2. It is _wrong_ to do by yourself, you should attract people, talent and audience (lichess has all of this)

3. Together you will reach a much better result

4. You have to look out of your garden

[davidlevylondon]

Marco's suggestion is not the first along these lines, and clearly there is a lot of interest in having online tournaments, so thank you Marco for the prompt.

As a first step towards recognizing the achievements of the top programs in TCEC and possibly other online tournamnets, the ICGA will this year give an automatic place to the TCEC winner, together with the same travel/accommodation subsidy which we are making available to the other top programs. Details will be announced shortly, when we post the rules of this year's tournaments, but I can say right now that the TCEC winner will be offered a $1,000 subsidy.

For future years I am thinking in terms of an online "Candidates Tournament" for the World Chess Software Championship, which is our uniform platform event. There are many formats which would be possible, for example the top 4 or 8 programs in the Candidates tournament could play knock-out matches to reduce their number to 2, and then those 2 could come to the championship venue to compete in a heads-up match for the WCSC title.

It would be helpful to the ICGA if the community could discuss amongst themselves, and reach a consensus as to what they would like, without destroying the idea of having ICGA tournaments take place at a real world location.

[mjlef]

What are you talking about. If you are accusing me of lying, please provide details.

Not you. But I think David's claim that the current status of the WCCC is because of "cost of attending" is a lie. You could cover all of the participant's costs, if nothing else changed Houdini and Stockfish would still be absent, and participation wouldn't rise.

Make the necessary changes and people will be there despite the costs.

You seem to not even understand how tournaments work. You have to enter first. Anyone can contact ICGA and suggest rules changes. I see you have not proposed a single change.

I don't need to understand tournaments in general, though I was Tournament Director at FICS for years without problems.

What I need to understand is how a tournament worthy of the name "World Computer Chess Championship" works.

Namely TCEC.

Did TCEC announce that it was to organize the championship and then sit and wait until it was contacted by applicants to participate and do a lot of unnecessary mumbo jumbo?

No, they selected carefully the programs that would participate, and made sure they were relevant and the best in the world, and that's why when Thoresen left the meaning of the T changed to mean "Top", rightly so, the "Top" chess entities get to play unlike in the WCCC.

I have proposed changes, but I guess the most important, crucial change that we need is this:

Change the WCCC's goal.

I don't know what's its current goal currently, but it seems they set up a bunch of protocols and rules and after they were followed they led to disaster.

If your current goal does not include having the strongest chess entities appearing, then it makes to sense to hold the name of a World Championship.

If you change your goal to including Houdini and Komodo, you may need to revise your current protocols and rules to allow them in, or create a new WCCC from scratch.

But if in the first place you don't care if the best is in your tournament or not, because you don't care about entities that don't apply to join, this is the very first thing that you must change, lest all people claiming the WCCC is in a hopeless situation is right.

I don't think you have a conflict of interests, and I believe you'd want to see Houdini and Stockfish losing to Komodo in the WCCC, but first you must want them to get in the Championship, and then you must think about the necessary changes that need to be made to do so.

I read your post three times, but I still do not understand what changes you want. The only goal I know of for the WCCC it to have the tournament. David has stated here he wants to invite the TCEC winners to participate. But of course anyone can join, limited only by available space and perhaps funds.

Could you state what changes you would make, because I do not understand.

[Rebel]

As a first step towards recognizing the achievements of the top programs in TCEC and possibly other online tournamnets, the ICGA will this year give an automatic place to the TCEC winner,

Does this mean a change in ICGA policy?

The current TCEC winner is Houdini, a proven derivative.

[mjlef]

You seem to not even understand how tournaments work. You have to enter first.

True, that's how mere 'tournaments work'...but anything that purports to be a "World Championship" is not a...mere tournament, by definition.

Yes, this will get Team Komodo another paper 'title' they can hang on their product...and yet everyone (yes, you too in your heart of hearts) will know while hoisting the trophy that the 'champion' at that time will likely be the second...or perhaps third strongest engine out there.

Now that, I hate to say that as a subscriber....is more likely to be the truth than not.

I certainly do not consider WCCC to be a "paper title". It has a long history of competition between many of the strongest chess programs/hardware that have been developed. I do not know why some very strong programs have not entered. I would like them to. I certainly do not claim Komodo is the best, but we try and both WCCC wins and TCEC wins show it has been somewhere in the top three for several years. I would love for more programs to join, and we encourage input on how to make that happen.

When I have gone to WCCC or participated in TCEC, I do not expect much. It is not practical to play enough games in a tournament to know who is stronger, assuming they are within something like 40 elo of each other. The error margins for 100 games is about 40 elo. So whoever wins is just getting a title, not absolute proof of superiority.

Someone ask what is the goal of WCCC. I think the act of competition makes people work harder to make something better. At the WCCC the programmers often exchange ideas, get to meet each other, and make some very interesting games to inspire program improvement. I think that is a great goal whether is has "World" in the title or not.