World Computer Chess Championship ?

[hgm]

I bet Joker can become 5th engine in the world according to WCCC. Nevertheless, Joker cannot become The World Champion even in this laughable WCCC. That's a feat

Indeed. And do you have a point with that? Or is it just that you get a kick out of ranting like an idiot?

The thing it eventually boils down to is respect for sportsmanship, or rather lack thereof. This is not particular to (computer) Chess: all sports events in the World suffer from this. It is the root cause of hooliganism. Opponents (or rather supporters of opponents, because people engaged in this behavior of course are not competent to compete themselves) are enemies, and should be destroyed at any cost. If an Olympic athlete after 5 years of intensive training happens to be 0.1 sec slower than his competitor that you happen to support, then you call him a 'crap athlete'. That you cannot even run the same distance in double the time even if you would train all your life of course doesn't alter that. A crap athlete is a crap athlete, and best beat up anyone that thinks differently...

[Peter Skinner]

I bet Joker can become 5th engine in the world according to WCCC. Nevertheless, Joker cannot become The World Champion even in this laughable WCCC. That's a feat

Kai

Not all programmers try to make their program the strongest. There are some "middle rung" programs that are very feature rich, playing a variety of variants, and that is where the author excels.

Olithink is a great example.

Peter

[Harvey Williamson]

I bet Joker can become 5th engine in the world according to WCCC. Nevertheless, Joker cannot become The World Champion even in this laughable WCCC. That's a feat

Kai

Not all programmers try to make their program the strongest. There are some "middle rung" programs that are very feature rich, playing a variety of variants, and that is where the author excels.

Olithink is a great example.

Peter

My 1st ever face to face game of Computer Chess was against Joker. I am sure HG remembers the game. It was the 1st time Hiarcs had ever run on >1 core and Joker was brand new. Joker lost quite badly I remember it making several early Queen moves just like a new human player might do. During the game I had my 1st of many interesting, face to face, conversations with a Chess engine programmer. Over the next few years Hiarcs played Joker many more times. I watched it become an engine that plays sensible Chess and i am sure t would now beat any member of this forum.

At the moment there is only 1, current, engine banned from ICGA events. Any other engine is free to enter. One thing that will exclude 99% of the Ippo's is that the author must prove his identity. So any engine with an unknown author will never be allowed.

[Don]

I bet Joker can become 5th engine in the world according to WCCC. Nevertheless, Joker cannot become The World Champion even in this laughable WCCC. That's a feat

Kai

Not all programmers try to make their program the strongest. There are some "middle rung" programs that are very feature rich, playing a variety of variants, and that is where the author excels.

Olithink is a great example.

Peter

I have looked at HG code and they are works of art. A fully legal chess program in less than 2k of C code? Awesome! A program can be exceptional for many reasons, it does not have to be strong. There are programs written years ago for small embedded devices that are similar, I think even less than 2k of rom and maybe 256 bytes of Ram.

And even if someone writes a chess program at all, that is exceptional. We take it for granted on talkchess because chess program authors congregate here, but this is very non-trivial task. If someone builds a chess program that even works they are doing something only a fraction of the population can do and do not deserve this sort of treatment.

[Rebel]

As you know last year the Dutch became world champion baseball. For Americans that's a joke, and right they are.

But that is an amateur World Championship, right? And everyone knows that. The best Dutch players were also not participating in the Dutch team, because they play as professionals in the U.S. (Btw, the U.S. professional baseball championship is called the 'World Series', which is a real joke, as only North American teams participate...)

Note that in the WCCC there is no such limitation; professionals (commercial engines) and amateurs can both participate. The commercials just pay a somewhat larger entry fee. But that is actually to their advantage, because it means that amateurs with no chance of winning still pay for part of the costs of the event.

A world championship is only a world champion if the best players (teams) participate. Occasionally it may happen some players (teams) are absent but when it becomes chronic the title loses its value. A world champion soccer tournament without Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Italy and Spain is no world championship.

The ICGA made a fundamental choice, whether you agree with that choice or not the yearly WCCC is now a second division tournament not worthy to be called a world championship. And they knew that when they made that fundamental choice.

The ICGA DID indeed make a fundamental choice, one that earned my respect and many others as a result. Look at what their 2 fundamental choices were:

1. Deny Fabien Letouzey fair recourse out of fear and cowardice of losing their top draw in these events.

2. Maintain high standards of integrity by not showing favoritism even though it may have unpleasant consequences.


Maybe point 2 is "old fashioned" to you, but not to me. I believe in being yielding and making compromises when it doesn't matter and it helps people come together, but I don't believe in making compromises like this which involve trading off integrity out of fear and cowardice. I also believe that in the long run they have not given up anything.

Yes, I know that Vas was a superstar but it's sad that anyone feels that should give him a pass or special treatment and that the needs of Fabien Letouzey should be sacrificed for their personal benefit.

Don, it's not about Vas, nor Fabien. I support all previous ICGA cases of cloning. It's the way the ICGA has interpreted rule #2 and pushed it to its limits to get the desired result 16 programmers demanded and then leaving ALL of us in the dark by not specifying what is allowed and what's not.

I refer to a crucial quote of Mark Lefler: Ed, I think that is the best summary of this whole thing. Vasik took too much in the eyes of the panel.

So apparently the true meaning of rule #2 is that there is an (undefined) limit on the number of ideas you are allowed to take from open-sources. It's not about copying any longer (it always was) but the volume you take of common (non-copyrightable) chess knowledge idea's found in every decent chess program is suddenly a major issue.

And so open sources are hijacked by the ICGA to serve as a model and be careful you don't take too much. Problem is, there NEVER was (and still is) no definition of "too much".

This is a scaring scenario for newcomers, especially when you are good. I can perfectly imagine why the Vida's and Stockfishes of our time won't show up although they might have other reasons.

[Rebel]

A world championship is only a world champion if the best players (teams) participate. Occasionally it may happen some players (teams) are absent but when it becomes chronic the title loses its value. A world champion soccer tournament without Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Italy and Spain is no world championship.

That is just nonsense. A World Championship is a World Championship because it is open to everyone without restriction on place of origin, and because it was agreed to be the World Championship. Whether people choose to not participate is irrelevant. Unwillingness to play counts just as much against your quality as a player as any other form of incompetence. It just means that sometimes it is easier to become World Champion than other times, because the opposition really sucks.

The ICGA made a fundamental choice, whether you agree with that choice or not the yearly WCCC is now a second division tournament not worthy to be called a world championship. And they knew that when they made that fundamental choice.

I think this is a gross distortion of the facts that only exists in your mind. You might as well say that the Olympics is not worth being called Olympics because Ben Johnson was disqualified and suspended. And that the strongest engines do not wish to participate is not due to any decision of the ICGA. It is a decision of the engine authors.

Read my reply to Don (1 post above if I am quick). The ICGA has set a scaring example. As a newcomer you don't want to fall into the hands of an unclear rule that you can push into any direction. If I were a newcomer with prospect I wouldn't take my chances and stay home. As such my soccer metaphor still stands, if the FIFA has unclear rules candidates for the title won't come and the world cup loses its status.

[hgm]

I don't think there is anything unclear about the rule 'thou shallt not take'. It is like complaining that you don't want to work for a certain employer because he doesn't want to specify upto the cent how much you can grab when you dip your hands into his cash register...

Newcomers know whether their code contains implementation details that they don't have the slightest idea of what they are for and why they are there, but are only in their code because they happened to be in the code that they ripped...

And when in doubt they can submit their source code, or the parts that they have doubt about, in advance, and ask if it would be OK. Nothing seems simpler than being honest.

Furthermore, you seem to assume that people fail to participate because they think their code would not qualify in the rule #2 sense. This is a totally unproven and highly dubious assumption. For one, the involved authors all deny it. And for Stockfish it would be plain ridiculous, because everone knows how it developed...

[bob]

That's silly thinking. If the FBI spends a couple of million bucks investigating "X" for some crime, are the ones they did not investigate somehow magically above scrutiny? Even though no evidence nor accusation has been filed against them?

Logic says investigate those people, or programs, or bridges, or drug manufacturers where there is an accusation, and credible evidence supporting that accusation...

I get the sense that some people here advocate some sort of "police state", they want everyone investigated without any due process, accusation or anything whatsoever. And somehow this is going to drive attendance to these event up?

It seems that a few can't get past the Rolf-inspired "If everyone is not investigated, Vas should not have been and he should be restored as a competitor once more."

It is an argument, but a very weak one. Who is going to investigate EVERY program? Who has the time? Or who is going to pay for the time?

[Graham Banks]

It seems that a few can't get past the Rolf-inspired "If everyone is not investigated, Vas should not have been and he should be restored as a competitor once more."

It is an argument, but a very weak one. Who is going to investigate EVERY program? Who has the time? Or who is going to pay for the time?

Which is why I made the suggestion of selecting a couple of participants at random each year and putting them under the same scrutiny that Rybka was subjected to.

[bob]

Your analogy to Usain Bolt is off base. Equal hardware is much more interesting from a competitive standpoint.

You do realize that not all programs are optimized specifically for Intel or AMD right? One performs better here or there, so how exactly do you make it equal?

Just because you give everyone a Q6600, doesn't mean everyone can USE that Q6600 or that everyone will RUN equally on that hardware.

Quote from Days of Thunder: "There's nothing stock about a stock car!"

....
Peter

LOL

Not only funny, misplaced and badly chosen analogy with Bolt, but a continuous silly, wrong argumentation. The CCT, WCCC and similar crap "tourneys" defenders need some medical attention, really, are you sick about your useless "tourneys"?. Re-read your statement: because one engine would run 10% slower on a particular hardware (and not exactly equal, as you would desire), it's much fairer to have participants having 30000% advantage.

Kai

Shows a lack of thought. Uniform platform was done, and died due to lack of interest. Yet YOU want to mandate this as the only fair way to compete? It also means

(1) no Belle (hardware)
(2) no Hitech
(3) no chess 4.x (CDC assembly language)
(4) no Cray Blitz (Cray asm / vector algorithms)
(5) no Deep Thought
(6) no Dark thought or similar programs written for non-PC platforms such as the alpha, or the IBM power PC, or the MIPS cpu.
(7) no ChessMachine Schroder (no ARM allowed either).
(8) No fidelity programs.
(9) no cluster programs
(10) no Brutus (special hardware)
(11) ... the list goes on and on...


That sounds like a good way to run events???

Give this some thought before popping off with an idea that fails from the beginning...