World Computer Chess Championship ?

[bob]

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.

Does ANYBODY really believe that the winner of ANY tournament, whether it be a world championship tournament or not, is REALLY the best player in the world? If so, I have some ocean-front property in Kansas I'd like to sell to him as a beach vacation home. The best player in the world is discovered by performance over a period of time. #1 tennis player. #1 golfer. #1 on FIDE list. Anyone that doesn't understand that is REALLY misleading themselves...

Pretend as much as you want as if nothing has happened and it's business as usual, it isn't.

Simple question. WCCC Hong Kong. Do you REALLY believe anything there was better than deep thought? It was the ONLY program with a real GM-level rating. But a comm failure cost it one game. You attach too much significance to the "world computer chess championship" title...

[bob]

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.

You keep saying this is about "taking too many ideas" but it is not. It is about taking too much of Fruit. Ideas and what was discovered in investigating Fruit/Rybka are two different topics. This is not now, and never was about just "taking ideas". It was about taking much more than just ideas.

[Don]

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.

Ed,

It will never be possible to have a formal definition of "too much" - as comforting as that might be for us. You will find that even with libraries of books on law it still comes down the judgement of a judge. We are not robots. I think that you are asking for some sort of formula where you tally each line of code with some sort of weight based on content (which I'm afraid would also have to be judged) and then come up with a precise answer?

As far as the other stuff is concerned, I don't know what to say. You keep talking about ideas, "number of ideas" and "chess knowledge ideas" as if that is related to the issue of the ICGA decision. I know you want it to be about that, but it's just not.

Don

[bob]

I do not follow your reasoning. Just because Rybka got caught as a derivative of Fruit and was disqualified, the WCCC is no longer the WCCC? The ICGA STARTED the WCCC. It is their event.

Even 10 years ago WCCC was inadequate for its pretensions, it already was mainly book preparation and hardware, only 4-5 strong engines, 3-4 games of relevance for each engine, many crap engines, but still, most of the strongest engines did participate. Nowadays there are 3-4 second-tier engines which are 200 points behind the leading bunch, the rest being some crap engines. WCCC recently became a total joke.

Kai

A joke because it won't allow ippoli* derivatives? Or any derivatives at all? Seems like a "good joke" IMHO, the alternative is certainly not very useful.

Would not allow crap engines. Probably Crafty is too weak too to be allowed.

Kai

Never been turned down to date. Nor has any other ORIGINAL engine...

[Don]

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.

Hi Graham,

I appreciate your suggestion - I know that it's an honest one and seems like a good idea.

Personally, I don't happen to agree that it's a good idea, but that is just my opinion. There are aspects of it that I really like in fact. But if I list the pro's and con's I see more con's than pro's.

Don

[bob]

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.

The Rybka investigation took several years. Hardly practical to "select 2 each year and commit several years of effort to examine them." If you require source, you will immediately run into trouble, because (a) commercial programmers; (b) authors with original private engines; (c) authors with non-original private engines; will, in general, rebel at the idea of having someone look at their code and discover any secrets they might have...

This is NOT an easy issue to resolve... Be much nicer if things were as they were back in the 70's and 80's, where ethical behavior was simply something everyone did...

[bob]

You did however manage to once again skip right over the question of whether Houdini is completely original code written by yourself. Being that you continue avoid answering this question speaks volumes; thus the reason Houdini is classified as a "derivative".

Yawn.
How many times do I need to repeat that Houdini is original at the source code level, and doesn't contain any licensed code other than the Gaviota and Nalimov EGTB code?
If you search the forum (and/or the Rybka forum) you'll find several occurrences of my saying so.
My current reply will certainly not stop you from asking the same kind of question in 6 months time, pretend I never answered it, and then make big statements about "speaking volumes"...

Robert

"original at the source code level." Now are you going to invoke the Vas-like explanation that if you typed it, it is original at the source level? Because there is 100% convincing evidence on OpenChess (KingLVision) showing that Houdini is anything BUT "original at the source code level" as most of us would interpret that term...

Yawn, indeed.

[bob]

Yawn.
How many times do I need to repeat that Houdini is original at the source code level, and doesn't contain any licensed code other than the Gaviota and Nalimov EGTB code?
If you search the forum (and/or the Rybka forum) you'll find several occurrences of my saying so.
My current reply will certainly not stop you from asking the same kind of question in 6 months time, pretend I never answered it, and then make big statements about "speaking volumes"...

Robert

Ok so it includes "public domain" code, and was not 100% originally written by yourself. Thank you for your answer.

Peter

Note that he clearly considers Robolito and friends to be 100% public domain code. Which means that by using weasel-words he avoids answering the direct question "did you write all of the code, or at least a large majority of the code."

As an answer, you get a non-answer.

[Uri Blass]

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.

You keep saying this is about "taking too many ideas" but it is not. It is about taking too much of Fruit. Ideas and what was discovered in investigating Fruit/Rybka are two different topics. This is not now, and never was about just "taking ideas". It was about taking much more than just ideas.

This is not correct.

Ideas can be translated to code and even without copy and paste if you take all the ideas that are in another program it is going to be translated into an equivalent code that is not allowed.

The exact values that you give to positional factors or to material or the exact definition of positional facrors like mobility and passed pawns are clearly ideas in chess and it is clear that the claim against Vas is that he took too many ideas from fruit(inspite of the fact that Vas did not took all the ideas of fruit or something close to it).

[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.

The Rybka investigation took several years. Hardly practical to "select 2 each year and commit several years of effort to examine them." If you require source, you will immediately run into trouble, because (a) commercial programmers; (b) authors with original private engines; (c) authors with non-original private engines; will, in general, rebel at the idea of having someone look at their code and discover any secrets they might have...

This is NOT an easy issue to resolve... Be much nicer if things were as they were back in the 70's and 80's, where ethical behavior was simply something everyone did...

Easy - they get disqualified, just as an athlete refusing to pee or provide a blood sample for a doping test would face severe consequences. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander. It's all about fairness and equal treatment.