ICGA WCCC prospects ...

[M ANSARI]

It is really too bad that if hardware or even books are limited. Big hardware attracts a tremendous amount of interest ... and while I think hardware makes a difference ... it is by far the least amount of difference ever. I did a tourney where I had Rybka 3 8cores play Naum 4 1core by accident (didn't realize N4 needed to edit config file) and although N4 lost heavily ... it did manage to win a few games even playing with 7 cores less. Engines today are so strong that tactical advantage of hardware is limited and evaluation becomes much more important. I would also look at SSDF where an antiquated single core Rybka 3 32bit can be very competitve and even beat the top programs on modern Quadcores.

I went through all Ryba 3's cluster games played ... and I am certain that Rybka 3 on my Octa would have achieved an identical score. But having Rybka on big hardware attracts a lot of interest ... the bigger the hardware and the better chess produced ... the more interest there will be. The more interest there is the better for computer chess. So let us keep limited hardware and book matches to CEGT and CCRL and SSDF ... keep the computer world championships with stuff that makes us drool!

[Harvey Williamson]

It is really too bad that if hardware or even books are limited. Big hardware attracts a tremendous amount of interest ... and while I think hardware makes a difference ... it is by far the least amount of difference ever. I did a tourney where I had Rybka 3 8cores play Naum 4 1core by accident (didn't realize N4 needed to edit config file) and although N4 lost heavily ... it did manage to win a few games even playing with 7 cores less. Engines today are so strong that tactical advantage of hardware is limited and evaluation becomes much more important. I would also look at SSDF where an antiquated single core Rybka 3 32bit can be very competitve and even beat the top programs on modern Quadcores.

I went through all Ryba 3's cluster games played ... and I am certain that Rybka 3 on my Octa would have achieved an identical score. But having Rybka on big hardware attracts a lot of interest ... the bigger the hardware and the better chess produced ... the more interest there will be. The more interest there is the better for computer chess. So let us keep limited hardware and book matches to CEGT and CCRL and SSDF ... keep the computer world championships with stuff that makes us drool!

I am not sure where this big book debate has come from. As far as I know there is no proposal to limit books at the WCCC.

[dts]

With all due respect to Harvey & everyone else,I think what Harvey is saying that hardware limit must be something that can be achieved by everyone in the field & i am not sure 8 cores is really something that everyone can buy.

Harvey says its something that we can buy in the market,but if i am not wrong every node of Rybka's cluster was also available to general public,only the knowledge of how to use it was not.

This is where the programmers will kick in,so they can try all kinds of ideas they have with parallel search without the single shared hash.

So I would,even if someone came up with some hardware that no one can ever buy,I would like it to be allowed.Let the participants bring what they can.

There is a recent example of Zappa that i see,it came in with a huge number of cores,but even Zappa,who is known for its great smp coding,did not gain a hell lot,in fact it did worse,that what i would have expected it.

I think all programmers writing a chess engine do it for money or/and the fun that comes with it,the challenges & the joy after over coming the challenges,WCCC is a title that is important for marketing,every one wants to buy the "World Champion".when there is no limit,this can throw in more challenges & fun for programmers,otherwise it will just kill the fun quotient. Of Course this is just my view... & it is easily possible that some programmers want the limit,but i would imagine that a majority of the programmers are opposing the decision,if they disagree with the terms for a event like World championship,it is ridiculous....

Before taking such decisions,its always good to take a poll with prospective participants...i mean they should be consulted for decision making.

Best Regards,
David

[Mike S.]

Right. That explains why F1 is so popular. Mercedes, BMW, Toyota etc use engines in their F1 cars that are within reach of the common public

From your viewpoint, Formula One is a bad example: No competition has more limits! It's true, the engines are exclusive. But they are limited: No rocket engines, not even turbo engines, and I think even the number of cylinders is limited. The size of every part is limited. The size of the tires is limited. The number of tires a team can use, is limited. It is limited how often you may change the engine. There is a minimum weight. The pressure in the refuel devices is standardized. Etc. etc.

That is why F1 has no spectators anymore. I speak for millions of motor sport fans. The F1 bosses don't get a cent from advertising anymore, because nobody watches the tv live broadcasts. Instead, they are all watching the exiting unlimited computer chess tournaments now, because they are unlimited. The beautiful grid girls and pit babes you see in F1, are actually nuns who cook a free soup for the poor participants, after the races.

All that just because of those evil hardware limits!

Let's not follow F1 on the same way, into poverty and despair:

[pijl]

Right. That explains why F1 is so popular. Mercedes, BMW, Toyota etc use engines in their F1 cars that are within reach of the common public

From your viewpoint, Formula One is a bad example

It's not. You argued that:

Reasonable limitations make such a tournament certainly more interesting for customers, users, and normal chess players, than something which is lightyears away from anything they have at home.

Do you have something similar to an F1 racing car? Of course not. It is the sheer power that is in such a car that attracts you to this competition, not that you could drive something similar yourself. So why exclude the powerful hardware from this competition? Every team has the choice to use anything he can get. So basically it is a level playing field ...

Richard.

[Watchman]

Also btw the machine we played on in China was bought and paid for by a team member it was not free. Receipts can be provided I have previously posted a picture of it.

Here are shipping manifests with prices:




And a pic of where it is sitting now with my 6000btu window a/c cooling unit

[Bill Rogers]

Harvey
I think that the question of book size originally came from me. I distinctly remember a tournement being played in either 05' or 06' where one program ended up checkmating another without ever leaving its books.
In other words all it did was to replay someone elses game from start to finish without ever having to generate one move with it own engine. As far as we know it may not have had the capabiltiy of even playing chess as all we saw it do was make prerecorded chess moves.
The fact that this idea is getting so much attention seems to me that a few other people seem to agree with my idea. One of the questions is just how deep into a program does opening books go, 5 moves, 10 moves, 20 moves, just when does the opening stop and the middle game begin?
Bill

[M ANSARI]

Right. That explains why F1 is so popular. Mercedes, BMW, Toyota etc use engines in their F1 cars that are within reach of the common public

From your viewpoint, Formula One is a bad example: No competition has more limits! It's true, the engines are exclusive. But they are limited: No rocket engines, not even turbo engines, and I think even the number of cylinders is limited. The size of every part is limited. The size of the tires is limited. The number of tires a team can use, is limited. It is limited how often you may change the engine. There is a minimum weight. The pressure in the refuel devices is standardized. Etc. etc.

That is why F1 has no spectators anymore. I speak for millions of motor sport fans. The F1 bosses don't get a cent from advertising anymore, because nobody watches the tv live broadcasts. Instead, they are all watching the exiting unlimited computer chess tournaments now, because they are unlimited. The beautiful grid girls and pit babes you see in F1, are actually nuns who cook a free soup for the poor participants, after the races.

All that just because of those evil hardware limits!

Let's not follow F1 on the same way, into poverty and despair:

Nice Girl !!! ... but ... Formula 1 is not a good example. Many of the F1 limitations are for on thing only ... to keep less drivers from getting killed or injured. As technology has improved, mechanics were able to tune things more and more and again you started reaching cars that were getting close to 400 km/hr. Even the last change where flat tires were no longer allowed was to reduce the very high speeds that cars were achieving. I have yet to hear of anyone getting injured or killed by too many cores in computer chess. I would like to add that I think nice looking girls should be added to each chess engine team ... computer chess can be an extremely tense affair ... and tension has to be relased somewhere. I also think that would make it much easier to recruit free operators.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Right. That explains why F1 is so popular. Mercedes, BMW, Toyota etc use engines in their F1 cars that are within reach of the common public

From your viewpoint, Formula One is a bad example: No competition has more limits! It's true, the engines are exclusive. But they are limited: No rocket engines, not even turbo engines, and I think even the number of cylinders is limited. The size of every part is limited. The size of the tires is limited. The number of tires a team can use, is limited. It is limited how often you may change the engine. There is a minimum weight. The pressure in the refuel devices is standardized. Etc. etc.

That is why F1 has no spectators anymore. I speak for millions of motor sport fans. The F1 bosses don't get a cent from advertising anymore, because nobody watches the tv live broadcasts. Instead, they are all watching the exiting unlimited computer chess tournaments now, because they are unlimited. The beautiful grid girls and pit babes you see in F1, are actually nuns who cook a free soup for the poor participants, after the races.

All that just because of those evil hardware limits!

Let's not follow F1 on the same way, into poverty and despair:

Nice Girl !!! ... but ... Formula 1 is not a good example. Many of the F1 limitations are for on thing only ... to keep less drivers from getting killed or injured. As technology has improved, mechanics were able to tune things more and more and again you started reaching cars that were getting close to 400 km/hr. Even the last change where flat tires were no longer allowed was to reduce the very high speeds that cars were achieving. I have yet to hear of anyone getting injured or killed by too many cores in computer chess. I would like to add that I think nice looking girls should be added to each chess engine team ... computer chess can be an extremely tense affair ... and tension has to be relased somewhere. I also think that would make it much easier to recruit free operators.

Hala Majd,
I totaly agree with this fine point of view and I offer myself for free to be the director responsible for the girls,I'll watch over them and save them from the computer chess freaks

[bob]

Harvey
I think that the question of book size originally came from me. I distinctly remember a tournement being played in either 05' or 06' where one program ended up checkmating another without ever leaving its books.
In other words all it did was to replay someone elses game from start to finish without ever having to generate one move with it own engine. As far as we know it may not have had the capabiltiy of even playing chess as all we saw it do was make prerecorded chess moves.
The fact that this idea is getting so much attention seems to me that a few other people seem to agree with my idea. One of the questions is just how deep into a program does opening books go, 5 moves, 10 moves, 20 moves, just when does the opening stop and the middle game begin?
Bill

Answer: As far as you want it to go and no further. Playing deep book lines can just as easily play into trivial losses as into trivial wins. So there is lots of work to be done to prepare a book like that.

Personally, they can limit the WCCC any way they want to. It is almost dead as it is, this just shortens the death throes a bit... Other events are already much more popular (CCT for one example, ACCA events for another). Nothing like changing something for the worse, when it is already broken. WCCC has done just fine since the first one in 1974. Changing it now is foolish. But that probably won't stop them. I don't plan on attending the ECCC events anyway (European Computer Chess Championship) which is what it has turned in to...