Abusing a chess program

[vladstamate]

Why are some people like this?...

I was testing automated draw acceptance in Plisk and I forgot in a piece of code last night that will always accept a draw if offered and I had Plisk play on ICC for the entire night.

I came back in the morning and I lost 300 ELO on standard only and about 200 or so in other categories from few users who noticed that and took advantage of it. I examine few games from this user who had at least 12 games against Plisk (I am sure more, they just would not display on history) where he would offer draw after 3 moves exactly. A 1400 rated player.

I understand it is my responsibility for not having bugs like this, but what motivates those people? Note number 4 in my finger even says:

4: Enjoy playing against it and please do not abuse it.

Which part of that is complicated to understand?

Normally I would not care so much except in few days WCRCC is here and the seedings are to be done based on ratings, and now my rating is gone....

I removed that and I will have Plisk play 24/7 until the weekend but it is just so disappointing...

I apologize for the rant.

Regards,
Vlad.

[Bo Persson]

This is a kind of doping.

Some people just want to win, no matter how.

[mhull]

Why are some people like this?...

I was testing automated draw acceptance in Plisk and I forgot in a piece of code last night that will always accept a draw if offered and I had Plisk play on ICC for the entire night.

I came back in the morning and I lost 300 ELO on standard only and about 200 or so in other categories from few users who noticed that and took advantage of it. I examine few games from this user who had at least 12 games against Plisk (I am sure more, they just would not display on history) where he would offer draw after 3 moves exactly. A 1400 rated player.

I understand it is my responsibility for not having bugs like this, but what motivates those people? Note number 4 in my finger even says:

4: Enjoy playing against it and please do not abuse it.

Which part of that is complicated to understand?

Normally I would not care so much except in few days WCRCC is here and the seedings are to be done based on ratings, and now my rating is gone....

I removed that and I will have Plisk play 24/7 until the weekend but it is just so disappointing...

I apologize for the rant.

Regards,
Vlad.

Just fix the bug and your rating will be restored in no time. When I ran a machine on ICC, some guy with a new 2.5 Ghz Rybka account would thrash my 233 Mhz account (running Phalanx XXII) to eek out fifty or a hundred Elo. I didn't care. Within a day or two, my Elo was back up where it had been.

The ICC ratings move up and down very quickly, so abusers can't really profit as much as they think.

[Mincho Georgiev]

I know perfectly what you mean, Vlad!
My noplay list at FICS is full due to similar cases.

[CRoberson]

Some people are just trying to up their rating. They seem to be in competition with a few a select group of friends. One guy constantly plays the same openings over and over with Telepath. He finally found a way to draw with black. Telepath uses ChessPartner for booking and CP's book learning doesn't adjust on draws. So, he takes points. Most of the time, I look at this as a challenge (it is quite annoying).

What he did was find a line where he can create an anti-computer formation. So, I added a new move to the book around move 5 that busts open a normally closed line. He draws no more

[Jaap Weidemann]

Why are some people like this?...

I was testing automated draw acceptance in Plisk and I forgot in a piece of code last night that will always accept a draw if offered and I had Plisk play on ICC for the entire night.

I came back in the morning and I lost 300 ELO on standard only and about 200 or so in other categories from few users who noticed that and took advantage of it. I examine few games from this user who had at least 12 games against Plisk (I am sure more, they just would not display on history) where he would offer draw after 3 moves exactly. A 1400 rated player.

I understand it is my responsibility for not having bugs like this, but what motivates those people? Note number 4 in my finger even says:

4: Enjoy playing against it and please do not abuse it.

Which part of that is complicated to understand?

Normally I would not care so much except in few days WCRCC is here and the seedings are to be done based on ratings, and now my rating is gone....

I removed that and I will have Plisk play 24/7 until the weekend but it is just so disappointing...

I apologize for the rant.

Regards,
Vlad.

Luckily you did not discover this in the tournament while your engine had a favourable position . This behaviour quite often exposes bugs that aren't as easily exposed in engine vs engine games, which is the primary reason I used to let Weid play online on ICC.

I once had a user on ICC that exploited a bug in Weid's book handling. He played until he found a book line that ends with two reversible moves (with Weid playing the last move). He then played this line repeatedly reversing his last move (with Weid following suite to match the best or only book move for that position) and subsequently managed to draw by three-fold repetition.

For example:

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 O-O 8.c3 d6 9.h3 Bb7 10.d4 Re8 11.Ng5 Rf8 12.Nf3 Re8 13.Ng5 Rf8 14.Nf3

It is therefore possible that two engines (or engines using adapters such as PolyGlot) that has this bug can draw while still in book.

I would not have enjoyed discovering this bug in a tournament against a inferior opponent .

Jaap
http://www.weidchess.com/

[vladstamate]

Luckily you did not discover this in the tournament while your engine had a favourable position

Agreed.

What he did was find a line where he can create an anti-computer formation. So, I added a new move to the book around move 5 that busts open a normally closed line. He draws no more Very Happy

Nice one Charles!

Just fix the bug and your rating will be restored in no time.

Already got about 100elo back on standard. But the idea still irks me.

I would not have minded if he/she at least tried, and lets say got into a losing position and think: I know this program accepts draws always, so I will go ahead and offer draw so I do not lose. But playing just 2 moves on the board and then offering draw repeatedly sounds evil.

The silver lining (like Jaap mentioned) is that playing against people, they are more likely to find bugs which you cannot find when playing against other engines.

Regards,
Vlad.

[bob]

Why are some people like this?...

I was testing automated draw acceptance in Plisk and I forgot in a piece of code last night that will always accept a draw if offered and I had Plisk play on ICC for the entire night.

I came back in the morning and I lost 300 ELO on standard only and about 200 or so in other categories from few users who noticed that and took advantage of it. I examine few games from this user who had at least 12 games against Plisk (I am sure more, they just would not display on history) where he would offer draw after 3 moves exactly. A 1400 rated player.

I understand it is my responsibility for not having bugs like this, but what motivates those people? Note number 4 in my finger even says:

4: Enjoy playing against it and please do not abuse it.

Which part of that is complicated to understand?

Normally I would not care so much except in few days WCRCC is here and the seedings are to be done based on ratings, and now my rating is gone....

I removed that and I will have Plisk play 24/7 until the weekend but it is just so disappointing...

I apologize for the rant.

Regards,
Vlad.

Just shows a weakness you have to fix. I've seen the same problem. My approach is that when a draw offer comes in, I just "remember it". Since my opponent is either thinking, or has just made a move, I save the draw offer and wait until it is my move. I complete the search, and take the final value and use that to make the accept/decline decision...

Most programs are somewhat optimistic which means after 3-4-5 moves, you are likely "happy" and will decline the draw offer.

[bob]

Why are some people like this?...

I was testing automated draw acceptance in Plisk and I forgot in a piece of code last night that will always accept a draw if offered and I had Plisk play on ICC for the entire night.

I came back in the morning and I lost 300 ELO on standard only and about 200 or so in other categories from few users who noticed that and took advantage of it. I examine few games from this user who had at least 12 games against Plisk (I am sure more, they just would not display on history) where he would offer draw after 3 moves exactly. A 1400 rated player.

I understand it is my responsibility for not having bugs like this, but what motivates those people? Note number 4 in my finger even says:

4: Enjoy playing against it and please do not abuse it.

Which part of that is complicated to understand?

Normally I would not care so much except in few days WCRCC is here and the seedings are to be done based on ratings, and now my rating is gone....

I removed that and I will have Plisk play 24/7 until the weekend but it is just so disappointing...

I apologize for the rant.

Regards,
Vlad.

Luckily you did not discover this in the tournament while your engine had a favourable position . This behaviour quite often exposes bugs that aren't as easily exposed in engine vs engine games, which is the primary reason I used to let Weid play online on ICC.

I once had a user on ICC that exploited a bug in Weid's book handling. He played until he found a book line that ends with two reversible moves (with Weid playing the last move). He then played this line repeatedly reversing his last move (with Weid following suite to match the best or only book move for that position) and subsequently managed to draw by three-fold repetition.

Again, this is simply a bug you have to fix. In Crafty, it won't play a repetition from book. It returns "no book move" and does a real search. If the search says the draw is the best option, it will take it, otherwise it will play a non-book-move and the game goes on.

It is pointless to complain about human behaviour. If they repeat lines, use book-learning to stop it. If they try to lock things up and run you out of time, either add code to avoid locked-up positions or modify your time usage so that you don't get far enough behind on time that you lose.

For example:

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 O-O 8.c3 d6 9.h3 Bb7 10.d4 Re8 11.Ng5 Rf8 12.Nf3 Re8 13.Ng5 Rf8 14.Nf3

It is therefore possible that two engines (or engines using adapters such as PolyGlot) that has this bug can draw while still in book.

I would not have enjoyed discovering this bug in a tournament against a inferior opponent .

Jaap
http://www.weidchess.com/

[hgm]

Did you use /zippyMaxGames to limit the number of consecutive games against the same player? That would make this kind of abuse slightly more difficult.

Perhaps there should be an option /zippyLosingStreak that would log off automatically (or at least declines all rated games) when you lose too many games in a row?