World Computer Chess Championship ?

[Rebel]

What DOES constitute cheating - and is indeed *illegal* in most countries - is reverse engineering closed-source engines to improve your own engine. Curiously enough, the authors of Critter and Komodo have no problem with that and actively pursue this course. Yet they are universally applauded by the same people that are very vocal in this thread about cheating (probably including you). Go figure...

Your complaint is quite funny. You surely must have heard that the source code you started with is the result of an illegal and punishable RE job itself. The so praised Revolution started with a punishable crime and those who have profit are all Rybkaians and should pay him royalties.

[Carotino]

Of course we would never have a ''real'' world champion, but at least, we would have a 100% original world champion.

I don't get this. The Tour de France is not a 'real' Tour de France because doped cyclists are not allowed to participate, and we all know they are way faster than those that ride clean. The Olympics are not 'real' Olympics because doped athletes are banned, and we all know Ben Johnson ran faster than anyone else...

What kind of logic is that?

If clones or derivates are allowed to to partecipate to the chess world championship we would have a ''real'' world champion, where for ''real'' is meant that the world champion is really the strongest engine in the world (clone or not).

This has nothing to do with what is right or wrong, what is legal or not, what is ethical or not.

Take an engine, copy almost all of it, change it in order to make it 50 elo stronger than original...someone could say that is right, legal, ethical but anyway its programmer has a huge advantage to the other 100% original engines' programmers.

In The Tour de France sometimes it's impossible to know who is doped and who's not because everybody knows that doping goes faster than antidoping and today we have cyclers of the past, never banned, who admit to have used doping in the past. Someone is accused to be doped and perhaps he's not. Someone else is not accused of anything and perhaps he's doped.

The same for any other sport.

The question is not ''real or not real'', because, every time that some of all competitors don't partecipate, it's hard to say ''real''.

The question is: how do i know if an engine or an athlete is ok?'' and ''How do i set the rules to allow or not allow an engine/athlete to the competions?''

Dear Maurizio, you have fully grasped the fundamental point. One point that I noticed, many people shy away carefully.

There is no reliable method, unless every competitor fails to deliver the source code to a "committee of wise men" ... Everything else is just speculation, which can also be driven by bad faith or personal interests.
With this, I do not think I have discovered the hot water...

[Houdini]

What DOES constitute cheating - and is indeed *illegal* in most countries - is reverse engineering closed-source engines to improve your own engine. Curiously enough, the authors of Critter and Komodo have no problem with that and actively pursue this course. Yet they are universally applauded by the same people that are very vocal in this thread about cheating (probably including you). Go figure...

Your complaint is quite funny. You surely must have heard that the source code you started with is the result of an illegal and punishable RE job itself. The so praised Revolution started with a punishable crime and those who have profit are all Rybkaians and should pay him royalties.

I was not involved in this illegal RE job you mention. All the information I used for creating Houdini is publicly and freely available to anyone looking for it. The reason Houdini is #1 since 18 months is entirely through my own ideas and improvements, not via any RE of other engines.

Does that make it "quite funny" when I complain about several notorious engine authors doing *publicly* the same thing to Houdini as what was universally condemned for Rybka? And they get applauded for it by the same people that so aggressively condemn the other rip-off?

Robert

[Carotino]

An example? Take the "Rybka affair". Personally, I have reached the same conclusions of the ICGA... Personally.
But when you issue a "judgment", the accusations should be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt". Well, when I read the "evidence" provided by the ICGA .... Brrr ... In my head were born many, many doubts!
Then I think: "Fortunately this is not a real court, or else... Poor citizens!"

[lkaufman]

I think that two separate issues are being combined here. One issue is whether a World Championship should be open to programs with copied code from other programs, or with an excessively high degree of similarity in choice of moves. I think it is quite proper to prohibit this, otherwise we would have 20 different Ippo derivates by different "authors" competing. The other issue is whether a tournament forfeits the right to call itself a World Championship if the best ELIGIBLE players chose not to participate. This is the exact situation we had with the FIDE World Championship for several years, while Kasparov and Kramnik claimed the title by historical precedent. The FIDE champion in some cases was quite far down the rating list, because the top players did not participate for various reasons. That one is a tougher call.
The last ICGA World Championship had none of the top few programs playing, but both Stockfish and Komodo chose not to play, while the others had their right to play subject to potential challenge, with varying degrees of validity. As Komodo MP was not ready, we have no basis to complain. I suppose for SF it was just a question of the costs. I suppose Rybka could have played by showing via source code that nothing remains of allegedly copied material in Rybka 1, but Vas understandably chose not to do so. So I don't see the WC as totally invalid, but I agree that unless at least a couple top programs enter, it shouldn't be taken very seriously. Just as Khalifman and Kasimdzhanov aren't considered champions on a par with Kasparov and Anand.

[Sven]

What DOES constitute cheating - and is indeed *illegal* in most countries - is reverse engineering closed-source engines to improve your own engine. Curiously enough, the authors of Critter and Komodo have no problem with that and actively pursue this course. Yet they are universally applauded by the same people that are very vocal in this thread about cheating (probably including you). Go figure...

Your complaint is quite funny. You surely must have heard that the source code you started with is the result of an illegal and punishable RE job itself. The so praised Revolution started with a punishable crime and those who have profit are all Rybkaians and should pay him royalties.

I was not involved in this illegal RE job you mention. All the information I used for creating Houdini is publicly and freely available to anyone looking for it. The reason Houdini is #1 since 18 months is entirely through my own ideas and improvements, not via any RE of other engines.

Have you ever considered that publishing the result of an illegal RE job (which is how many people think about the creation of Ippolit) might also imply that such information is not "publicly and freely available to anyone" since the original rights owner (which would be Vasik Rajlich in this case) does not lose his rights through the illegal action?

With your reply to Ed you show the same behaviour as many times before: you avoid to stay on topic when someone mentions a critical issue about your engine, and switch to standard replies instead. The reader of Ed's post, including yourself, saw his statement "the source code you started with is the result of an illegal and punishable RE job", and usually one would have expected a reply close to that specific point but you replied that you were "not involved in this illegal RE job" which is of course a non-topic and turns your whole reply into an empty statement.

Sven

[MM]

What DOES constitute cheating - and is indeed *illegal* in most countries - is reverse engineering closed-source engines to improve your own engine. Curiously enough, the authors of Critter and Komodo have no problem with that and actively pursue this course. Yet they are universally applauded by the same people that are very vocal in this thread about cheating (probably including you). Go figure...

Your complaint is quite funny. You surely must have heard that the source code you started with is the result of an illegal and punishable RE job itself. The so praised Revolution started with a punishable crime and those who have profit are all Rybkaians and should pay him royalties.

I was not involved in this illegal RE job you mention. All the information I used for creating Houdini is publicly and freely available to anyone looking for it. The reason Houdini is #1 since 18 months is entirely through my own ideas and improvements, not via any RE of other engines.

The reader of Ed's post, including yourself, saw his statement "the source code you started with is the result of an illegal and punishable RE job", and usually one would have expected a reply close to that specific point but you replied that you were "not involved in this illegal RE job" which is of course a non-topic and turns your whole reply into an empty statement.

Sven

+1

[Houdini]

I was not involved in this illegal RE job you mention. All the information I used for creating Houdini is publicly and freely available to anyone looking for it. The reason Houdini is #1 since 18 months is entirely through my own ideas and improvements, not via any RE of other engines.

Have you ever considered that publishing the result of an illegal RE job (which is how many people think about the creation of Ippolit) might also imply that such information is not "publicly and freely available to anyone" since the original rights owner (which would be Vasik Rajlich in this case) does not lose his rights through the illegal action?

These sources have now effectively become public domain, ALL top engine authors use them: Houdini, Critter, Komodo and even Stockfish (see the latest pawn shelter/storm code)!
There's nothing I can do to revert this situation.

With your reply to Ed you show the same behaviour as many times before: you avoid to stay on topic when someone mentions a critical issue about your engine, and switch to standard replies instead. The reader of Ed's post, including yourself, saw his statement "the source code you started with is the result of an illegal and punishable RE job", and usually one would have expected a reply close to that specific point but you replied that you were "not involved in this illegal RE job" which is of course a non-topic and turns your whole reply into an empty statement.

Sven

I really don't see what it is exactly that you want me to say.
Again:
- The reason Houdini is #1 is because of original work, not because of RE of other engines.
- The allegedly illegal actions that resulted in these sources do not constitute any justification for the RE of Houdini.

Robert

[syzygy]

In tennis they put a lot of weight on rankings even though they have the 4 grand slam tournaments. There is no world champion or progressive system for working your way up to some final victory. Of the 4 grand slam events I believe most people consider Wimbledon the premiere one, and commentators have sometimes hyped it as being the defacto world championship, but that is nonsense since any of the grand slam events are sometimes won by surprising under-dogs. I remember Pat Cash beating Lendl to win the tournament way back in 1987 when Lendl was the undisputed best player in the world and Pat Cash was good but nothing special - he was something like the 10th or 11th seed - not the guy anyone would have picked to win the tournament and especially not the guy anyone would have considered the "top" player.

It's normal that the "world champion" may not be the undisputed best player, because there is always some luck involved in winning a tournament. What most people would like to see in a World Championship though, is that the best players or the best teams compete.

There was a period in which the Grand Slams did not accept tennis players who had turned pro. Of course they had all right to do so. However, in the end they had no choice but to adjust to modern times.

[IanO]

I would also prefer that the ICGA call the current event the "Computer Chess Olympiad", as it is not really a world championship any longer. In its current quaint format (moves made by people on a physical board!) it is suitable as a social event for academics, just like the other Computer Olympiad events, and the oldies tournaments for dedicated computer enthusiasts.

However, the state of the art in computer chess has moved from commercial and academia to the amateur, and the championship format should reflect that. I propose the formation of a new world championship organization, run by the programmers and tasked with organizing an annual online tournament, similar in format to the other online tournaments. This would require neither an expensive venue, nor travel from the participants, so costs should be low.