bad news from zappa ...

[Powell]

Harvey Williamson (Hiracs Forum) wrote:

I have learned that we will not see a new version of Zappa. Anthony has decided to hang up his keyboard for good. The source code is locked away in a safe. In the past when he stopped working on Zappa he allowed Erdo to enter tournaments on his behalf. He has stated that Zappa will not play in any more of the major tournaments where the authors permission is needed to play.

This is sad for Computer Chess but maybe Anthony will change his mind?!

I was told this 2 days ago but now the information can be made public.

To quote Anthony:

Quote:
After some spectacular failures in the past months, the Zappa project is 100% finished. This includes both tournaments and future releases. Only one copy of the Zappa source code exists in the observable universe today, and that is safely squirreled away in a safe deposit box in the barbarous, provincial depths of rural Iowa, so I couldn't work on it even if I wanted to.


He even thanks me in the credits on his website Smile https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/acozzie2/www/zappa/
_________________

[Yarget]

This is indeed bad news. It is one of the topengines and one of the closets rivals to Rybka that is leaving the scene. Let's hope that it's just a short break and that Anthony soon will reconsider his decision.

Regards
Per

[eriq]

Oh well, toga was about to surpass it anyway Perhaps it was better that he saved himself the embarrassment of losing to a free engine. It is smart to quit while still on top!

[Norm Pollock]

What were the spectacular failures?

The only thing I can think of is that Zappa II does not show any major improvement. It actually is an insignificant 3 elo pts better according to CCRL (40/40 for 4CPU x64 versions).

What about the spectacular successes? Like Mexico City.

[Nid Hogge]

Pffft..

Yeah right.

It was dismissed for how many times now? always the same "This is the real deal this time I am NEVER coming back ever again". I am sick of this dramatic "retirements" every few months. Either you retire, either you don't.

He's probably just preparing his dramatic comeback.. once again .

P.S. If you think this is uncalled for.. just wait.

[Spock]

Actually I tend to believe him. He seems very ambitious and to strive for perfection, and either wants to be number 1 or not at all. Nothing wrong with that. I think he realises that to compete at the very top end is a full time job and he also needs a team of helpers around him. Look at the Rybka team for example, and Hiarcs. Not sure about Alex. He has other more important priorities in his life. The old saying if a job is worth doing it is worth doing well springs to mind, and clearly he thinks that if he can't give it the attention it deserves in future then better just to give it up


.

[hgm]

A Chess programmer saying he is never going to program again should be taken about as seriously as a smoker who says he will quit smoking for good.

[slobo]

Harvey Williamson (Hiracs Forum) wrote:

I have learned that we will not see a new version of Zappa. Anthony has decided to hang up his keyboard for good. The source code is locked away in a safe. In the past when he stopped working on Zappa he allowed Erdo to enter tournaments on his behalf. He has stated that Zappa will not play in any more of the major tournaments where the authors permission is needed to play.

This is sad for Computer Chess but maybe Anthony will change his mind?!

I was told this 2 days ago but now the information can be made public.

To quote Anthony:

Quote:
After some spectacular failures in the past months, the Zappa project is 100% finished. This includes both tournaments and future releases. Only one copy of the Zappa source code exists in the observable universe today, and that is safely squirreled away in a safe deposit box in the barbarous, provincial depths of rural Iowa, so I couldn't work on it even if I wanted to.


He even thanks me in the credits on his website Smile https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/acozzie2/www/zappa/
_________________

Perhaps, inspired by Kasparov, he wants to work as a volunteer in Hillary´s campaign. She needs intelligent young blood.

[Uri Blass]

A Chess programmer saying he is never going to program again should be taken about as seriously as a smoker who says he will quit smoking for good.

It is espacially correct when the smorker already said in the past that he is going to quit smoking but returned to smoke and it is the case with zappa.

Anthony already said in the past that he is retired and it did not prevent him to improve his engine.

Uri

[swami]

A Chess programmer saying he is never going to program again should be taken about as seriously as a smoker who says he will quit smoking for good.

He did not say anything about the percentages, he used to say that he was 97% retired in one tourney and 99 % retired in another.

Now I'm guessing he is 99.5% retired when he says this(deposit box and all) that makes us (and to the extent himself) believe it.

Once the WCCC is near or the improved hardware is available at his disposal or Vas has not found the way to improve Rybka further in a year time, he will be running all the way over in the middle of the night to the place where he hid the source code and retrieve it back and start coding right away.

last CCT we talked, I don't think he seems to be the kind of guy who would completely stop programming, infact he did talk a lot about programming technical stuffs, like contempt factor, he specifically claimed that future of comp chess is in contempt, he sounded like the guy who is curious enough to try out out all kind of ideas overnight.