Is Rybka being Handicaped?

[Rolf]

I see this word "Handicap" being used often. The following are two quotes from a user on the Hiarcs forum and another from the Rybka forum.

It will have the added benefit of allowing them to compete effectively in non-handicap tournaments.

I assume there would be more participants without an handicap

There are many statements here and even on the Rybka forum that imply that people are trying to Handicap Rybka, where you see statements that use the word "Handicap"

To "Handicap" means to place at a disadvantage. So please explain how any advantage or disadvantage is being imposed when everyone has to play by the same rules. I don't see any one player being singled out here. I really like definition 2a. Does playing by the rules makes achievement unusually difficult for Rybka? I think we all know the the answer to this question is no.

Here is the Merriam-Webster Online definition.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/handicap

1 a: a race or contest in which an artificial advantage is given or disadvantage imposed on a contestant to equalize chances of winning b: an advantage given or disadvantage imposed usually in the form of points, strokes, weight to be carried, or distance from the target or goal

2 a: a disadvantage that makes achievement unusually difficult b sometimes offensive : a physical disability

Here is one answer to your question. I have no idea of how Rybka scales, either on a normal SMP machine or on a cluster, although for the cluster, based on discussions with Vas, I have a pretty good guestimate.

So how does someone "handicap" Rybka compared to others? If several have a really lousy parallel search, then they would willingly give it up if they could make _everyone_ give it up, since they are giving up "less" since theirs does not work so well.

That's been a continual theme for 40 years now. I can't do "that" while you "can" so I think nobody should be able to do "that" (whatever "that" is at the time, whether it be endgame tables, parallel search, using a cluster, using a huge custom-written book, or whatever).

Hi Bob,

I swear, your answers always give me such deeper insight into these issues.

Thanks much for your reply.

that's my job.

It isn't always about "hurting someone" as much as it is hurting everyone where you hurt yourself "less".

Just for a good debate let me give the role of the advocatus diaboli. The answer to the original question is of course RYBKA is being handicapped by rules and ugly opposition through unethical doubts.

As to the question of parallel processing, it's perhaps important to recall something you once had elaborated to me after I had asked you.

You said something along the line, I recall by heart, that you had the big irons for very long but that now you were as satisfied with less. Because the times with the difficult asking for calculation time wasnt always funny and it caused stress because often you had to change things on the fly. But then we all know that you were very successful with that problem because you became Wch two times. You with two others in a team. Ok, this is what I simply add as the evident.

Before that background it's absolutely strange and spooky why today after such a brilliant programmer and good chessplayer like Vas has appeared and his program leads all rankings and he wins all titles and tournaments you cant just sit back and admire the talents of this man but here and there and almost everywhere you lead a campaign against this man and his program.

Why do you do that. Ok, if I am wrong then excuse me but it's IMO the case.

Vas must have found certain programming tricks and now he also succeeded with the multi processors better than all others. Suddenly the ICGA make new rules and invent a limitation to 8 cores or what this is called.

What is your position here? Are the rules tweaked as long as the point has been found where JUNIOR or FRITZ are again winning the tournaments, nt to speak of Shredder or Jonny??

I miss also a declaration signed by Bob, that states that after many months and years the examination group of 5 eager students couldnt find the proof that Rybka and Vas are somewhat, well, vilating something you think is worth while respected, that this group couldnt find anything. Period.

Why do you avoid such a proclamation??

So, other then most here, who are all deep experts, I ask you simple things from social living, to examine how people are behaving in this field of computerchess. Is there someone behind all others who is judge, expert and police, and newspaper agent, all in one who cant be questioned by reasonable people? I mean is it a sort of dictatorship or is computerchess still a sort of democratic event where logical thoughts are ruling and not suppositions and envy(?) or whatever?

I mean it is clear and evident too that also by the ICGA officials RYBKA is handicapped. See the case two years ago.

As a lay in computer sciences I wished to read more from you about the limitation and the rules of that field for new talents and such unique masters like Rybka and its creator. You always in the role as expert with ancient merits who told officials what they should make rules wise. You had the authority. Why donbt you make use of it???

But instead you seem IMO to lose that grip and make helpless jokes as if nobody could stop negative trends and wrong officials who think that they have eaten the wisdom and as if they had been Champions of the World like you. I mean, somethibng is wrong here. Instead that you argue with all your knowledge, you comment what others decided against all reason IMO.

I could be all wrong but I hope that you get what I wished to see. Do something with your experience before dickheads lead the computerchess boat into heavy storms without rescue szúits and perspectives for the younger newcomers.

Tell them that limitations are the venom for the future in this field. You have been there, you've done that before all others here around incl the famous officials and Presidents!

Do support Rybka and the talent of a genius in this case here and in case of potentially new entries in future. Act before it's too late.

Thank you..

[bob]

I see this word "Handicap" being used often. The following are two quotes from a user on the Hiarcs forum and another from the Rybka forum.

It will have the added benefit of allowing them to compete effectively in non-handicap tournaments.

I assume there would be more participants without an handicap

There are many statements here and even on the Rybka forum that imply that people are trying to Handicap Rybka, where you see statements that use the word "Handicap"

To "Handicap" means to place at a disadvantage. So please explain how any advantage or disadvantage is being imposed when everyone has to play by the same rules. I don't see any one player being singled out here. I really like definition 2a. Does playing by the rules makes achievement unusually difficult for Rybka? I think we all know the the answer to this question is no.

Here is the Merriam-Webster Online definition.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/handicap

1 a: a race or contest in which an artificial advantage is given or disadvantage imposed on a contestant to equalize chances of winning b: an advantage given or disadvantage imposed usually in the form of points, strokes, weight to be carried, or distance from the target or goal

2 a: a disadvantage that makes achievement unusually difficult b sometimes offensive : a physical disability

Here is one answer to your question. I have no idea of how Rybka scales, either on a normal SMP machine or on a cluster, although for the cluster, based on discussions with Vas, I have a pretty good guestimate.

So how does someone "handicap" Rybka compared to others? If several have a really lousy parallel search, then they would willingly give it up if they could make _everyone_ give it up, since they are giving up "less" since theirs does not work so well.

That's been a continual theme for 40 years now. I can't do "that" while you "can" so I think nobody should be able to do "that" (whatever "that" is at the time, whether it be endgame tables, parallel search, using a cluster, using a huge custom-written book, or whatever).

Hi Bob,

I swear, your answers always give me such deeper insight into these issues.

Thanks much for your reply.

that's my job.

It isn't always about "hurting someone" as much as it is hurting everyone where you hurt yourself "less".

Just for a good debate let me give the role of the advocatus diaboli. The answer to the original question is of course RYBKA is being handicapped by rules and ugly opposition through unethical doubts.

As to the question of parallel processing, it's perhaps important to recall something you once had elaborated to me after I had asked you.

You said something along the line, I recall by heart, that you had the big irons for very long but that now you were as satisfied with less. Because the times with the difficult asking for calculation time wasnt always funny and it caused stress because often you had to change things on the fly. But then we all know that you were very successful with that problem because you became Wch two times. You with two others in a team. Ok, this is what I simply add as the evident.

Before that background it's absolutely strange and spooky why today after such a brilliant programmer and good chessplayer like Vas has appeared and his program leads all rankings and he wins all titles and tournaments you cant just sit back and admire the talents of this man but here and there and almost everywhere you lead a campaign against this man and his program.

First, your conclusion is flawed. And even worse is based on a flawed premis. You seem to suggest that it is _success_ that is leading to the conclusion that we/I don't like him? If so, how do you justify the fact that for years, Slate beat me, then along came Ken Thompson, then it was our turn for a few years, then along came Hsu. Yet even today I still consider Dave, Ken and Hsu/etc to be good friends, even though since 1988 on I could not beat Hsu, and prior to 1981 I could not beat Belle/Chess 4.x

It seems pretty obvious to me that success is not at the root of _my_ problem with Rybka. Had Vas originally said "of course I started with source from Fruit, and then modified it significantly with new ideas..." But he didn't. And the evidence is quite overwhelming that this is what was done, whether he has admitted it or not.

That is the only issue I have with Rybka. Never bothered me that Shredder was winning all events a few years ago. Ditto for Junior. So your conclusion is simply flawed from the beginning. It has nothing to do with success. It has everything to do with honesty. Nothing more, nothing less.

Why do you do that. Ok, if I am wrong then excuse me but it's IMO the case.

See above.

Vas must have found certain programming tricks and now he also succeeded with the multi processors better than all others. Suddenly the ICGA make new rules and invent a limitation to 8 cores or what this is called.

Another invalid conclusion. No one has ever posted any parallel search data from Rybka showing that "he also succeeded with the multi processors better than all others.". In fact, they have consistently refused to produce _any_ cluster timing data. Even going so far as the pathetic argument "the cluster is for playing games, not test positions."

What is your position here? Are the rules tweaked as long as the point has been found where JUNIOR or FRITZ are again winning the tournaments, nt to speak of Shredder or Jonny??

Why do you even need to ask this? I have been out-spoken against those stupid hardware restrictions since David announced them. I have sent emails. I have written dozens of posts here. My position is clear. This rule was stupid, poorly thought out, and had no basis to justify it being created at the last minute.

I miss also a declaration signed by Bob, that states that after many months and years the examination group of 5 eager students couldnt find the proof that Rybka and Vas are somewhat, well, vilating something you think is worth while respected, that this group couldnt find anything. Period.

From what I have seen to this point, there is no doubt that Rybka came from Fruit. Absolutely no doubt. Certainly he has found some new ideas. No argument there at all. But it _definitely_ came from Fruit. One will not, own his own, develop the same program structure, the same programming quirks, the same piece/square tables, etc. It just doesn't happen.

Why do you avoid such a proclamation??

Perhaps because it would not be true?

So, other then most here, who are all deep experts, I ask you simple things from social living, to examine how people are behaving in this field of computerchess. Is there someone behind all others who is judge, expert and police, and newspaper agent, all in one who cant be questioned by reasonable people? I mean is it a sort of dictatorship or is computerchess still a sort of democratic event where logical thoughts are ruling and not suppositions and envy(?) or whatever?

I mean it is clear and evident too that also by the ICGA officials RYBKA is handicapped. See the case two years ago.

What case 2 years ago?

As a lay in computer sciences I wished to read more from you about the limitation and the rules of that field for new talents and such unique masters like Rybka and its creator. You always in the role as expert with ancient merits who told officials what they should make rules wise. You had the authority. Why donbt you make use of it???

But instead you seem IMO to lose that grip and make helpless jokes as if nobody could stop negative trends and wrong officials who think that they have eaten the wisdom and as if they had been Champions of the World like you. I mean, somethibng is wrong here. Instead that you argue with all your knowledge, you comment what others decided against all reason IMO.

I could be all wrong but I hope that you get what I wished to see. Do something with your experience before dickheads lead the computerchess boat into heavy storms without rescue szúits and perspectives for the younger newcomers.

Tell them that limitations are the venom for the future in this field. You have been there, you've done that before all others here around incl the famous officials and Presidents!

Do support Rybka and the talent of a genius in this case here and in case of potentially new entries in future. Act before it's too late.

Thank you..

[Rolf]

The case when Levy preferred to let JUNIOR play in Elista and not RYBKA. Ok, later RYBKA played in Mexico in return.

Let me thank you for your answers and this is perhaps the maximum what someone like me could expect to get at all. Thanks for the absebce of all disturbing expressions.

If I summarize the different topics, rehash the possible points of critics and then put this against the fact that Vas is commercial and not academically just experimenting or researching, that he wants to keep his advantage for the benefit of his family, and especially before the scene in which we never saw commercial guys reveil their secrets - or did you ever really understand why SHREDDER always won the tournaments - then you seriously cant accuse Vas on the sector of honesty because everything he could tell you would cause a negative consequence for his own business.

You started your answer with the memories of all your competitors who are still your friends today and you ask why this isnt the same with Vas. That's an easy one. It's because you before were in a race in research so to speak without a direct impact on the wellness of your families other than academic titless self-understood and you are still profiting from that. Look, your career starting with the dissertation was only possible with the support of the hardware company because otherwise you wouldnt have had something to test in parallelism at all. So there you go. Your dissertation wasnt in danger through your communication with the others during tournaments and else.

But for Vas the situation is different. He has some secrets to protect because if others get them, in special the commercial competition they would work on the same secrets and his advantage could be gone. All with my general ignorance because I dont even know if Vas has any secrets at all. But otherwise I couldnt explain his steps.

What I want to beg you is to realise that you just cant condemn the guy with the argument that you had been different and all the buddies too. Yes, but that was academical codex only here we are in the all too small CC business. Isnt it?

Look, Bob, I must correct myself. In your answer you still used a slip of speech which is the core of the actual conflict. You prejudge someone who simply cant talk about his details in self-defense because he would hurt his business. But still you insinbuate lack of honesty like Theron did it longer ago. That is exactly what had caused my distaste. Ethics wise.

What you expect is too much to give and to expect to be given by a commercial guy. But this is not a case of lack of honesty but a case of business secrets. Shredder, Fritz all others do the same. Did you send theories about their honesty too?

Then to the proclamation of admission to state that you had not found the exact proof.

You answer that such a statement is impossible to give because it's just not true.

But I oppose and say something else. We are not debating here about the last and real truth but we discuss what you could maximally get after months and years of research. And then to simply stating that this long time didnt give the expected results and that now people should enjoy other topics again and then leaving aside that topic for such a forum here. That is what I would hope for. That would have a healing effect if you declared it. Privately, research-wise, Bob, you could still think what you think is the best to think. But the difference I see is that you no longer belong to a sort of pressure group in a topic where you are not willing and not able to enforce another result. And all that with respect to the human dignity of the other guy. So, as expert, you close a chapter, which is still theoretically open in the sense of science but this is likewise true for all other commercial guys on the scene. And they must not read the constant besmir activities against their honor IMO.

Please Bob give it a try and do it for the general benefits for our community. Just make that cut. Out of general justice considerations.

[bob]

The case when Levy preferred to let JUNIOR play in Elista and not RYBKA. Ok, later RYBKA played in Mexico in return.

Let me thank you for your answers and this is perhaps the maximum what someone like me could expect to get at all. Thanks for the absebce of all disturbing expressions.

If I summarize the different topics, rehash the possible points of critics and then put this against the fact that Vas is commercial and not academically just experimenting or researching, that he wants to keep his advantage for the benefit of his family, and especially before the scene in which we never saw commercial guys reveil their secrets - or did you ever really understand why SHREDDER always won the tournaments - then you seriously cant accuse Vas on the sector of honesty because everything he could tell you would cause a negative consequence for his own business.

As woth all things in computer chess, the truth ultimately gets out. In the case of Shredder, it was aggressive forward pruning, which we are all doing today under the label LMR.

You started your answer with the memories of all your competitors who are still your friends today and you ask why this isnt the same with Vas. That's an easy one. It's because you before were in a race in research so to speak without a direct impact on the wellness of your families other than academic titless self-understood and you are still profiting from that. Look, your career starting with the dissertation was only possible with the support of the hardware company because otherwise you wouldnt have had something to test in parallelism at all. So there you go. Your dissertation wasnt in danger through your communication with the others during tournaments and else.

This was never about my "dissertation". When I was competing with Dave/Ken/Hsu, I had no idea at the time that I would one day be working on a PhD. Then when my wife and I made the decision to pursue a PhD, I was _still_ competing with them, and it made no difference after, either. When Cray was supporting me with machine time, it made no difference. Before Cray was supporting me, it still made no difference. And I haven't used a Cray on this project since late 1994, and it _still_ has made no difference in how I get along with my competition. But there was one difference. Hsu made it known that the first chiptest/deep thought chip was "belle on a chip" and he explained the innovations he had to develop on his own, to go with Ken's original finite-state-machine implementation, in order to get the thing to fit on a single chip as available in 1987. We all knew who was doing what, and we gave credit where credit was due, and we didn't borrow code from someone and fail to mention this, much less borrow code from someone and then deny it completely.

But for Vas the situation is different. He has some secrets to protect because if others get them, in special the commercial competition they would work on the same secrets and his advantage could be gone. All with my general ignorance because I dont even know if Vas has any secrets at all. But otherwise I couldnt explain his steps.

What I want to beg you is to realise that you just cant condemn the guy with the argument that you had been different and all the buddies too. Yes, but that was academical codex only here we are in the all too small CC business. Isnt it?

I don't follow. Dave Kittinger and I used to discuss ideas all the time, even at a point where he was doing commercial chess programs. I talked with the Spracklens regularly, while they were developing commercial engines. So I am not sure that commercial interests are the issue since I have worked around those in the past on multiple occasions.

Look, Bob, I must correct myself. In your answer you still used a slip of speech which is the core of the actual conflict. You prejudge someone who simply cant talk about his details in self-defense because he would hurt his business. But still you insinbuate lack of honesty like Theron did it longer ago. That is exactly what had caused my distaste. Ethics wise.

He could have said "I started with the code from Fruit, I modified it in significant ways to that only the basic "structure" remains while I have a completely new evaluation and have implemented some search ideas no one else has (apparently) thought about so far. So yes, my program was derived from Fruit, but it is significantly different (and stronger)."

But that can't be written because of the GPL. So he has a problem. And he hopes it will just die and go away. And it might well do so. I'm convinced I know what happened. And to me, that's all that is important. An advantage in computer chess is only good as long as it remains secret. This will eventually be discovered, and CC will go on its way.

I simply don't like the idea of copying code.

What you expect is too much to give and to expect to be given by a commercial guy. But this is not a case of lack of honesty but a case of business secrets. Shredder, Fritz all others do the same. Did you send theories about their honesty too?

Nope. But at the time there were no strong open-source programs available they could have started from. Personally, I believe we have only seen the tip of the iceberg with respect to this sort of plagiarism. Too many new and very strong programs, in some cases from authors that appear to not even understand basic programming techniques. Those too will one day come to light.

Then to the proclamation of admission to state that you had not found the exact proof.

You answer that such a statement is impossible to give because it's just not true.

There is no doubt that Rybka 1 came from fruit. The evidence is simply overwhelming. Nobody is interested in doing the same analysis for Rybka 2 and 3, because there is little point. But there is no doubt in my mind. Nor in lots of others.

But I oppose and say something else. We are not debating here about the last and real truth but we discuss what you could maximally get after months and years of research. And then to simply stating that this long time didnt give the expected results and that now people should enjoy other topics again and then leaving aside that topic for such a forum here. That is what I would hope for. That would have a healing effect if you declared it. Privately, research-wise, Bob, you could still think what you think is the best to think. But the difference I see is that you no longer belong to a sort of pressure group in a topic where you are not willing and not able to enforce another result. And all that with respect to the human dignity of the other guy. So, as expert, you close a chapter, which is still theoretically open in the sense of science but this is likewise true for all other commercial guys on the scene. And they must not read the constant besmir activities against their honor IMO.

There I do not know what you are talking about. There are way too many similarities between strelka and fruit. And we know that Strelka came directly from Rybka 1, via reverse-engineering. Vas has made that statement himself. So the connection is there, and there are only two dots one has to follow, one from rybka 1 to strelka, and one from strelka to fruit. Too many similarities. Piece/square tables where there are 6 arrays of 64 values each. How probable is it that two programmers come up with the same 6 x 64 values? Same for various program structures, procedure names, etc. There is simply no doubt.

Please Bob give it a try and do it for the general benefits for our community. Just make that cut. Out of general justice considerations.

Give _what_ a try? Do _what_ for the general benefit???

[Ryan Benitez]

There I do not know what you are talking about. There are way too many similarities between strelka and fruit. And we know that Strelka came directly from Rybka 1, via reverse-engineering. Vas has made that statement himself. So the connection is there, and there are only two dots one has to follow, one from rybka 1 to strelka, and one from strelka to fruit. Too many similarities. Piece/square tables where there are 6 arrays of 64 values each. How probable is it that two programmers come up with the same 6 x 64 values? Same for various program structures, procedure names, etc. There is simply no doubt.

I doubt that PST values or any other values are covered by the GPL. At this point a better case for Crafty code being used can be made than Fruit code. It is far too easy to replicate Fruit in original code. The Crafty like parts would take longer and I have no idea why someone would want to emulate such a complex engine. I am sure there are good reasons I just don't know them. Still I do not have enough proof to say that it is a Crafty clone, just that it is more likely based on Crafty with some Fruit ideas and more aggressive pruning than a Fruit clone. Also notice that Rybka uses LMR based on game stage and move number not history table values.

[bob]

There I do not know what you are talking about. There are way too many similarities between strelka and fruit. And we know that Strelka came directly from Rybka 1, via reverse-engineering. Vas has made that statement himself. So the connection is there, and there are only two dots one has to follow, one from rybka 1 to strelka, and one from strelka to fruit. Too many similarities. Piece/square tables where there are 6 arrays of 64 values each. How probable is it that two programmers come up with the same 6 x 64 values? Same for various program structures, procedure names, etc. There is simply no doubt.

I doubt that PST values or any other values are covered by the GPL. At this point a better case for Crafty code being used can be made than Fruit code. It is far too easy to replicate Fruit in original code. The Crafty like parts would take longer and I have no idea why someone would want to emulate such a complex engine. I am sure there are good reasons I just don't know them. Still I do not have enough proof to say that it is a Crafty clone, just that it is more likely based on Crafty with some Fruit ideas and more aggressive pruning than a Fruit clone. Also notice that Rybka uses LMR based on game stage and move number not history table values.

The issue is that if the PST values are copied, there are almost certainly _other_ pieces of code that were copied. And while PST _values_ are not protected by the GPL, the _code_ certainly is. In lookint at the code when this discussion was going on, I didn't see anything that looked like crafty code. While the base structure of strelka matches fruit _exactly_. Including oddities like longjmp(), and do_parse() stuff and such...

As far as LMR, I am sure we have all greatly diverged from the history counter idea which didn't work worth a flip. I even tested a big range of values for Fruit's history pruning threshold and found it made nothing but random differences, no strength influence at all until you went far enough to effectively disable "history pruning" at all.

But look at strelka source. Compare it to fruit source. The similarities are startling. And we know where Strelka came from...

[Ryan Benitez]

There I do not know what you are talking about. There are way too many similarities between strelka and fruit. And we know that Strelka came directly from Rybka 1, via reverse-engineering. Vas has made that statement himself. So the connection is there, and there are only two dots one has to follow, one from rybka 1 to strelka, and one from strelka to fruit. Too many similarities. Piece/square tables where there are 6 arrays of 64 values each. How probable is it that two programmers come up with the same 6 x 64 values? Same for various program structures, procedure names, etc. There is simply no doubt.

I doubt that PST values or any other values are covered by the GPL. At this point a better case for Crafty code being used can be made than Fruit code. It is far too easy to replicate Fruit in original code. The Crafty like parts would take longer and I have no idea why someone would want to emulate such a complex engine. I am sure there are good reasons I just don't know them. Still I do not have enough proof to say that it is a Crafty clone, just that it is more likely based on Crafty with some Fruit ideas and more aggressive pruning than a Fruit clone. Also notice that Rybka uses LMR based on game stage and move number not history table values.

The issue is that if the PST values are copied, there are almost certainly _other_ pieces of code that were copied. And while PST _values_ are not protected by the GPL, the _code_ certainly is. In lookint at the code when this discussion was going on, I didn't see anything that looked like crafty code. While the base structure of strelka matches fruit _exactly_. Including oddities like longjmp(), and do_parse() stuff and such...

As far as LMR, I am sure we have all greatly diverged from the history counter idea which didn't work worth a flip. I even tested a big range of values for Fruit's history pruning threshold and found it made nothing but random differences, no strength influence at all until you went far enough to effectively disable "history pruning" at all.

But look at strelka source. Compare it to fruit source. The similarities are startling. And we know where Strelka came from...

Strelka is not a perfect clone so it is hard to know what was taken from Fruit that was not needed to replicate Rybka. I trust Code Analyst over any Rybka clone attempt and I don't see enough proof to know if Rybka uses any GPL code or not.

[hgm]

If jealousy was the reason for the rule then the people who suggested it did a bad jon because I believe that they only increased rybka's chances to win.

This is the key point. The rules where changed in a way that greatly increased the probability that Rybka would win.

So how can that be described as 'handicapping' or 'penalizing' Rybka? That seems silly in the extreme...

[Spock]

So how can that be described as 'handicapping' or 'penalizing' Rybka? That seems silly in the extreme...

Not at all. It penalised the forward thinking and progressive engine authors by denying them the opportunity to showcase their efforts and skills, in this case cluster programming. OK for WCCC there was an open tournament as well, so they *did* get the chance, just not for the official WCCC title, but for Leiden for example, there is no such open tournament. So by setting a hardware limit you are denying them the opportunity to display their skills. It is like saying, "hey, you've spent a lot of time proramming a cluster implementation, but no-one else has been as done it, so we won't let you use it". An important principle, in this case it is cluster technology, but what if it was something else ? A very slippery slope, trying to bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator. Heck, maybe next year they will allow one core only, because Joker is not SMP, Ktulu if it competed is not, neither is say Onno. I don't see how the argument differs. Most people would throw their arms up in the air about this - a 1 core limit - but compare to an 8 core limit, they are both limits on cores, how is it different ? In principle it isn't. And don't tell me the 8-core limit was imposed as a hardware affordability thing with £5,000 W5580 machines being used.

[AdminX]

So how can that be described as 'handicapping' or 'penalizing' Rybka? That seems silly in the extreme...

Not at all. It penalised the forward thinking and progressive engine authors by denying them the opportunity to showcase their efforts and skills, in this case cluster programming. OK for WCCC there was an open tournament as well, so they *did* get the chance, just not for the official WCCC title, but for Leiden for example, there is no such open tournament. So by setting a hardware limit you are denying them the opportunity to display their skills. It is like saying, "hey, you've spent a lot of time proramming a cluster implementation, but no-one else has been as done it, so we won't let you use it". An important principle, in this case it is cluster technology, but what if it was something else ? A very slippery slope, trying to bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator. Heck, maybe next year they will allow one core only, because Joker is not SMP, Ktulu if it competed is not, neither is say Onno. I don't see how the argument differs. Most people would throw their arms up in the air about this - a 1 core limit - but compare to an 8 core limit, they are both limits on cores, how is it different ? In principle it isn't. And don't tell me the 8-core limit was imposed as a hardware affordability thing with £5,000 W5580 machines being used.

What can I say, other than I agree with you!