Leveling The Playing Feild

[bob]

A tournament with unlimited hardware and another with limited hardware similar to WCCC and WMCCC?

Because that requires too much rational thinking and logical reasoning, which the ICGA folks simply appear to be incapable of.

[M ANSARI]

It is naive to think that event that can be "won by a simple weight of processing power". That devalues the efforts of, and is insulting to, all the programmers.

It certainly looks to me as though all the programmers have ganged up on Rybka and lobbied the ICGA for their own means. Nevertheless, I support this decision. I *do not* like to see such a huge hardware differential, it takes some of the fun and competition out of it. I would however have made the maximum 4 cores not 8. An 8 core machine can be bought off specialist suppliers, but you can't walk into PC World and buy one.

I get the impression that a majority of programmers may not like this rule change but a majority of Computer Chess fans will. Time will tell.

I disagree ... I think people want the meanest baddest machine possible. There is absolutely no question about that ... the more powerful and impressive the hardware, the more you will have chess fans drooling to watch the games. I do agree that there should be another category that has a limit to hardware. But for sure the tournament that will attract the most attention will be an "unlimited" tournament. For example imagine a tournament today with Hydra and Deep Blue involved ... it would generate tremendous interest.

[Spock]

This rule is completely preposterous and anticompetitive, and I dare say was created with the only intent of handicapping Rybka.

That is abundantly true. It is an ant-Rybka move quite clearly.
I wonder though if it was the ICGA alone that decided this, or whether other programmers may have had a part in it. I did ask Harvey to confirm if he or any of the other Hiarcs team members had any contact with the ICGA in advocating the policy but he didn't reply, it must have got lost in this thread. He certainly has been suggesting an upper hardware limit on the forums, and I agree with him.

[Roman Hartmann]

If a programmer invests a lot of time in order that his program can make use of several processors it would be rather unfair to forbid the use of a SMP-Systems or a cluster in a competition. After all he invested a lot of time to make this work and had less time to spend on other things.

Actually all those different approaches make the competition interesting imo. If everbody would be doing the same it would be boring.

There should be no limits regarding hardware but more restrictions in the software part. The recycling of GPL/open source engines for use in any competition is more of a problem than someone who's having an edge because he has access to a cluster ...

Roman

[hgm]

I think limitations on the number of cores are a good idea. As far as I could see, no one suggested that the limit should be one. SMP can be allowed, and the number of allowed cores can be set to a value that does give a clear advantage to SMP algorithms that scale better. It seems that 8 cores would be a good number for this, at the current level of technology: most CPUs come as quads nowadays, and soon they will come as octals. In the mean time, it should not be too difficult for participants to lay their hands on a dual-socket mother board.

Allowing an unlimited number of cores serves no real purpose. It is simply an irresponsible waste of energy and resources, for playing a silly game.

[trojanfoe]

Why don't they introduce a weight banding system like in boxing? I know the analogy doesn't exactly fit, but no one would expect a featherweight to beat a heavyweight no matter how skillfull or quick he might be. That way everyone could participate with others in their class and they could maybe have a final round where the best of each class play each other to give the overall winner. At least the hardware is taken into consideration then.

Cheers,
Andy

[Harvey Williamson]

It is naive to think that event that can be "won by a simple weight of processing power". That devalues the efforts of, and is insulting to, all the programmers.

It certainly looks to me as though all the programmers have ganged up on Rybka and lobbied the ICGA for their own means. Nevertheless, I support this decision. I *do not* like to see such a huge hardware differential, it takes some of the fun and competition out of it. I would however have made the maximum 4 cores not 8. An 8 core machine can be bought off specialist suppliers, but you can't walk into PC World and buy one.

I get the impression that a majority of programmers may not like this rule change but a majority of Computer Chess fans will. Time will tell.

I disagree ... I think people want the meanest baddest machine possible. There is absolutely no question about that ... the more powerful and impressive the hardware, the more you will have chess fans drooling to watch the games. I do agree that there should be another category that has a limit to hardware. But for sure the tournament that will attract the most attention will be an "unlimited" tournament. For example imagine a tournament today with Hydra and Deep Blue involved ... it would generate tremendous interest.

Hydra v Deep Blue is of interest and would make a great match. However with my media hat on trying to explain all the differing hardware, at the World Championship, to a general audience is a problem. I almost got daily coverage of the tournament in Beijing on National Radio in the UK but when trying to explain to the editor that its not about just finding the best software all interest was lost.

[hgm]

It seems that 8 cores would be a good number for this, at the current level of technology: most CPUs come as quads nowadays, and soon they will come as octals.

Oh, I found the e-mail from ICGA in my inbox, and I see this is exactly what they proposed as well, for the 2009 event.

And there will be separate classes, of some sort: The games olympiad will have a Chess tournement as well, where there is no hardware limitation. So programs that feel the need to surpass the 8-core limitation can compete there.

I think this is a very sensible solution.

[swami]

I don't know about you, but I feel it's about time they started to level the playing field hardware wise. Things were getting out of hand. I would not call 4 cores vs 20 cores a fair match.

Quote From: David Levy

"The ICGA feels that the time has come to take stock of this trend of hunting for astronomic numbers of cores, and to bring matters back to Earth. We see no point in organizing an event that can be won by a simple weight of processing power, when just about all the competing programs are able to use computers with only a handful of processors. By allowing 20 cores, or 40, or 80, at the present time, we would be saying to the vast majority of chess programmers that, if they want their program to be able to give of its best, they must first acquire the use of an expensive computer system with a very large number of processors. That is not what we believe the World Computer Chess Championship should be about. One should not be able to buy the title in this way."

Read More:
http://www.hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2008

Marvelous. Rules that have been used since the first ACM CC event in 1970, and the first WCCC in 1974 are now "not good enough"???

If they want to have a uniform platform event, that's fine. But why start to limit the WCCC hardware? They already have difficulties getting 16 programs to show up. Are they trying to reduce the field to 4 or something?

Yeah 4 chessbase programs... no, no..Wait, 2 chessbase programs, a Cluster Toga and a mobile chess would be their future participants

[AdminX]

It is naive to think that event that can be "won by a simple weight of processing power".

Okay please feel free to correct me if I am wrong here, was not Deep Blue a pretty weak program knowledge-wise when compared to programs like Shredder or Hiarcs of that period. Did not the massive difference in hardware used by Deep Blue help it to over come this weakness by allowing it to look deeper in the position.