14th ACCA World Computer Rapid Chess Championships

[CRoberson]

Ok lets do it in November or December. Last year was December.
The only weekend that is a no go for me is December 5 & 6.

Tell me two things - (1) preferred dates and (2) absolute can not dates.
So, open participant voting begins now.

Charles

[Joost Buijs]

Ok lets do it in November or December. Last year was December.
The only weekend that is a no go for me is December 5 & 6.

Tell me two things - (1) preferred dates and (2) absolute can not dates.
So, open participant voting begins now.

Charles

It's the same for me. December 5 we have 'Sinterklaas evening' here in the Netherlands, probably my family doesn't like it when I sit behind the the computer that evening. All other weekends in November and December will be fine.

I will notify Bart Goldhoorn too, as far as I know he doesn't read this forum.

[chrisw]

Ok lets do it in November or December. Last year was December.
The only weekend that is a no go for me is December 5 & 6.

Tell me two things - (1) preferred dates and (2) absolute can not dates.
So, open participant voting begins now.

Charles

Looks fun. I guess I would pass the eligibility criteria. Took a look at the 2019 rules. Couple of comments:
1. Book. Mine is home brew and completely untestable in any other environment, not sure how a demand to “inspect it” could a) have any basis and b) be possible

2. Clone. There really can’t be any excuse (or valid cause) for a “clone” accusation to be made against any entry AFTER the tournament has begun. I’ld assume such an accusation made after time would be malicious and decline to recognise it.

Suggest to make it clear that any accusations get made and cleared down with time limit of several days beforehand.

[CRoberson]

On your #2:
Somebody enters "ABC" and it is rated on CCRL as 26xx. During the tournament is playing at 36xx.

Ok lets do it in November or December. Last year was December.
The only weekend that is a no go for me is December 5 & 6.

Tell me two things - (1) preferred dates and (2) absolute can not dates.
So, open participant voting begins now.

Charles

Looks fun. I guess I would pass the eligibility criteria. Took a look at the 2019 rules. Couple of comments:
1. Book. Mine is home brew and completely untestable in any other environment, not sure how a demand to “inspect it” could a) have any basis and b) be possible

2. Clone. There really can’t be any excuse (or valid cause) for a “clone” accusation to be made against any entry AFTER the tournament has begun. I’ld assume such an accusation made after time would be malicious and decline to recognise it.

Suggest to make it clear that any accusations get made and cleared down with time limit of several days beforehand.

[Martin]

14-15 of November doesn't work for me. All other dates are fine.


/Martin

[CRoberson]

So far most of the suggestions have been via email and the same: "... any weekend is good, haven't been anywhere since covid-19 started and not going anywhere soon".

[CRoberson]

Ok, the dates are narrowed to

21-22 November

28-29 November

12-13 December

28-29 of November may be bad for US people due to a national holiday 2 days earlier.

I prefer 12-13 December, but we go with what is best for most or rather gets us the most participation.

Please give the weekends a 1,2,3 vote - best to last - best =1 and last =3. If a weekend is impossible label it as such.

Best regards,

Charles

[chrisw]

Ok, the dates are narrowed to

21-22 November

28-29 November

12-13 December

28-29 of November may be bad for US people due to a national holiday 2 days earlier.

I prefer 12-13 December, but we go with what is best for most or rather gets us the most participation.

Please give the weekends a 1,2,3 vote - best to last - best =1 and last =3. If a weekend is impossible label it as such.

Best regards,

Charles

Any of those dates are fine.
Is there an idiots guide to setting up on the server anywhere?

I’m still somewhat loath to the idea of “signing” some sort of terms whereby I an supposed to pass my private code to some investigation team on the basis of any random complaints made during the tournament. Mine has played often enough on nightmare server without any problems, I’m not expecting much change between now and November, probably some developments in tuning and possibly some alterations to what’s known as king-safety, but that’s about it.

On Charles, reply to 2. Above. Mine is not rated on CCRL and won’t be because they don’t rate private engines. It has a rating of about 2750 or so at 5 1 on the nightmare.nl server and it gained maybe 150-200 or so in it’s time there because A) it now has a book, B) I implemented last SMP and C) it got retuned using the A Grant test suites recently published, but mostly, D) those were its first game outings and that spurs programmer to fix and do a bunch of things. There’s still much low hanging fruit.

[Joost Buijs]

On Charles, reply to 2. Above. Mine is not rated on CCRL and won’t be because they don’t rate private engines. It has a rating of about 2750 or so at 5 1 on the nightmare.nl server and it gained maybe 150-200 or so in it’s time there because A) it now has a book, B) I implemented last SMP and C) it got retuned using the A Grant test suites recently published, but mostly, D) those were its first game outings and that spurs programmer to fix and do a bunch of things. There’s still much low hanging fruit.

My engine is not rated at CCRL too, and I don't care because I'm quite capable of testing/rating it myself.

A rating of 2750 on the nightmare.nl server is roughly comparable to 3100 CCRL 40/15, although it is very difficult to compare because most of the top 10 engines on nightmare.nl use very big hardware, while the lower rated engines do not, at least it gives you an idea.

[chrisw]

On Charles, reply to 2. Above. Mine is not rated on CCRL and won’t be because they don’t rate private engines. It has a rating of about 2750 or so at 5 1 on the nightmare.nl server and it gained maybe 150-200 or so in it’s time there because A) it now has a book, B) I implemented last SMP and C) it got retuned using the A Grant test suites recently published, but mostly, D) those were its first game outings and that spurs programmer to fix and do a bunch of things. There’s still much low hanging fruit.

My engine is not rated at CCRL too, and I don't care because I'm quite capable of testing/rating it myself.

A rating of 2750 on the nightmare.nl server is roughly comparable to 3100 CCRL 40/15, although it is very difficult to compare because most of the top 10 engines on nightmare.nl use very big hardware, while the lower rated engines do not, at least it gives you an idea.

Part of the increase of mine over recent months, I forgot to add, was also a switch from an i7 to an AMD 64 core 3990X and thus the Lazy SMP.

My only intention to apply to play in Charles's tourney would be for fun, same as the nightmare.nl thing, which is indeed fun. I used to be a commercial programmer, now twenty years on, I guess I'm an amateur, but fundamental rule of commercial programmer is security of your source code. It has value and you keep it in secure conditions. I take the same attitude now, there's no reason because I like to enter a tournament for fun purposes, that I want to place myself and code at risk by agreeing, under conditions I can't control, to hand the entire thing over to a committee, where, whatever anybody might claim, security can't be guaranteed, and one is at risk (as has been proven) for several years onwards. If someone wants to object to my box of magic BEFORE the tourney. fine, I can decide whether I want to enter of not, but after entry, or beyond that, I don't want to go signing any virtual agreements with unknown consequences at unknown times into the future. Is not compatible with making a "fun" entry.