ICGA's 2015 World Computer Chess Championship/Events

[Tord Romstad]

Wow, what a depressing thread. Every time I visit the CCC, I quickly remember why I no longer come here very often.

Anybody can get SF, modify it lightly (or not...?), and enter, as long as they recognize the other authors in the license. GPL allows to do that and the GPL gives explicit permission.

Yes, at the very least, I believe it would be technically legal. Whether it would be allowed by the ICGA's tournament rules is another question (I haven't studied the rules, and I have no desire to do so). However, if somebody decides to do this, I hope they will rename the engine -- even if changing that single text string is the only modification they do to the source code -- in order to show clearly that the engine is not entered by the official Stockfish team.

As to why I personally don't want Stockfish to participate: Although I had great fun in all the computer chess tournaments in which I have participated (twice in Mainz, and twice in Łódź), I have come to the sad conclusion that the negatives of the competitive side of computer chess far outweigh the positives. Competition is toxic to the community, as is evident from the current thread. Seeing people I respect and admire fight like they do in this discussion (and I am talking about all sides of the debate here) makes me depressed and disappointed.

From the outset, Glaurung/Stockfish has been an attempt to demonstrate that cooperation and openness can be just as effective as competition and secrecy in computer chess, while making the community friendlier and more welcoming. From the perspective of chess strength, it's been successful beyond my wildest dreams, but it has failed miserably at improving the community.

[APassionForCriminalJustic]

TCEC is not a tournament.

If this was true, then it seems I've misunderstood the term "tournament" for 33 years.

Please enlighten me on why you don't think TCEC is a tournament.
Is it because none of the programmers are actually physically present?

Best,
Martin

TCEC is not a tournament? These guys just do not give up. I thought that individuals like Bob would actually be clever. TCEC IS a tournament. Further, it is one million times better than the garbage that the ICGA runs. Just give it another ten years and this ICGA lie of a championship will be lost and forgotten since very few actually care about this phony stuff.

Being that you are an associate professor I would love to hear your educated justification as to how it is not a tournament (TCEC). And do not try to say that tournaments are only run over the board. ICC is now running OFFICIAL and RATED chess tournaments on their web server; they are affiliated with the USCF (www.chessclub.com/uscf). The Internet movement has arrived, and it is with certainty that the USCF recognizes this.

Speaking about tournaments - look at the sad, pathetic turnouts that these "official" ICGA tournaments have. It is no wonder Deep Junior is the ICGA's computer chess champion. Everything about these tournaments are wrong. I really do not get why people cannot just simply admit that the TCEC is the real tournament for determining who the WORLD computer chess engine champion is. I really don't get it.

Seeing how I have seen many Bob posts he will continue to defend his position right up until there is nothing left to defend. But Bob you are incorrect here. That is just the way that it is. Now go enjoy your amateur-ICGA 2015 tournament that very few care about - and one that produces phony WORLD champions.

in the with new, out with the old.

[APassionForCriminalJustic]

Kommodo 9 @ICGA but not Stockfish? How exciting... What do you think who will win?

Well, with the format of this tournament (1 game elimination), you never know. With a stroke of luck, maybe Pandix or Merlin could defeat Komodo. LOL.

One-game elimination? This tournament is sad. They make the computer-chess community look stupid.

[Michel]

Kommodo 9 @ICGA but not Stockfish? How exciting... What do you think who will win?

Well, with the format of this tournament (1 game elimination), you never know. With a stroke of luck, maybe Pandix or Merlin could defeat Komodo. LOL.

One-game elimination? This tournament is sad. They make the computer-chess community look stupid.

As was pointed out above this was another misrepresentation by Lucas.

[michiguel]

TCEC is not a tournament.

If this was true, then it seems I've misunderstood the term "tournament" for 33 years.

Please enlighten me on why you don't think TCEC is a tournament.
Is it because none of the programmers are actually physically present?

Best,
Martin

TCEC is not a tournament? These guys just do not give up. I thought that individuals like Bob would actually be clever. TCEC IS a tournament. Further, it is one million times better than the garbage that the ICGA runs. Just give it another ten years and this ICGA lie of a championship will be lost and forgotten since very few actually care about this phony stuff.

Being that you are an associate professor I would love to hear your educated justification as to how it is not a tournament (TCEC). And do not try to say that tournaments are only run over the board. ICC is now running OFFICIAL and RATED chess tournaments on their web server; they are affiliated with the USCF (www.chessclub.com/uscf). The Internet movement has arrived, and it is with certainty that the USCF recognizes this.

Speaking about tournaments - look at the sad, pathetic turnouts that these "official" ICGA tournaments have. It is no wonder Deep Junior is the ICGA's computer chess champion. Everything about these tournaments are wrong. I really do not get why people cannot just simply admit that the TCEC is the real tournament for determining who the WORLD computer chess engine champion is. I really don't get it.

Seeing how I have seen many Bob posts he will continue to defend his position right up until there is nothing left to defend. But Bob you are incorrect here. That is just the way that it is. Now go enjoy your amateur-ICGA 2015 tournament that very few care about - and one that produces phony WORLD champions.

in the with new, out with the old.

TCEC is not a World Championship by definition... It is not open to start with.

TCEC is the most prestigious tournament today, but most prestigious does not equal World Ch. It happens in many sports. Basketball is one of them, in which the Olympics are more prestigious than the W. Ch. Or Tennis, in which winning Wimbledon is better than anything else, even being #1. There is not even a World Championship. There is an Olympics, but nobody cares.

It is a pitty that there is no W. Ch. that is well respected today. But the problem is mostly because top engines do not participate. Then, the prestige goes down. In addition, ICGA tournament is a programers Ch. and TCEC is an engine tournament. That is also not the same.

Miguel

[mjlef]

Kommodo 9 @ICGA but not Stockfish? How exciting... What do you think who will win?

Komodo is far too strong for all of the other ICGA participants. It should win quite easily.

Since SF is a community efford, who exactly is entitled to decide whether SF should participate?

Anybody.

Anybody can get SF, modify it lightly (or not...?), and enter, as long as they recognize the other authors in the license. GPL allows to do that and the GPL gives explicit permission. At least, that is exactly what Tord said in this forum.

Miguel

To clarify, Larry and I have not yet decided if Komodo will attend. It is quite expensive and time consuming to go, and a 12 round tournament has error bars of something like +/- 188 elo, so a short match has a much greater chance of crowning the second or third strongest program than many people realize. The good side is it is fun to go and meet people in person, and I have loved going in the past.

Mark

[Modern Times]

To clarify, Larry and I have not yet decided if Komodo will attend. It is quite expensive and time consuming to go, and a 12 round tournament has error bars of something like +/- 188 elo, so a short match has a much greater chance of crowning the second or third strongest program than many people realize. The good side is it is fun to go and meet people in person, and I have loved going in the past.

Mark

And the opening book plays a huge part too.

[Ralph Stoesser]

SF shouldn't participate in any tournament because Tord Romstad feel depressed and thinks competition is bad. That's a very good reason. Marco comdemns ICGA from deapest heart so SF shouldn't participate. Another very good reason. Lucas is so upset about that tournament that he isn't even able to understand the rules anymore. Another very good reason. That really makes me smile. Some of the official developers seem to have some kind of psychological problems and try to abuse the community project SF as their hostage. We shouldn't allow them to do that.

[Rein Halbersma]

Theory->Prediction->Experiment->Refine theory

There is no theory before experiment in real world (physics, astronomy, biology, anything that you can pick), apart from very rare cases theoreticians always follows experimenters, the latter find something strange and unusual (many times by chance) and the firsts build or refine a theory out of it. Has always been like this and is still today like this, I could report hundreds of cases.

In general, you might be right. But there were some truly spectacular cases where theory predates discovery:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_Neptune
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_g ... relativity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson

[APassionForCriminalJustic]

I agree it would be fun to have the best engines competing. From my point of view SF should compete anywhere. Apart from the fun of competition it could only help to get more data about possible weaknesses. But how can it happen? It wouldn't be enough to find people willing to do the operator job and to provide the hardware setup. I don't think SF licence forbit anything about tournament participicion, but I assume ICGA would need an official request from SF developers to participate, which again raises the question who exactly that is since many people contributing to the project by code, testing and ideas. Is Marco or Lucas entitled to have a veto right against tournament participation? Why? Does it make sense? I fear it will not happen because it's not clear how exactly to proceed.

I'm still not clear what the ICGA rule is here (not that I care):

• HGM says anyone can go to Leiden and operate SF.
• You're saying the ICGA requires the engine authors to do it (there are many in the case of SF, but the most important ones are clearly Tord, Marco, Joona).

If someone wants to do that, they are free to do it. I have no right of "veto" over what other people want to do. People are free to do what they want, and the ICGA is free to allow them to come and operate SF (or to refuse and say that it's the engine authors that should come instead).

All I'm saying, is that the ICGA is a useless fossil, and we should not give them credit by participating in their ridiculous tournament. And we should also stop spreading the myth that we owe anything to the ICGA (for having supposedly invented the wheel before us). But I'm speaking for myself, and I'm sure you'll find lots of different opinion amongst the people who contributed to SF.

"All I'm saying, is that the ICGA is a useless fossil". Some of the things that you say is hilarious man. Hahahahahaha.