TCEC Season 7 - Main Thread

[Martin Thoresen]

Hi Martin,

I didn't get a reply or answer about adding DON engine!

As always look forward to follow your tournament..

Kind regards,
JP.

Hello Vael,

Sorry about missing to reply. The lineup is already complete at this point so no room for any extra engines.

Best,
Martin

[erashid]

Thanks Martin

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Great news, Martin but can't you wait till Houdini 5 shows up? Without Houdini 5, we already know the final.... Stockfish - Komodo And Deep Hiarcs 15 is to be released this month as far as I know. Deep Fritz 14 and Vitruvius, even Zappa on huge hardware might provide some interesting results

If Houdart wanted to provide a development/beta version of Houdini 5 he could have simply replied to one of my 4-5 emails sent to him the last few months. I have not had a single reply from him, which is sort of unprofessional. And besides, TCEC will not wait for engines to be released - there will always be new versions released.

Mark did not want to provide a beta version of Hiarcs 15, he said it was "far from finished".

The Fritz team also did not want to provide Fritz/Pandix as a UCI engine for TCEC, same as last Season.

Zappa has problems with 16 cores and is too unstable to include (unfortunately).

If I would be busy with repairing bugs or new developments in my chess program I also would not be interested in playing tournaments. And sometimes it's difficult to predict when a new version is ready.

But you would reply to the e-mails sent to you by a person who somehow helped you in promoting your chess engine as a commercial product,won't you
Dr.D

What would you answer? You can't say "My engine is at this moment in a terrible condition. I have major bugs and I don't know if I will ever be able to fix them. " That doesn't sell. Developers are not salesmen.

Or "I was busy with some major improvements in my engine, but it looks like they are total crap. So forget about the next new version this year".

Or what about " My engine is getting too complex I don't see any impossible improvements anymore".

Maybe he has found another job and he has no time for chess related topics anymore. Or he took a sabbatical year.

I suspect Dr. D is merely pointing out that the courteous thing to do would be to reply briefly to an email from someone who has helped you in the past.

That seems to me to be the right thing to do as well... no explanations are necessary -- something like a simple "Thank you Martin for including my engine in the past, but for a variety of reasons that I don't care to discuss I won't be participating this time around." This kind of reply would be more than sufficient to meet common courtesy requirements.

Martin, I'm looking forward to the start of the next tournament. Thanks for hosting this and making it available to us.

Exactly my point of view....
Dr.D

[Henk]

Great news, Martin but can't you wait till Houdini 5 shows up? Without Houdini 5, we already know the final.... Stockfish - Komodo And Deep Hiarcs 15 is to be released this month as far as I know. Deep Fritz 14 and Vitruvius, even Zappa on huge hardware might provide some interesting results

If Houdart wanted to provide a development/beta version of Houdini 5 he could have simply replied to one of my 4-5 emails sent to him the last few months. I have not had a single reply from him, which is sort of unprofessional. And besides, TCEC will not wait for engines to be released - there will always be new versions released.

Mark did not want to provide a beta version of Hiarcs 15, he said it was "far from finished".

The Fritz team also did not want to provide Fritz/Pandix as a UCI engine for TCEC, same as last Season.

Zappa has problems with 16 cores and is too unstable to include (unfortunately).

If I would be busy with repairing bugs or new developments in my chess program I also would not be interested in playing tournaments. And sometimes it's difficult to predict when a new version is ready.

But you would reply to the e-mails sent to you by a person who somehow helped you in promoting your chess engine as a commercial product,won't you
Dr.D

What would you answer? You can't say "My engine is at this moment in a terrible condition. I have major bugs and I don't know if I will ever be able to fix them. " That doesn't sell. Developers are not salesmen.

Or "I was busy with some major improvements in my engine, but it looks like they are total crap. So forget about the next new version this year".

Or what about " My engine is getting too complex I don't see any impossible improvements anymore".

Maybe he has found another job and he has no time for chess related topics anymore. Or he took a sabbatical year.

I suspect Dr. D is merely pointing out that the courteous thing to do would be to reply briefly to an email from someone who has helped you in the past.

That seems to me to be the right thing to do as well... no explanations are necessary -- something like a simple "Thank you Martin for including my engine in the past, but for a variety of reasons that I don't care to discuss I won't be participating this time around." This kind of reply would be more than sufficient to meet common courtesy requirements.

Martin, I'm looking forward to the start of the next tournament. Thanks for hosting this and making it available to us.

Exactly my point of view....
Dr.D

[lucasart]

Hi Martin,

I didn't get a reply or answer about adding DON engine!

As always look forward to follow your tournament..

Kind regards,
JP.

Hello Vael,

Sorry about missing to reply. The lineup is already complete at this point so no room for any extra engines.

Best,
Martin

DON is SF edited by a noob: added bugs, changed code formatting, removed all acknoledgment, tries to claim now that he wrote it from scratch. It's a SF derivative, and a dishonest one (though not illegal so long as GPL is kept, removing all traces of the original authors is unfortunately not a GPL violation).

Are you saying that if there was room enough you would allow it? If so you really disappoint me: it's like spitting in the face of all the people who worked so hard to make SF what it is.

If you have a single IPPO rule, why not generalize it to SF? (and any other engine that is the base of clones) ?

If we allow DON, why not Amitis? At this rate you can fill the 32 places with only Ippo and SF clones.

[Frank Quisinsky]

Hi Martin,

nice field and yes, older engines should not be added. Programmers have more fun to fight vs. actual opponents. More interesting to discuss about the results. An other point of view is that the most known the strength and weeknesses of the older engines. We played enough games with this group of engines. For me also very boring to see the same style of chess again and again.

All is fine for myself. One point I dislike only and that is the main reason I am not often on your page.

Houdini!

If I understand all the messages by so many programmers Robert used PD sources and created a commercial engine. All the chess knowledge from top programmers are included but the own ideas are closed (if own ideas included, I don't know).

Such engines should not stand more in public interest. In my opinion an own work with 1.000 Elo is 100% more interesting as Houdini!

Each day I get 2-3 mails from different users to my FCT1 tourney. People are happy that clones have no chance. A clear list of available and different actual engines, own works by the programmers is a good animation ... the good and old times ... I like that!

Can't understand that Houdini is included or that people support such things. Thinking and thinking and can't see one good argument to do it.

Best
Frank

[Frank Quisinsky]

Hi Lucas,

good points, BRAVO.
We have to search the reason!

In my opinion open soruce engines are the reason.
The idea of open source is strong and good but the results are copycats / free riders in each conceivable constellation.

We have to life with it.
You have a great commercial idea, you can be sure that others copy the idea directly. Three days later ... you can find x fora and thousands of people are looking, new free riders are born. On the end of the day nobody know which person are the first, but for all the others ... not very important.

That is allways the same!

Never we have so many programmer genies as in times today. Most are unbelievable heavily beweaponed with an editor, like Notepad++. The next generation of notepad maestros find out that copy & paste is the better way without to know the result of that what is happen.

The programmer of Notepad++ should be add a question to programming before setup started. Other editor programmers should do the same ...

And the result will be = 100 clones lesser available and testers ... if I read here ... haven't so many things to do! The day have 24 hours only, no time for clones. That is comforting.

Best
Frank

[Frank Quisinsky]

Martin,

give me one ...
One argument only!
That's enough for me!

Hope of an answere this year

Best
Frank

[Graham Banks]

Martin,

give me one ...
One argument only!
That's enough for me!

Hope of an answere this year

Best
Frank

It's Martin's choice. He shouldn't need to give a reason other than that.

[APassionForCriminalJustic]

Why do you keep defending Houdart's obvious unprofessionalism? Just respond with a simple email; that is all he needed to do. This is not rocket science. Of course the man looks at his emails.