Vasik's Contribution

[fern]

I do not know about him, but I always erase the first tries of my literary production... I do not see the reason to keep deficient stuff.
Fern

[MikeB]

Excluding his chess playing programs, I am not sure how I would judge his contributions here in terms of the value of his posts. His more interesting ideas consisted of refining positional evaluations such that it would be more beneficial to spend a disproportionate amount of work evaluating positions, than it would be actually letting the search do the work. I, and I believe many others, were under the impression that this was the way to go and that it was working for him.

When Rybka 1.0 was released, you were then led to believe that this approach paid off for him, given its strength accompanied with low node and depth counts. However, when the Rybka 1 and Rybka 3 "sources" (using that term loosely) were made public, it was remarked by several successful chess programmers (including Anthony Cozzie and Joona Kiiski), that the evaluation was a little better than average but the real gem of a feat was its search, for its level of optimization and robustness. On top of that, it was evident that the search overhead was being obfuscated by outputting an artificially lower node and depth count.

My impression is that Vasik's "contributions" to this forum and computer chess in general, if we can call them that, are at best dubious and worst, underhanded. There is nothing wrong with withholding "trade secrets", but there is something wrong if your intent is to misinform people for the sake of person gain, especially if the people you are misinforming helped you achieve your ends asking nothing in return.

IMHO.

I do not understand your motives nor do I need to - but from a distance where I stand , to call Vasik's contributions to computer chess at best dubious and worst underhanded does not seem to be in touch with reality. Rybka's track record below speaks for itself - this is domination.

Code: Select all

2010-11-29 Rybka wins the 30th Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden, the Netherlands, with 8.5/9 ahead of Spike, Deep Sjeng and Hiarcs, who all finished in a three-way tie for second. 
 

2010-10-01 Rybka wins the 18th World Computer Chess Championship in Kanazawa, Japan, with 8/9 ahead of Rondo and Thinker (both 6.5/9). The blitz tournament was also won by Rybka with 8/9.

2010-07-19 Rybka wins the 4th World Rapid Computer Chess Championship with 7.5/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng and Crafty (7/9).
  
2010-05-30 Rybka wins the 10th International CSVN Tournament with 8/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng (7/9). 
  
2009-11-15 Rybka wins the 2009 Fourth Annual ACCA Americas' Computer Chess Championships with 5.5/6 ahead of Crafty (5.0/6).  

2009-10-18 Rybka wins the Open Dutch Computer Chess Championship 2009with 7.5/8 ahead of Deep Sjeng (7/8).  

2009-08-16 Rybka wins the 2009 Third Annual World Computer Rapid Chess Championship with 10.5/12 ahead of Deep Sjeng (10/12).

2009-08-02 Rybka wins the 5. Livingston Chess960 Computer World Championship, scoring 11.5/12 in the preliminaries and 3/4 against Shredder in the final.
 
2009-05-17 Rybka wins the 17th World Computer Chess Championship, scoring 8/9.  

2009-05-16 Rybka wins the 17th World Computer Chess Championship (Blitz), scoring 7/8.  
2009-05-13 Rybka wins the chess tournament at the 14th Computer 
Olympiad, scoring 5/5.  

2009-03-22 Rybka wins the CCT 11 rapid and blitz tournaments, making only one draw against Crafty. 

2008-11-17 Rybka wins the 27th Open Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden scoring 9/9, ahead of Hiarcs (7,5/9) and Sjeng (6,5/9).
 
2008-10-04 Rybka wins the 16th World Computer Chess Championship scoring 8.0/9, ahead of Hiarcs (7.0/9) and Junior (6.0/9).

2008-08-01 Rybka wins the 4. Livingston Chess960 Computer WCC in Mainz, winning 2,5-1,5 against Shredder in the final.  

2008-06-22 Rybka wins the 2nd ACCA World Computer Rapid Chess Championship with 13.5/14, ahead of Sjeng, Hiarcs and TerraPi!  

2008-06-01 Rybka wins the ICT8 in Leiden with 8,5/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng and Hiarcs! 
  
2008-01-27 Rybka wins the CCT10 together with Naum!
  
2007-12-30 Rybka finishes 2nd in the IPCCC 2007, scoring 5.5/7, behind of Hiarcs, which scored also 5.5/7 but had the better Buchholz. 
  
2007-10-28 Rybka wins the 2007 Second Annual ACCA Americas' Comp Chess Championship!  

2007-10-28 Rybka wins the 27th Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden!  
2007-08-17 Rybka clear 1st in 3rd Mainz Chess960 World Computer Chess Championship 
  
2007-06-24 Rybka team (Hardware: Lukas Cimiotti; Opening moonlighting (rounds 2 & 4): Jeroen Noomen; Openings & Analysis: Iweta Rajlich; Operation & Control: Vasik Rajlich) wins CSS / PAL Freestyle final with 6/9. 
  
2007-06-18 Rybka wins the 15th World Computer Chess Championship in Amsterdam with 10/11 (+9 =2 -0) (short report by Vasik Rajlich; short report by Jeroen Noomen).  

2007-05-20 Rybka wins the ICT7 in Leiden with 7,5/9 (+6 =3 -0), ahead of Zappa Zanzibar (7/9). 

2007-02-18 Rybka wins the CCT 9 with 6/7 (+5 =2 -0) (short report by Vasik Rajlich).  

2006-12-30 Rybka wins the 16th International Paderborn Computer Chess Championship - IPCCC 2006 with a score of 6.5/7 (only Spike managed to draw against Rybka).  

2006-11-05 Rybka wins the 26th Open Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden with a score of 9/9 (!!!) , ahead of Loop (7/9) and Hiarcs (6,5/9).  

2006-07-16 Rybka team (GM Michal Krasenkow, IM Iweta Radziewicz, IM Vasik Rajlich and four Rybkas) wins CSS / PAL Freestyle final with a score of 5/7 (+3 =4 -0) 

2006-06-26 Rybka team (GM Michal Krasenkow, IM Iweta Radziewicz, IM Vasik Rajlich and four Rybkas) wins CSS / PAL Freestyle main tournament with 6.5/8, same score as Anson Williams. All 8 qualificants to the final are Rybka users. 

2006-06-02 Junior wins IWCCC in Torino with 9/11, ahead of Shredder (8.5), Rybka (8.5) and Zappa (7.5).  

2006-05-07 Rybka wins the 6th International CSVN Tournament (ICT6) in Leiden with a score of 8,5/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng (7,5/9), Deep Shredder (6,5/9) and Deep Gandalf (6/9)  

2006-03-19 One unaided Rybka took clear first place in the CSS/PAL Freestyle main Tournament  

2006-02-27 Rybka wins CCT8 with a score of 8/9 and going undefeated  

2005-12-30 Rybka wins the 15th IPCCC in Paderborn ahead of Gandalf, Spike, Zappa and Shredder  

[/size]

[Kirk]

By the way, you do not have to buy his products as all his old stuff is free

http://cap.connx.com/chess-engines/new- ... a_fossils/

Funny is, even though there are a couple of known versions before Rybka 1.0 beta, nothing is available, like it never existed. Why would a man be ashamed of his own chess engine? Maybe coz that one is original and something completely different...

Possible. But so far no one has taken his code as a base and made a huge jump, even if he took Fruit and made a large jump.

My worry is that if everyone is building on the same codes we may not see something truly novel.

But you never know...

[gaard]

Excluding his chess playing programs, I am not sure how I would judge his contributions here in terms of the value of his posts. His more interesting ideas consisted of refining positional evaluations such that it would be more beneficial to spend a disproportionate amount of work evaluating positions, than it would be actually letting the search do the work. I, and I believe many others, were under the impression that this was the way to go and that it was working for him.

When Rybka 1.0 was released, you were then led to believe that this approach paid off for him, given its strength accompanied with low node and depth counts. However, when the Rybka 1 and Rybka 3 "sources" (using that term loosely) were made public, it was remarked by several successful chess programmers (including Anthony Cozzie and Joona Kiiski), that the evaluation was a little better than average but the real gem of a feat was its search, for its level of optimization and robustness. On top of that, it was evident that the search overhead was being obfuscated by outputting an artificially lower node and depth count.

My impression is that Vasik's "contributions" to this forum and computer chess in general, if we can call them that, are at best dubious and worst, underhanded. There is nothing wrong with withholding "trade secrets", but there is something wrong if your intent is to misinform people for the sake of person gain, especially if the people you are misinforming helped you achieve your ends asking nothing in return.

IMHO.

I do not understand your motives nor do I need to - but from a distance where I stand , to call Vasik's contributions to computer chess at best dubious and worst underhanded does not seem to be in touch with reality. Rybka's track record below speaks for itself - this is domination.

Code: Select all

2010-11-29 Rybka wins the 30th Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden, the Netherlands, with 8.5/9 ahead of Spike, Deep Sjeng and Hiarcs, who all finished in a three-way tie for second. 
 

2010-10-01 Rybka wins the 18th World Computer Chess Championship in Kanazawa, Japan, with 8/9 ahead of Rondo and Thinker (both 6.5/9). The blitz tournament was also won by Rybka with 8/9.

2010-07-19 Rybka wins the 4th World Rapid Computer Chess Championship with 7.5/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng and Crafty (7/9).
  
2010-05-30 Rybka wins the 10th International CSVN Tournament with 8/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng (7/9). 
  
2009-11-15 Rybka wins the 2009 Fourth Annual ACCA Americas' Computer Chess Championships with 5.5/6 ahead of Crafty (5.0/6).  

2009-10-18 Rybka wins the Open Dutch Computer Chess Championship 2009with 7.5/8 ahead of Deep Sjeng (7/8).  

2009-08-16 Rybka wins the 2009 Third Annual World Computer Rapid Chess Championship with 10.5/12 ahead of Deep Sjeng (10/12).

2009-08-02 Rybka wins the 5. Livingston Chess960 Computer World Championship, scoring 11.5/12 in the preliminaries and 3/4 against Shredder in the final.
 
2009-05-17 Rybka wins the 17th World Computer Chess Championship, scoring 8/9.  

2009-05-16 Rybka wins the 17th World Computer Chess Championship (Blitz), scoring 7/8.  
2009-05-13 Rybka wins the chess tournament at the 14th Computer 
Olympiad, scoring 5/5.  

2009-03-22 Rybka wins the CCT 11 rapid and blitz tournaments, making only one draw against Crafty. 

2008-11-17 Rybka wins the 27th Open Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden scoring 9/9, ahead of Hiarcs (7,5/9) and Sjeng (6,5/9).
 
2008-10-04 Rybka wins the 16th World Computer Chess Championship scoring 8.0/9, ahead of Hiarcs (7.0/9) and Junior (6.0/9).

2008-08-01 Rybka wins the 4. Livingston Chess960 Computer WCC in Mainz, winning 2,5-1,5 against Shredder in the final.  

2008-06-22 Rybka wins the 2nd ACCA World Computer Rapid Chess Championship with 13.5/14, ahead of Sjeng, Hiarcs and TerraPi!  

2008-06-01 Rybka wins the ICT8 in Leiden with 8,5/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng and Hiarcs! 
  
2008-01-27 Rybka wins the CCT10 together with Naum!
  
2007-12-30 Rybka finishes 2nd in the IPCCC 2007, scoring 5.5/7, behind of Hiarcs, which scored also 5.5/7 but had the better Buchholz. 
  
2007-10-28 Rybka wins the 2007 Second Annual ACCA Americas' Comp Chess Championship!  

2007-10-28 Rybka wins the 27th Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden!  
2007-08-17 Rybka clear 1st in 3rd Mainz Chess960 World Computer Chess Championship 
  
2007-06-24 Rybka team (Hardware: Lukas Cimiotti; Opening moonlighting (rounds 2 & 4): Jeroen Noomen; Openings & Analysis: Iweta Rajlich; Operation & Control: Vasik Rajlich) wins CSS / PAL Freestyle final with 6/9. 
  
2007-06-18 Rybka wins the 15th World Computer Chess Championship in Amsterdam with 10/11 (+9 =2 -0) (short report by Vasik Rajlich; short report by Jeroen Noomen).  

2007-05-20 Rybka wins the ICT7 in Leiden with 7,5/9 (+6 =3 -0), ahead of Zappa Zanzibar (7/9). 

2007-02-18 Rybka wins the CCT 9 with 6/7 (+5 =2 -0) (short report by Vasik Rajlich).  

2006-12-30 Rybka wins the 16th International Paderborn Computer Chess Championship - IPCCC 2006 with a score of 6.5/7 (only Spike managed to draw against Rybka).  

2006-11-05 Rybka wins the 26th Open Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden with a score of 9/9 (!!!) , ahead of Loop (7/9) and Hiarcs (6,5/9).  

2006-07-16 Rybka team (GM Michal Krasenkow, IM Iweta Radziewicz, IM Vasik Rajlich and four Rybkas) wins CSS / PAL Freestyle final with a score of 5/7 (+3 =4 -0) 

2006-06-26 Rybka team (GM Michal Krasenkow, IM Iweta Radziewicz, IM Vasik Rajlich and four Rybkas) wins CSS / PAL Freestyle main tournament with 6.5/8, same score as Anson Williams. All 8 qualificants to the final are Rybka users. 

2006-06-02 Junior wins IWCCC in Torino with 9/11, ahead of Shredder (8.5), Rybka (8.5) and Zappa (7.5).  

2006-05-07 Rybka wins the 6th International CSVN Tournament (ICT6) in Leiden with a score of 8,5/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng (7,5/9), Deep Shredder (6,5/9) and Deep Gandalf (6/9)  

2006-03-19 One unaided Rybka took clear first place in the CSS/PAL Freestyle main Tournament  

2006-02-27 Rybka wins CCT8 with a score of 8/9 and going undefeated  

2005-12-30 Rybka wins the 15th IPCCC in Paderborn ahead of Gandalf, Spike, Zappa and Shredder  

[/size]

I am fully in touch with reality, or at least I like to think so. Some of us appear to have different versions

1) Match scores and titles do not contribute to computer chess.

2) I think something was gained from the handicapped games with Grand Masters, but some may dispute this. I also think Rybka has aided in the advancement of opening preparation, though these advances also come with a monetary value attached to purchasing Rybka.

3) I purchased and enjoyed using Rybka 3. Rybka 4 is seriously flawed, IMO. Though I appreciate these things, they were purchased with my hard earned money, and thus, are not contributions. For the sake of argument, let's assume they are contributions; read the first sentence of my post and maybe that will give you some perspective.

In an appeal to authority:

"computer chess" has _always_ been about the endeavour to make a computer play the game of chess better than any human. It is not about using the computer program. That is chess.

It's Vas' personal business that he chose to close his source, and sell his product. Not mine. However, do you think he made that decision to advance computer chess and give back to those who offered their knowledge and expertise, or to make a living?

[Michael Sherwin]

Excluding his chess playing programs, I am not sure how I would judge his contributions here in terms of the value of his posts. His more interesting ideas consisted of refining positional evaluations such that it would be more beneficial to spend a disproportionate amount of work evaluating positions, than it would be actually letting the search do the work. I, and I believe many others, were under the impression that this was the way to go and that it was working for him.

When Rybka 1.0 was released, you were then led to believe that this approach paid off for him, given its strength accompanied with low node and depth counts. However, when the Rybka 1 and Rybka 3 "sources" (using that term loosely) were made public, it was remarked by several successful chess programmers (including Anthony Cozzie and Joona Kiiski), that the evaluation was a little better than average but the real gem of a feat was its search, for its level of optimization and robustness. On top of that, it was evident that the search overhead was being obfuscated by outputting an artificially lower node and depth count.

My impression is that Vasik's "contributions" to this forum and computer chess in general, if we can call them that, are at best dubious and worst, underhanded. There is nothing wrong with withholding "trade secrets", but there is something wrong if your intent is to misinform people for the sake of person gain, especially if the people you are misinforming helped you achieve your ends asking nothing in return.

IMHO.

I do not understand your motives nor do I need to - but from a distance where I stand , to call Vasik's contributions to computer chess at best dubious and worst underhanded does not seem to be in touch with reality. Rybka's track record below speaks for itself - this is domination.

Code: Select all

2010-11-29 Rybka wins the 30th Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden, the Netherlands, with 8.5/9 ahead of Spike, Deep Sjeng and Hiarcs, who all finished in a three-way tie for second. 
 

2010-10-01 Rybka wins the 18th World Computer Chess Championship in Kanazawa, Japan, with 8/9 ahead of Rondo and Thinker (both 6.5/9). The blitz tournament was also won by Rybka with 8/9.

2010-07-19 Rybka wins the 4th World Rapid Computer Chess Championship with 7.5/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng and Crafty (7/9).
  
2010-05-30 Rybka wins the 10th International CSVN Tournament with 8/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng (7/9). 
  
2009-11-15 Rybka wins the 2009 Fourth Annual ACCA Americas' Computer Chess Championships with 5.5/6 ahead of Crafty (5.0/6).  

2009-10-18 Rybka wins the Open Dutch Computer Chess Championship 2009with 7.5/8 ahead of Deep Sjeng (7/8).  

2009-08-16 Rybka wins the 2009 Third Annual World Computer Rapid Chess Championship with 10.5/12 ahead of Deep Sjeng (10/12).

2009-08-02 Rybka wins the 5. Livingston Chess960 Computer World Championship, scoring 11.5/12 in the preliminaries and 3/4 against Shredder in the final.
 
2009-05-17 Rybka wins the 17th World Computer Chess Championship, scoring 8/9.  

2009-05-16 Rybka wins the 17th World Computer Chess Championship (Blitz), scoring 7/8.  
2009-05-13 Rybka wins the chess tournament at the 14th Computer 
Olympiad, scoring 5/5.  

2009-03-22 Rybka wins the CCT 11 rapid and blitz tournaments, making only one draw against Crafty. 

2008-11-17 Rybka wins the 27th Open Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden scoring 9/9, ahead of Hiarcs (7,5/9) and Sjeng (6,5/9).
 
2008-10-04 Rybka wins the 16th World Computer Chess Championship scoring 8.0/9, ahead of Hiarcs (7.0/9) and Junior (6.0/9).

2008-08-01 Rybka wins the 4. Livingston Chess960 Computer WCC in Mainz, winning 2,5-1,5 against Shredder in the final.  

2008-06-22 Rybka wins the 2nd ACCA World Computer Rapid Chess Championship with 13.5/14, ahead of Sjeng, Hiarcs and TerraPi!  

2008-06-01 Rybka wins the ICT8 in Leiden with 8,5/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng and Hiarcs! 
  
2008-01-27 Rybka wins the CCT10 together with Naum!
  
2007-12-30 Rybka finishes 2nd in the IPCCC 2007, scoring 5.5/7, behind of Hiarcs, which scored also 5.5/7 but had the better Buchholz. 
  
2007-10-28 Rybka wins the 2007 Second Annual ACCA Americas' Comp Chess Championship!  

2007-10-28 Rybka wins the 27th Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden!  
2007-08-17 Rybka clear 1st in 3rd Mainz Chess960 World Computer Chess Championship 
  
2007-06-24 Rybka team (Hardware: Lukas Cimiotti; Opening moonlighting (rounds 2 & 4): Jeroen Noomen; Openings & Analysis: Iweta Rajlich; Operation & Control: Vasik Rajlich) wins CSS / PAL Freestyle final with 6/9. 
  
2007-06-18 Rybka wins the 15th World Computer Chess Championship in Amsterdam with 10/11 (+9 =2 -0) (short report by Vasik Rajlich; short report by Jeroen Noomen).  

2007-05-20 Rybka wins the ICT7 in Leiden with 7,5/9 (+6 =3 -0), ahead of Zappa Zanzibar (7/9). 

2007-02-18 Rybka wins the CCT 9 with 6/7 (+5 =2 -0) (short report by Vasik Rajlich).  

2006-12-30 Rybka wins the 16th International Paderborn Computer Chess Championship - IPCCC 2006 with a score of 6.5/7 (only Spike managed to draw against Rybka).  

2006-11-05 Rybka wins the 26th Open Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden with a score of 9/9 (!!!) , ahead of Loop (7/9) and Hiarcs (6,5/9).  

2006-07-16 Rybka team (GM Michal Krasenkow, IM Iweta Radziewicz, IM Vasik Rajlich and four Rybkas) wins CSS / PAL Freestyle final with a score of 5/7 (+3 =4 -0) 

2006-06-26 Rybka team (GM Michal Krasenkow, IM Iweta Radziewicz, IM Vasik Rajlich and four Rybkas) wins CSS / PAL Freestyle main tournament with 6.5/8, same score as Anson Williams. All 8 qualificants to the final are Rybka users. 

2006-06-02 Junior wins IWCCC in Torino with 9/11, ahead of Shredder (8.5), Rybka (8.5) and Zappa (7.5).  

2006-05-07 Rybka wins the 6th International CSVN Tournament (ICT6) in Leiden with a score of 8,5/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng (7,5/9), Deep Shredder (6,5/9) and Deep Gandalf (6/9)  

2006-03-19 One unaided Rybka took clear first place in the CSS/PAL Freestyle main Tournament  

2006-02-27 Rybka wins CCT8 with a score of 8/9 and going undefeated  

2005-12-30 Rybka wins the 15th IPCCC in Paderborn ahead of Gandalf, Spike, Zappa and Shredder  

[/size]

If Vas purposely led other engine authors to believe that a huge, slow, but very good eval was what gave Rybka its strength then he did a very terrible thing sending his competition on a wild goose chase that probably cost many people to waste large amounts of time and effort. So; "at best dubious and worst underhanded", is a very mild and restrained retort indeed. I would say that a class action law suite could easily be filed and probably won if the evidence is strong enough. Then engine authors that can show how their eval had grown in the vain attempt at improvement may be able to get compensated for their effort. But not very likely to happen.

[gaard]

I can appreciate your good humor amidst all the drama

I was thinking more like free donuts for the entire forum. A variety pack, but if there's a raisin in even one of mine I call for serious legal action.

[MikeB]

Excluding his chess playing programs, I am not sure how I would judge his contributions here in terms of the value of his posts. His more interesting ideas consisted of refining positional evaluations such that it would be more beneficial to spend a disproportionate amount of work evaluating positions, than it would be actually letting the search do the work. I, and I believe many others, were under the impression that this was the way to go and that it was working for him.

When Rybka 1.0 was released, you were then led to believe that this approach paid off for him, given its strength accompanied with low node and depth counts. However, when the Rybka 1 and Rybka 3 "sources" (using that term loosely) were made public, it was remarked by several successful chess programmers (including Anthony Cozzie and Joona Kiiski), that the evaluation was a little better than average but the real gem of a feat was its search, for its level of optimization and robustness. On top of that, it was evident that the search overhead was being obfuscated by outputting an artificially lower node and depth count.

My impression is that Vasik's "contributions" to this forum and computer chess in general, if we can call them that, are at best dubious and worst, underhanded. There is nothing wrong with withholding "trade secrets", but there is something wrong if your intent is to misinform people for the sake of person gain, especially if the people you are misinforming helped you achieve your ends asking nothing in return.

IMHO.

I do not understand your motives nor do I need to - but from a distance where I stand , to call Vasik's contributions to computer chess at best dubious and worst underhanded does not seem to be in touch with reality. Rybka's track record below speaks for itself - this is domination.

Code: Select all

2010-11-29 Rybka wins the 30th Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden, the Netherlands, with 8.5/9 ahead of Spike, Deep Sjeng and Hiarcs, who all finished in a three-way tie for second. 
 

2010-10-01 Rybka wins the 18th World Computer Chess Championship in Kanazawa, Japan, with 8/9 ahead of Rondo and Thinker (both 6.5/9). The blitz tournament was also won by Rybka with 8/9.

2010-07-19 Rybka wins the 4th World Rapid Computer Chess Championship with 7.5/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng and Crafty (7/9).
  
2010-05-30 Rybka wins the 10th International CSVN Tournament with 8/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng (7/9). 
  
2009-11-15 Rybka wins the 2009 Fourth Annual ACCA Americas' Computer Chess Championships with 5.5/6 ahead of Crafty (5.0/6).  

2009-10-18 Rybka wins the Open Dutch Computer Chess Championship 2009with 7.5/8 ahead of Deep Sjeng (7/8).  

2009-08-16 Rybka wins the 2009 Third Annual World Computer Rapid Chess Championship with 10.5/12 ahead of Deep Sjeng (10/12).

2009-08-02 Rybka wins the 5. Livingston Chess960 Computer World Championship, scoring 11.5/12 in the preliminaries and 3/4 against Shredder in the final.
 
2009-05-17 Rybka wins the 17th World Computer Chess Championship, scoring 8/9.  

2009-05-16 Rybka wins the 17th World Computer Chess Championship (Blitz), scoring 7/8.  
2009-05-13 Rybka wins the chess tournament at the 14th Computer 
Olympiad, scoring 5/5.  

2009-03-22 Rybka wins the CCT 11 rapid and blitz tournaments, making only one draw against Crafty. 

2008-11-17 Rybka wins the 27th Open Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden scoring 9/9, ahead of Hiarcs (7,5/9) and Sjeng (6,5/9).
 
2008-10-04 Rybka wins the 16th World Computer Chess Championship scoring 8.0/9, ahead of Hiarcs (7.0/9) and Junior (6.0/9).

2008-08-01 Rybka wins the 4. Livingston Chess960 Computer WCC in Mainz, winning 2,5-1,5 against Shredder in the final.  

2008-06-22 Rybka wins the 2nd ACCA World Computer Rapid Chess Championship with 13.5/14, ahead of Sjeng, Hiarcs and TerraPi!  

2008-06-01 Rybka wins the ICT8 in Leiden with 8,5/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng and Hiarcs! 
  
2008-01-27 Rybka wins the CCT10 together with Naum!
  
2007-12-30 Rybka finishes 2nd in the IPCCC 2007, scoring 5.5/7, behind of Hiarcs, which scored also 5.5/7 but had the better Buchholz. 
  
2007-10-28 Rybka wins the 2007 Second Annual ACCA Americas' Comp Chess Championship!  

2007-10-28 Rybka wins the 27th Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden!  
2007-08-17 Rybka clear 1st in 3rd Mainz Chess960 World Computer Chess Championship 
  
2007-06-24 Rybka team (Hardware: Lukas Cimiotti; Opening moonlighting (rounds 2 & 4): Jeroen Noomen; Openings & Analysis: Iweta Rajlich; Operation & Control: Vasik Rajlich) wins CSS / PAL Freestyle final with 6/9. 
  
2007-06-18 Rybka wins the 15th World Computer Chess Championship in Amsterdam with 10/11 (+9 =2 -0) (short report by Vasik Rajlich; short report by Jeroen Noomen).  

2007-05-20 Rybka wins the ICT7 in Leiden with 7,5/9 (+6 =3 -0), ahead of Zappa Zanzibar (7/9). 

2007-02-18 Rybka wins the CCT 9 with 6/7 (+5 =2 -0) (short report by Vasik Rajlich).  

2006-12-30 Rybka wins the 16th International Paderborn Computer Chess Championship - IPCCC 2006 with a score of 6.5/7 (only Spike managed to draw against Rybka).  

2006-11-05 Rybka wins the 26th Open Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden with a score of 9/9 (!!!) , ahead of Loop (7/9) and Hiarcs (6,5/9).  

2006-07-16 Rybka team (GM Michal Krasenkow, IM Iweta Radziewicz, IM Vasik Rajlich and four Rybkas) wins CSS / PAL Freestyle final with a score of 5/7 (+3 =4 -0) 

2006-06-26 Rybka team (GM Michal Krasenkow, IM Iweta Radziewicz, IM Vasik Rajlich and four Rybkas) wins CSS / PAL Freestyle main tournament with 6.5/8, same score as Anson Williams. All 8 qualificants to the final are Rybka users. 

2006-06-02 Junior wins IWCCC in Torino with 9/11, ahead of Shredder (8.5), Rybka (8.5) and Zappa (7.5).  

2006-05-07 Rybka wins the 6th International CSVN Tournament (ICT6) in Leiden with a score of 8,5/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng (7,5/9), Deep Shredder (6,5/9) and Deep Gandalf (6/9)  

2006-03-19 One unaided Rybka took clear first place in the CSS/PAL Freestyle main Tournament  

2006-02-27 Rybka wins CCT8 with a score of 8/9 and going undefeated  

2005-12-30 Rybka wins the 15th IPCCC in Paderborn ahead of Gandalf, Spike, Zappa and Shredder  

[/size]

I am fully in touch with reality, or at least I like to think so. Some of us appear to have different versions

1) Match scores and titles do not contribute to computer chess.

2) I think something was gained from the handicapped games with Grand Masters, but some may dispute this. I also think Rybka has aided in the advancement of opening preparation, though these advances also come with a monetary value attached to purchasing Rybka.

3) I purchased and enjoyed using Rybka 3. Rybka 4 is seriously flawed, IMO. Though I appreciate these things, they were purchased with my hard earned money, and thus, are not contributions. For the sake of argument, let's assume they are contributions; read the first sentence of my post and maybe that will give you some perspective.

In an appeal to authority:

"computer chess" has _always_ been about the endeavour to make a computer play the game of chess better than any human. It is not about using the computer program. That is chess.

It's Vas' personal business that he chose to close his source, and sell his product. Not mine. However, do you think he made that decision to advance computer chess and give back to those who offered their knowledge and expertise, or to make a living?

A couple of of observations - one can sell their product and still contribute to their field. The fact that Steve Jobs sells Macs or Bill Gates sell Windows - does that diminish their contributions to personal computing? The fact that you spend your hard earned money does not take take away from Vas's contributions. I read your first sentence , but I also read your last paragraph.

You have your opinions, which I applaud that you do - but I respectfully suggest that your own personal opinions and your personal dislike towards Vas blinds you to the fact that Vas has made a contribution to computer chess. There is a reason why Rybka is the "must have" program for any professional chess player.

[Milos]

A couple of of observations - one can sell their product and still contribute to their field. The fact that Steve Jobs sells Macs or Bill Gates sell Windows - does that diminish their contributions to personal computing? The fact that you spend your hard earned money does not take take away from Vas's contributions. I read your first sentence , but I also read your last paragraph.

You have your opinions, which I applaud that you do - but I respectfully suggest that your own personal opinions and your personal dislike towards Vas blinds you to the fact that Vas has made a contribution to computer chess. There is a reason why Rybka is the "must have" program for any professional chess player.

Steve Jobs or Bill Gates have contributed to computer science the same as Rothschilds have contributed to economics.
You are seriously mixing the terms computer chess, computer science and (human) chess. The contributions we are talking about are related to computer chess as a part of computer science, not to (human) chess. Maybe if you read the discussion in the other thread and specifically Bob's comments, the things would become less perplexed for you...

[MikeB]

Excluding his chess playing programs, I am not sure how I would judge his contributions here in terms of the value of his posts. His more interesting ideas consisted of refining positional evaluations such that it would be more beneficial to spend a disproportionate amount of work evaluating positions, than it would be actually letting the search do the work. I, and I believe many others, were under the impression that this was the way to go and that it was working for him.

When Rybka 1.0 was released, you were then led to believe that this approach paid off for him, given its strength accompanied with low node and depth counts. However, when the Rybka 1 and Rybka 3 "sources" (using that term loosely) were made public, it was remarked by several successful chess programmers (including Anthony Cozzie and Joona Kiiski), that the evaluation was a little better than average but the real gem of a feat was its search, for its level of optimization and robustness. On top of that, it was evident that the search overhead was being obfuscated by outputting an artificially lower node and depth count.

My impression is that Vasik's "contributions" to this forum and computer chess in general, if we can call them that, are at best dubious and worst, underhanded. There is nothing wrong with withholding "trade secrets", but there is something wrong if your intent is to misinform people for the sake of person gain, especially if the people you are misinforming helped you achieve your ends asking nothing in return.

IMHO.

I do not understand your motives nor do I need to - but from a distance where I stand , to call Vasik's contributions to computer chess at best dubious and worst underhanded does not seem to be in touch with reality. Rybka's track record below speaks for itself - this is domination.

Code: Select all

2010-11-29 Rybka wins the 30th Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden, the Netherlands, with 8.5/9 ahead of Spike, Deep Sjeng and Hiarcs, who all finished in a three-way tie for second. 
 

2010-10-01 Rybka wins the 18th World Computer Chess Championship in Kanazawa, Japan, with 8/9 ahead of Rondo and Thinker (both 6.5/9). The blitz tournament was also won by Rybka with 8/9.

2010-07-19 Rybka wins the 4th World Rapid Computer Chess Championship with 7.5/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng and Crafty (7/9).
  
2010-05-30 Rybka wins the 10th International CSVN Tournament with 8/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng (7/9). 
  
2009-11-15 Rybka wins the 2009 Fourth Annual ACCA Americas' Computer Chess Championships with 5.5/6 ahead of Crafty (5.0/6).  

2009-10-18 Rybka wins the Open Dutch Computer Chess Championship 2009with 7.5/8 ahead of Deep Sjeng (7/8).  

2009-08-16 Rybka wins the 2009 Third Annual World Computer Rapid Chess Championship with 10.5/12 ahead of Deep Sjeng (10/12).

2009-08-02 Rybka wins the 5. Livingston Chess960 Computer World Championship, scoring 11.5/12 in the preliminaries and 3/4 against Shredder in the final.
 
2009-05-17 Rybka wins the 17th World Computer Chess Championship, scoring 8/9.  

2009-05-16 Rybka wins the 17th World Computer Chess Championship (Blitz), scoring 7/8.  
2009-05-13 Rybka wins the chess tournament at the 14th Computer 
Olympiad, scoring 5/5.  

2009-03-22 Rybka wins the CCT 11 rapid and blitz tournaments, making only one draw against Crafty. 

2008-11-17 Rybka wins the 27th Open Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden scoring 9/9, ahead of Hiarcs (7,5/9) and Sjeng (6,5/9).
 
2008-10-04 Rybka wins the 16th World Computer Chess Championship scoring 8.0/9, ahead of Hiarcs (7.0/9) and Junior (6.0/9).

2008-08-01 Rybka wins the 4. Livingston Chess960 Computer WCC in Mainz, winning 2,5-1,5 against Shredder in the final.  

2008-06-22 Rybka wins the 2nd ACCA World Computer Rapid Chess Championship with 13.5/14, ahead of Sjeng, Hiarcs and TerraPi!  

2008-06-01 Rybka wins the ICT8 in Leiden with 8,5/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng and Hiarcs! 
  
2008-01-27 Rybka wins the CCT10 together with Naum!
  
2007-12-30 Rybka finishes 2nd in the IPCCC 2007, scoring 5.5/7, behind of Hiarcs, which scored also 5.5/7 but had the better Buchholz. 
  
2007-10-28 Rybka wins the 2007 Second Annual ACCA Americas' Comp Chess Championship!  

2007-10-28 Rybka wins the 27th Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden!  
2007-08-17 Rybka clear 1st in 3rd Mainz Chess960 World Computer Chess Championship 
  
2007-06-24 Rybka team (Hardware: Lukas Cimiotti; Opening moonlighting (rounds 2 & 4): Jeroen Noomen; Openings & Analysis: Iweta Rajlich; Operation & Control: Vasik Rajlich) wins CSS / PAL Freestyle final with 6/9. 
  
2007-06-18 Rybka wins the 15th World Computer Chess Championship in Amsterdam with 10/11 (+9 =2 -0) (short report by Vasik Rajlich; short report by Jeroen Noomen).  

2007-05-20 Rybka wins the ICT7 in Leiden with 7,5/9 (+6 =3 -0), ahead of Zappa Zanzibar (7/9). 

2007-02-18 Rybka wins the CCT 9 with 6/7 (+5 =2 -0) (short report by Vasik Rajlich).  

2006-12-30 Rybka wins the 16th International Paderborn Computer Chess Championship - IPCCC 2006 with a score of 6.5/7 (only Spike managed to draw against Rybka).  

2006-11-05 Rybka wins the 26th Open Dutch Computer Chess Championship in Leiden with a score of 9/9 (!!!) , ahead of Loop (7/9) and Hiarcs (6,5/9).  

2006-07-16 Rybka team (GM Michal Krasenkow, IM Iweta Radziewicz, IM Vasik Rajlich and four Rybkas) wins CSS / PAL Freestyle final with a score of 5/7 (+3 =4 -0) 

2006-06-26 Rybka team (GM Michal Krasenkow, IM Iweta Radziewicz, IM Vasik Rajlich and four Rybkas) wins CSS / PAL Freestyle main tournament with 6.5/8, same score as Anson Williams. All 8 qualificants to the final are Rybka users. 

2006-06-02 Junior wins IWCCC in Torino with 9/11, ahead of Shredder (8.5), Rybka (8.5) and Zappa (7.5).  

2006-05-07 Rybka wins the 6th International CSVN Tournament (ICT6) in Leiden with a score of 8,5/9 ahead of Deep Sjeng (7,5/9), Deep Shredder (6,5/9) and Deep Gandalf (6/9)  

2006-03-19 One unaided Rybka took clear first place in the CSS/PAL Freestyle main Tournament  

2006-02-27 Rybka wins CCT8 with a score of 8/9 and going undefeated  

2005-12-30 Rybka wins the 15th IPCCC in Paderborn ahead of Gandalf, Spike, Zappa and Shredder  

[/size]

If Vas purposely led other engine authors to believe that a huge, slow, but very good eval was what gave Rybka its strength then he did a very terrible thing sending his competition on a wild goose chase that probably cost many people to waste large amounts of time and effort. So; "at best dubious and worst underhanded", is a very mild and restrained retort indeed. I would say that a class action law suite could easily be filed and probably won if the evidence is strong enough. Then engine authors that can show how their eval had grown in the vain attempt at improvement may be able to get compensated for their effort. But not very likely to happen.

I remember when his engine came out and if he led anyone astray , shame on Vas, but also shame on anybody that bought that evaulation crap . It was clear to a number of people ( programmers) that he was counting nodes and depth like no other engine. he did not send competition on any wild goose chase - if you believe that - I ask you to name those went on this wild goose chase. A class action suit can always be filed easily - the trick is to win one or even just not get one summarily dismissed. Probably won - no I don't think so - if probably won, why hasn't one been filed? Most of the lawyers I know that do that sort of thing, do not pass up easy money. Compensation for their vain attempt - spare me. WHO , WHO made this vain attempt? As clear as the nose on my face, it is my opinion this whole thread is about character assination against Vas - and I do not even know Vas and I can see that.

[Laskos]

it is my opinion this whole thread is about character assination against Vas - and I do not even know Vas and I can see that.

Then why this site assassinated Ippolit&Family members? That's fair? Vas is protected by exactly what practices? Let's assassinate his character as well, wouldn;t it be fair?

Kai