mjlef wrote:Winning one of these does not always mean the winner is the strongest program. But I think it helps promote computer chess whoever wins.
Aye. One curious thing about the WCCC is that it's not made to know who's the best. We already know who's the best (Stockfish), we have a really good idea of the 2rd/3rd place (Komodo/Houdini) and 4th/5th (Shredder/Fire)... {Alpha Zero purposely left out}
If the goal is to promote computer chess, then what you want is some big tournament, and you don't need the best in there because you're not trying to figure out who's best but create big fuzz in the media about it.
In this case, Marco Costalba's idea of teaming up with lichess has some merit, since lichess already has media presence, as it has run prized, titled tournaments online where Magnus Carlsen has participated and won, you could arrange something like inviting Magnus Carlsen to be the operator of the strongest chess engine participating, and his presence alone would instantly help the event to have more attention.
To have a lot of engines in there, my suggestion would be to invite all engines authors to participate. My idea is that people are already going to be going to the WCCC's place, so you can have more engines participating without increasing expenses if you propose engine authors to have representatives that are already attending to operate their engines.
For example, suppose you want the Fizbo chess engine in there. For whatever reason Youri Matiounine, its author, is not interested in playing, or can't do it due to time constraints or money problems. But Larry Kaufman is going to be present in the WCCC. What you'd propose in an invitation to Youri Matiounine, is that if he's not able to attend, what if Larry Kaufman is appointed as Fizbo's representative and operates the engine in the Championship.
Once Fizbo is there, you can do something to get Andscacs or Booot with them. David Levy could be a representative/operator, without increasing expenses, etc.
At some point you could have enough participants, that you could say "7 of the top 10 chess engines will be participating in this year's WCCC", this could help promote computer chess.
Your beliefs create your reality, so be careful what you wish for.