IPCCC 6 participants so far (Paderborn) - Cancelled :(

[Harvey Williamson]

I received this email about a week ago sadly it seems this tournament is in danger

Dear Participants of the 18th IPCCC,

unfortunately only 6 teams joined our tournament so far (a current list is available on our website http://wwwcs.upb.de/~IPCCC/). Therefore, it seems as if we will not play the planned number of rounds (seven).

To maintain the occurrence of the IPCCC I suggest the following: If all participants who joined so far (you!) agree then we will begin the tournament one day later (i.e. Sunday 28th of December) and play a five rounds round robin tournament. If anyone disagrees then I will unfortunately be forced to cancel the tournament since it is unprobable that there will be any late-joiners.

Therefore, I kindly ask you to tell me whether you agree to play under these modified circumstances!

Best Regards,
Tobias

[Harvey Williamson]

Sadly this tournament is now cancelled The only + side is that Hiarcs will remain the champion for another year.

Dear participants of the 18th IPCCC,

unfortunately I have to announce that not all participants had an interest to play the tournament with a reduced number of players. Although I (of course) regret that the tournament will not take place now, I can fully understand the doubts.

Since all of you participated in 2007, too, and since we are interested in the survival of the tournament I'd like to ask you for some little help: If you have any idea what the reason for the little number of registrations this year might be - if not just chance -, please let me know.

Best regards,
Tobias

If anyone has any ideas post them here and I will pass them on.

[hgm]

I could imagine that tournaments where people are playing on their own hardware have little future, now that the harware gap is widening due to machines that allow efficient SMP. One or two lucky participants (usually those that software-wise are 400-500 Elo stronger than the engines you would have to attract to have abundant participation) can lay their hands on machines with 8, 40 or 1000 CPU cores. So what is the point for people with only 1 or 2 cores to participate?

[Harvey Williamson]

I could imagine that tournaments where people are playing on their own hardware have little future, now that the harware gap is widening due to machines that allow efficient SMP. One or two lucky participants (usually those that software-wise are 400-500 Elo stronger than the engines you would have to attract to have abundant participation) can lay their hands on machines with 8, 40 or 1000 CPU cores. So what is the point for people with only 1 or 2 cores to participate?

I think you are right. I do not favour uniform hardware but would be happy to agree to a sensible upper limit.

[Andre van Ark]

Hooooi,

The date when the tournament is planned looks also a bit silly between X-mas and new year.

I can imagine that it might be a reason why not a lot of players like to come.

And, off course, the domination of the fish

Best wishes,
André

[pijl]

The date when the tournament is planned looks also a bit silly between X-mas and new year.

I can imagine that it might be a reason why not a lot of players like to come.

This is the main reason why the Baron did not participate in the last editions, much to my regret as I always liked to play this tournament. But this is one of the few weeks of the year where playing a multi-day chess tournament is not appreciated at home, to put it mildly. I know this is true for more former participants.

And, off course, the domination of the fish

Was never a reason for me in the past with the 'domination' of Shredder or Hydra, and won't be a reason for me in the future either. There are many fun games to play besides the game against Rybka (which can be fun as well, with a bit of luck).

[George Tsavdaris]

I could imagine that tournaments where people are playing on their own hardware have little future, now that the harware gap is widening due to machines that allow efficient SMP. One or two lucky participants (usually those that software-wise are 400-500 Elo stronger than the engines you would have to attract to have abundant participation) can lay their hands on machines with 8, 40 or 1000 CPU cores. So what is the point for people with only 1 or 2 cores to participate?

I think you are right. I do not favour uniform hardware but would be happy to agree to a sensible upper limit.

I'm totally against any kind of restrictions(including hardware of course) for these tournaments, but the current situation has made tournaments very predictable. So i guess hardware restrictions have to be made.
The element of surprise has to come back. We didn't have any upsets in the last years(and i'm speaking about single games and not the tournament winner only).

Right now a QUAD computer is the best option for that kind of tournaments. Affordable by everyone and quick enough.

When you see the already much much much stronger(software) Rybka from Joker to run on 40 cores and Joker run on 1 single core, then this is too much. You have to wait 2-3 universe ages to see even a draw to occur! That's not interesting.....