Why don't we organize a World Computer Chess Championship?

[ThomasJMiller]

Why don't we organize a World Computer Chess Campionship on our own? We could ask FIDE for affiliation too I think, like ICGA.

I consider a World Championship not a tournament that establish the absolute best player, but simply a tournament whose winner is called World Champion, like in any other sport.

Talkchess is the place where you go for computer chess stuff. Talkchess members have produced the Computer Chess Wiki (in particular Gerd Isenberg). I think Talkchess has contributed by far much more to computer chess than ICGA.

We could decide by vote (giving the programmers' votes a bigger weight) what should be the rules for this championship, the format and so on.

We could organize it each year in a different place with the help of local computer chess associations: we have ACCA in the Americas, CSVN in Europe and perhaps others too.
And not two times in Japan where, as far as I know, there are no chess programmers.

We have experts in game relay and tournaments organization

We have experts in Don's Similarity Tool

We have experts in disassembling (eg Alex Newman has even developed a tool which dissasembles an exe and looks for Ippo patterns)

I think we have all kind of expertise and knowledge needed to organize the best WCCC ever played. One for which each programmer, should be simply ashamed of himself for not joining because of mere commercial interests or personal conflicts.

Instead of wasting energy writing 30 pages about who is the real world champion, we'd better organize a WCCC like we really want it.

And please, I'm not criticizing ICGA for the Rybka affair (I didn't read the documents so I have no opinion yet), but because in many years, not just the last 2.5, they have done nothing to make the WCCC an event the CC community look forward the whole year, like it happens for other sports.
I think a WC is not organized only for the participants but also for the public, the fans.

If you think my post is silly, then forget it and let's pretend I didn't write it

[velmarin]

(eg Alex Newman has even developed a tool which dissasembles an exe and looks for Ippo patterns)


And please, I'm not criticizing ICGA for the Rybka affair

Two identical points
looked at from a different perspective.

How ever getting started tripping.
Where is democracy and justice, even when.

[ThomasJMiller]

(eg Alex Newman has even developed a tool which dissasembles an exe and looks for Ippo patterns)


And please, I'm not criticizing ICGA for the Rybka affair

Two identical points
looked at from a different perspective.

How ever getting started tripping.
Where is democracy and justice, even when.

Sorry Jose,
but I think that no one here would like Bouquet to play in a fair WCCC. You have taken an open source engine, made some changes, perhaps even weakened it, and released it under the name Bouquet. This is perfectly legal and everyone can do that for its own fun and for everyone who'd like to test it but do you really want anyone to be allowed to do so, play in a WCCC and have a chance to become World Champion?

[hgm]

How is your proposal any different than what ICGA is already doing? Why do you think TalkChess could succeed where ICGA fails?

Oh, yes, the Japan thing. Well, for one, Japan is not really much further for Americans than Europe, and not really further away for Europeans than East-coast U.S. So it doesn't seem a very big deal. But of course I would be totally in favor of holding it in the Azores, or the Canary Islands!

Problem (as always) is these things cost money (the root of all evil...). Both to organize and to attend. The CSVN is an organization with about 200 people that pay $40 membershio fee, most of which is consumed by publishing the bi-monthly magazine that was the reason most members joined. That tells us how big their budget is to organize events like the Leiden programmer's tourneys from. They receive zero sponsering for that.

If your hope is vested in sponsors: that is a very tough road. In the U.S. there has been zero interest for years, which is why the ICGA events (in violation of their own charter) have not been there for ages now. To get any interest at all you are quickly forced to places like Japan, exactly because they hardly play Chess there, but things like Go and Shogi, which (unlike Computer Chess) still are 'hot'. ICGA has lots of experience and contacts raising sponsor money, and they barely succeed, and in the current economic climate even have to cancel the event entirely in some years (despite the fact that they are offering more interesting stuff than just Chess). Thinking that we could do better is, well, sort of over-confident.

Voting for rules suffers from the same problem as voting in the security council. As long as the community is not willing to reach some concensus, but full of petty squabbles like "if he is in, I am out" (be it driven by pride, commercial interests or innate stubborness), doctoring the rules cannot acieve much. CSVN decided to not follow the ICGA Rybka verdict, and stated Rybka was still welcome in Leiden. As a result, the next Leiden tournament had only 2 genuine participants (me and one other; Rybka did not appear anyway), and in the end moved for disbanding the CSVN (which was then taken over by 'new management'). As long as anyone can veto the rules by withdrawing his program, voting for rules that no programmer wants won't solve anything.

Finally, it has been tried already to organize an alternative World Championship here, not as an on-site but as an on-line event, so that there would be no significant cost. In the fist attempt there were zero participants, in the second attempt (when we dropped the requirement that authors would have to register their rograms, but anyone could) there was only one (entered by a non-author).

[ThomasJMiller]

...

You have raised very good points. In the next few days (I've job commitments), I'll collect and write down my thoughts and I'll make a proposal about how I would organize such an event.

I hope others will do the same.

[hgm]

Sorry Jose,
but I think that no one here would like Bouquet to play in a fair WCCC. You have taken an open source engine, made some changes, perhaps even weakened it, and released it under the name Bouquet. This is perfectly legal and everyone can do that for its own fun and for everyone who'd like to test it but do you really want anyone to be allowed to do so, play in a WCCC and have a chance to become World Champion?

You know what? If there were no other Ippo derivatives competing, I don't even see why Bouquet should not be allowed to participate. Of course it should be seen more as a work of the Decembrists than of Jose, but what is wrong with that? I consider HIARCS also more a work of Mark Uniacke than of Harvey Williamson, but Harvey was operating it in Yokohama, and Mark was nowhere to be seen. That the Decembrists are not around to sign the registration form is a really weak argument. In a sense they did appoint Jose as a fully-legal proxy when they stamped 'public domain' on their code.

This assumes of course the code of Ippolit itself is legal (i.e. that the 'public domain' label holds up to legal scrutinyl, and is not just a euphemism for 'stolen goods').

Of course what we would not want (I think) is to have these Decembrists (or anyone else) participating multiple times with derivatives of the same code. (But how about two totally independent codes, by the same author?) That might still be fair to their proxys, but, since it is a strong code, it would be highly unfair to other participants. But even this does not need to be an insurmountable obstacle: in case of multiple derivatives of the same engine, the tourney could use a 'qualifier' to decide who of them is to be admitted to the main competition. That would again level the playing field, at the expense of the chances of the individual proxys. (But isn't there justice in that?)

The major problem with this Utopic idea is that, like the ICGA rules, requires a certain minimal amount of honesty amongst the participants. Alas, in current time this is too much to expect, and it is very difficult to enforce it. Lying about the origin of your engine is a very cheap way to avoid the tough qualifiers and get a free ticket to the main competition. So many people would not flinch an eye for doing it.

[velmarin]

(eg Alex Newman has even developed a tool which dissasembles an exe and looks for Ippo patterns)


And please, I'm not criticizing ICGA for the Rybka affair

Two identical points
looked at from a different perspective.

How ever getting started tripping.
Where is democracy and justice, even when.

Sorry Jose,
but I think that no one here would like Bouquet to play in a fair WCCC. You have taken an open source engine, made some changes, perhaps even weakened it, and released it under the name Bouquet. This is perfectly legal and everyone can do that for its own fun and for everyone who'd like to test it but do you really want anyone to be allowed to do so, play in a WCCC and have a chance to become World Champion?

Who told you to discuss Bouquet.

Bouquet is in neutral, there are many better engines.

But a stupid idea to always born stupid, you do not have talent or to shake a Ippolit.

[velmarin]

.

Thanks,



I was not talking about Bouquet,
But I think a world championship, that must be it,
worldwide, no exceptions.

Thank you again.

[yanquis1972]

i dont see why this would be interesting at this point, unless cluster rybka were to enter. (i'm assuming it still even exists)

the only real interest i would have in this is seeing 'chess entities' play out. there really arent any to speak of. in terms of a WCCC i think martin thoresen has created a great alternative in the TCEC.

[Laskos]

Why don't we organize a World Computer Chess Campionship on our own? We could ask FIDE for affiliation too I think, like ICGA.

I consider a World Championship not a tournament that establish the absolute best player, but simply a tournament whose winner is called World Champion, like in any other sport.

Talkchess is the place where you go for computer chess stuff. Talkchess members have produced the Computer Chess Wiki (in particular Gerd Isenberg). I think Talkchess has contributed by far much more to computer chess than ICGA.

We could decide by vote (giving the programmers' votes a bigger weight) what should be the rules for this championship, the format and so on.

We could organize it each year in a different place with the help of local computer chess associations: we have ACCA in the Americas, CSVN in Europe and perhaps others too.
And not two times in Japan where, as far as I know, there are no chess programmers.

We have experts in game relay and tournaments organization

We have experts in Don's Similarity Tool

We have experts in disassembling (eg Alex Newman has even developed a tool which dissasembles an exe and looks for Ippo patterns)

I think we have all kind of expertise and knowledge needed to organize the best WCCC ever played. One for which each programmer, should be simply ashamed of himself for not joining because of mere commercial interests or personal conflicts.

Instead of wasting energy writing 30 pages about who is the real world champion, we'd better organize a WCCC like we really want it.

And please, I'm not criticizing ICGA for the Rybka affair (I didn't read the documents so I have no opinion yet), but because in many years, not just the last 2.5, they have done nothing to make the WCCC an event the CC community look forward the whole year, like it happens for other sports.
I think a WC is not organized only for the participants but also for the public, the fans.

If you think my post is silly, then forget it and let's pretend I didn't write it

TCEC _is_ the WCCC, no matter what these dinosaur half-minded ICGA apologizers are barking out in the woods.