The Fate of Future WCCC's..??

[pedrox]

seems to be in the hands of the programmers themselves:

http://hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2434

Steve

the 3 options are in summary:

1. An adjustable upper limit to be regularly reviewed

2. Uniform hardware

3. Anything goes and the arms race continues.

If uniform hardware is the choice then I suggest the iPhone. Portable, no need to program for multiple processors, and relevant to a large number of people.

lol - fine by me - but seriously if there is uniform hardware you can still choose your OS.

If computers are rented by the sponsor, you may find perhasps computer with Windows or Linux, but there are more operating systems. Maybe someone has his program for the Mac, will sponsor the Mac?

[Steve B]

seems to be in the hands of the programmers themselves:

http://hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2434

Steve

the 3 options are in summary:

1. An adjustable upper limit to be regularly reviewed

2. Uniform hardware

3. Anything goes and the arms race continues.

If uniform hardware is the choice then I suggest the iPhone. Portable, no need to program for multiple processors, and relevant to a large number of people.

Would be interesting i think to conduct the same poll here
for our members which are a mixture of fans,programmers, former WCCC participants and former WCCC winners
just to see that what their order preferences would be
i am not suggesting the poll would have any purpose other then for general interest to see what the CCC membership would do if they were part of the WCCC vote that is now ongoing

the only problem is i am not so good at setting up polls and i am not sure if a poll can be set up which allows three votes in order of preference??(although i guess one could be set up with 6 choices which should cover every possibility of preference order)
the other problem is that i think all polls become disabled once the Moderator voting begins this Monday?


Anyway..if anyone thinks it would be interesting to run a poll and can create one with multiple choices then i would suggest to let the results remain visible and i guess let it run until it becomes disabled(?) on Monday

Voting Season Regards
Steve

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Well the audience is important, as well as the players. Delicate balance. If the players don't like the rules, they won't play, and if the audience don't like the rules they won't follow the tournament. Maybe some players won't care about that, but I do believe that is what the WCCC is all about - putting on a show for the chess community. So in a way the people shouting on the forums' opinions are the most valuable of all.

No surprise that I disagree.
The WCCC is all about putting a show for the sponsor. And the sponsor (of the WCCC) does not care about the CCC audience. They target the chess audience. And they do not care about the hardware at all.

It is funny, but in the F1, which is often dragged in as an example of a hardware limited competition, a similar argument is being fought between the organisers and the teams. The organisers (FIA) want a cap on the team budgets, the teams that are organised in the FOTA do not want that.

Now I ask you: If the FIA gets its way, will it attract more spectators?
If the FOTA gets its way, will it attract less spectators?

I guess the answer on both questions should be no. So please, let the spectators out of the discussion. They are no party in this.

Now, where the comparison between F1 and chess goes wrong is that the majority of the costs of participating in the tournaments are not in the hardware. They are in the fees (for the commercials), travel, hotel costs, meals and whisky (at least for some teams ). And those costs are more or less equal for all teams.

Richard.

Richard,

We have some tome before the next WCCC - perhaps we can negotiate a deal regarding the whiskey?

Cheers,
Harvey

ps. I agree the sponsors could not care less about CCC. They only care about what is best for them - people on CCC will watch the event whatever - the sponsors want something more.

The amount of the whiskey must also be limited to 8 glasses per day,this will get the attention of more media and spectators
Dr.D

[Harvey Williamson]

seems to be in the hands of the programmers themselves:

http://hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2434

Steve

the 3 options are in summary:

1. An adjustable upper limit to be regularly reviewed

2. Uniform hardware

3. Anything goes and the arms race continues.

If uniform hardware is the choice then I suggest the iPhone. Portable, no need to program for multiple processors, and relevant to a large number of people.

lol - fine by me - but seriously if there is uniform hardware you can still choose your OS.

If computers are rented by the sponsor, you may find perhasps computer with Windows or Linux, but there are more operating systems. Maybe someone has his program for the Mac, will sponsor the Mac?

You can I would guess bring the OS with you.

[Harvey Williamson]

Well the audience is important, as well as the players. Delicate balance. If the players don't like the rules, they won't play, and if the audience don't like the rules they won't follow the tournament. Maybe some players won't care about that, but I do believe that is what the WCCC is all about - putting on a show for the chess community. So in a way the people shouting on the forums' opinions are the most valuable of all.

No surprise that I disagree.
The WCCC is all about putting a show for the sponsor. And the sponsor (of the WCCC) does not care about the CCC audience. They target the chess audience. And they do not care about the hardware at all.

It is funny, but in the F1, which is often dragged in as an example of a hardware limited competition, a similar argument is being fought between the organisers and the teams. The organisers (FIA) want a cap on the team budgets, the teams that are organised in the FOTA do not want that.

Now I ask you: If the FIA gets its way, will it attract more spectators?
If the FOTA gets its way, will it attract less spectators?

I guess the answer on both questions should be no. So please, let the spectators out of the discussion. They are no party in this.

Now, where the comparison between F1 and chess goes wrong is that the majority of the costs of participating in the tournaments are not in the hardware. They are in the fees (for the commercials), travel, hotel costs, meals and whisky (at least for some teams ). And those costs are more or less equal for all teams.

Richard.

Richard,

We have some tome before the next WCCC - perhaps we can negotiate a deal regarding the whiskey?

Cheers,
Harvey

ps. I agree the sponsors could not care less about CCC. They only care about what is best for them - people on CCC will watch the event whatever - the sponsors want something more.

The amount of the whiskey must also be limited to 8 glasses per day,this will get the attention of more media and spectators
Dr.D

Dr.D - If they are Pamplona portions this would be more than enough. 1 bottle did 2 glasses each for 3 people! So as long as Pamplona is the Benchmark I am confident my team: Richard, Johan and I will agree!!

[pedrox]

seems to be in the hands of the programmers themselves:

http://hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2434

Steve

the 3 options are in summary:

1. An adjustable upper limit to be regularly reviewed

2. Uniform hardware

3. Anything goes and the arms race continues.

If uniform hardware is the choice then I suggest the iPhone. Portable, no need to program for multiple processors, and relevant to a large number of people.

lol - fine by me - but seriously if there is uniform hardware you can still choose your OS.

If computers are rented by the sponsor, you may find perhasps computer with Windows or Linux, but there are more operating systems. Maybe someone has his program for the Mac, will sponsor the Mac?

You can I would guess bring the OS with you.

but you can not install the Leopard on any PC, you need a Mac unless you has a cracked version for virtualization which I am not sure if it works well

Is the problem that I see with the third option given for the ICGA, hardware uniform by the host.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Well the audience is important, as well as the players. Delicate balance. If the players don't like the rules, they won't play, and if the audience don't like the rules they won't follow the tournament. Maybe some players won't care about that, but I do believe that is what the WCCC is all about - putting on a show for the chess community. So in a way the people shouting on the forums' opinions are the most valuable of all.

No surprise that I disagree.
The WCCC is all about putting a show for the sponsor. And the sponsor (of the WCCC) does not care about the CCC audience. They target the chess audience. And they do not care about the hardware at all.

It is funny, but in the F1, which is often dragged in as an example of a hardware limited competition, a similar argument is being fought between the organisers and the teams. The organisers (FIA) want a cap on the team budgets, the teams that are organised in the FOTA do not want that.

Now I ask you: If the FIA gets its way, will it attract more spectators?
If the FOTA gets its way, will it attract less spectators?

I guess the answer on both questions should be no. So please, let the spectators out of the discussion. They are no party in this.

Now, where the comparison between F1 and chess goes wrong is that the majority of the costs of participating in the tournaments are not in the hardware. They are in the fees (for the commercials), travel, hotel costs, meals and whisky (at least for some teams ). And those costs are more or less equal for all teams.

Richard.

Richard,

We have some tome before the next WCCC - perhaps we can negotiate a deal regarding the whiskey?

Cheers,
Harvey

ps. I agree the sponsors could not care less about CCC. They only care about what is best for them - people on CCC will watch the event whatever - the sponsors want something more.

The amount of the whiskey must also be limited to 8 glasses per day,this will get the attention of more media and spectators
Dr.D

Dr.D - If they are Pamplona portions this would be more than enough. 1 bottle did 2 glasses each for 3 people! So as long as Pamplona is the Benchmark I am confident my team: Richard, Johan and I will agree!![/quote]

Aha,so it's a good bargin for you,eh
Considering the global economic situation and worrying about your health,I will decrease the amount of whiskey to 4 glasses then
Dr.D

[BubbaTough]

In terms of who votes on this stuff, I know my opinion does not matter, but my thought is that anyone participating in WCC OR CCT in the last 5 years should get a vote. CCT contains a pool of program authors that would potentially participate in WCC if it were constructed in accordance to their interests or needs, which in my mind makes the votes of those in CCT that are not in WCC extremely relevant.

-Sam

[bob]

seems to be in the hands of the programmers themselves:

http://hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2434

Steve

Sorry but it isn't. We were polled this year, but then told "it is too late to change it back" even though no one had voted to change it to 8-core-max in the first place. The ICGA will do what it wants, or what it is pressured to do by parties unknown.

I know that several voted for the limit. Although last time it was not a formal vote. At the players meeting in Pamplona many favoured the limit or uniform hardware.
Maybe you are using the 'Royal' we?

I am using the "we" from the past 34 years of WCCC events, which started in 1974.

Who cares? It is the 21st Century 2009 - those who play now have to vote you can not claim proxy votes for all since 1974.

So a few weak-kneed developers who want to restrict hardware because they either don't have the necessary skill, or else don't want to expend the effort, should have the say-so for an event that has 30+ years of history? It is not a "world championship" if the best players in the world don't compete. It is something less. Change the name to "uniform platform world computer chess championship" and be done with it. At least most will know that there are _strong_ players around that just were not allowed to compete. Or else get off the stick and do the development work rather than trying to propose rules that penalize those that do, to gain an advantage for those that do not.

It really is that simple...

This event is a _lot_ bigger than just a couple of lazy programming teams. It has 35 years of history behind it that should _not_ be undone. The old WMCCC events were limited hardware. The WCCCs never were. Go back to the WMCCC event if you insist on uniform hardware and let the WCCC mean that the strongest computer chess players available are allowed to play.

[bob]

I would also like to know of those shouting on the forums how many have played in the last 5 years?

Maybe a few didn't play anymore because they don't like what's happening with the event. Like the 8-core rule.

Organizations which only listen to happy customers usually don't last long.

If you eliminate every thing that gets one negative vote, and convert that methodology into an algebraic equation, and take the limit of that equation as time advances toward infinity, you get "zero".

You are exactly correct. The World Champion should be the best in the world. It was in the case of chess 4.x on a Cyber 176 supercomputer, it was in the case of Belle on custom-designed machine, it was in the case of Cray Blitz on a multi-CPU supercomputer, it was in the case of deep thought with a bevy of custom-designed chess processors. "Best" means "best".

I always find it funny when 2 years ago GCP finished 2nd in Leiden before he had his Cluster that on his website he made the point that he lost to Cluster Rybka - it seems some will just go with the flow.

Or they "follow the general trends of computing" rather than returning to an event (WMCCC) that died years ago due to lack of interest.