The Fate of Future WCCC's..??

[Harvey Williamson]

So a few weak-kneed developers who want to restrict hardware because they either don't have the necessary skill, or else don't want to expend the effort, should have the say-so for an event that has 30+ years of history? It is not a "world championship" if the best players in the world don't compete. It is something less. Change the name to "uniform platform world computer chess championship" and be done with it. At least most will know that there are _strong_ players around that just were not allowed to compete. Or else get off the stick and do the development work rather than trying to propose rules that penalize those that do, to gain an advantage for those that do not.

It really is that simple...

This event is a _lot_ bigger than just a couple of lazy programming teams. It has 35 years of history behind it that should _not_ be undone. The old WMCCC events were limited hardware. The WCCCs never were. Go back to the WMCCC event if you insist on uniform hardware and let the WCCC mean that the strongest computer chess players available are allowed to play.

Unfortunately, commercial software authors whose engines are weaker than Rybka (and that is all of them actually) may be tempted to try to reduce Rybka's advantage as much as they can, for obvious monetary reasons. Most do not. With the WCCC being played with so few games, upsets can happen, and the temptation is definitely there to handicap Rybka as much as possible so as to be ready to take an advantage of any surprises. Most do not, most are sporting.

It is clear we need two events to try and keep most people happy. A WMCCC event for uniform hardware, and WCCC being unlimited, completely open. And it is also my view that the "World Champion" title should apply to the open, unlimited tournament and not the restricted one. The audience want to see the highest quality chess possible, and that is what something like Cluster Rybka gives.

You are right about the monetary reasons I doubt any can afford Rybkas Cluster unless they have access to University hardware and have an academic project. Whatever the World Championship is about it is certainly not all about Rybka. I found on the Rybka forum by looking back in the archives to the Amsterdam tournament when others had Clusters and Rybka did not that the fanboys said Clusters = bad/unfair on Rybka.

Say a commercial program lets use Zappa as an eg. - it wins WCCC on fast 64bit hardware. When it won 3 or 4 years ago people said wow I must have that engine - they bought it and found on their single 32bit machines it was only mediocre - weaker than Junior and Shredder who also competed that year. Is this fair to customers/spectators & sponsors?

No, it shows stupidity. Do you believe that the Ford you see in a nascar race will provide the same performance as a ford you buy at a local Ford dealer? Hardly anybody is that stupid. If they are, that really is their problem...

Well - I wish Computer Chess worked like that. Everyone who owns a car has heard of Ford - they probably even know where their local dealer is. The one time people outside of these forums, possibly, gets to hear about Computer chess is the World Championship. So I can not blame people not in the know for wanting to own the winner thinking that it will be the best on their machine.

[Harvey Williamson]

Say a commercial program lets use Zappa as an eg. - it wins WCCC on fast 64bit hardware. When it won 3 or 4 years ago people said wow I must have that engine - they bought it and found on their single 32bit machines it was only mediocre - weaker than Junior and Shredder who also competed that year. Is this fair to customers/spectators & sponsors?

Can you tell me exactly the names of the people who bought Zappa directly as a result of that tournament, and ran it on their single CPU 32-bit machine and then complained ?
And anyway, an intelligent sensible person is unlikely in my view to use the result of one tournament as their sole point of reference for their purchasing decision. If they do, then they have only themselves to blame.

That is quite funny - you could say the exact same thing about the unaffordable for most W5580 machines that played in WCCC Forget clusters, 99% people could only dream about a W5580. A cluster of multiple Quad Core Intel boxes for example would be cheaper than the W5580, as pointed out many times by other people here

I know that as Zappa was an American program sales were huge, in the USA, after it won and the complaints followed soon after.

Huge = maybe total sales of 500 copies at best???

People keep using this Cluster is cheaper argument. But people do not turn up to tournaments with cheap Clusters - Sjengs was actually, allegedly, more expensive than Rybkas. I say allegedly because GCP will not confirm what was in his borrowed cluster. Neither was anyone allowed to benchmark the machine he played the main tournament with.

People also show up with ND hardware that is not yet commercially available, or hardware with wild overclocking and cooling... This doesn't stop the "arms race" it just pushes it into a different direction.

People may only be able to dream of owning the machines that Shredder, Hiarcs, Sjeng, Junior and Rybka used this year - but anyone can walk into a shop and order one knowing that any of the above programs will run on them out of the box.

Well it is not for me to say what the sales figures were but if its 1000 or 1 million the point is the same.

I agree in the cluster tournament people can keep its contents secret - the nature of a limited tournament to me implies people if asked should prove what hardware they are using or at least allow a simple benchmark to be run. I did not insist at the WCCC as I have no reason to believe GCP would not be honest.

[bob]

Say a commercial program lets use Zappa as an eg. - it wins WCCC on fast 64bit hardware. When it won 3 or 4 years ago people said wow I must have that engine - they bought it and found on their single 32bit machines it was only mediocre - weaker than Junior and Shredder who also competed that year. Is this fair to customers/spectators & sponsors?

Can you tell me exactly the names of the people who bought Zappa directly as a result of that tournament, and ran it on their single CPU 32-bit machine and then complained ?
And anyway, an intelligent sensible person is unlikely in my view to use the result of one tournament as their sole point of reference for their purchasing decision. If they do, then they have only themselves to blame.

That is quite funny - you could say the exact same thing about the unaffordable for most W5580 machines that played in WCCC Forget clusters, 99% people could only dream about a W5580. A cluster of multiple Quad Core Intel boxes for example would be cheaper than the W5580, as pointed out many times by other people here

I know that as Zappa was an American program sales were huge, in the USA, after it won and the complaints followed soon after.

Huge = maybe total sales of 500 copies at best???

People keep using this Cluster is cheaper argument. But people do not turn up to tournaments with cheap Clusters - Sjengs was actually, allegedly, more expensive than Rybkas. I say allegedly because GCP will not confirm what was in his borrowed cluster. Neither was anyone allowed to benchmark the machine he played the main tournament with.

People also show up with ND hardware that is not yet commercially available, or hardware with wild overclocking and cooling... This doesn't stop the "arms race" it just pushes it into a different direction.

People may only be able to dream of owning the machines that Shredder, Hiarcs, Sjeng, Junior and Rybka used this year - but anyone can walk into a shop and order one knowing that any of the above programs will run on them out of the box.

Well it is not for me to say what the sales figures were but if its 1000 or 1 million the point is the same.

I agree in the cluster tournament people can keep its contents secret - the nature of a limited tournament to me implies people if asked should prove what hardware they are using or at least allow a simple benchmark to be run. I did not insist at the WCCC as I have no reason to believe GCP would not be honest.

What good is a rule that can't be enforced? I'd not find it hard at all to make a 32-core box look like an 8-core box except when running Crafty. Linux is open source and could be fixed up to look like an 8-core box when it really has 32. So you need the machine "on site". Which is not common, although it used to be a requirement in the WMCCC events, which is where this kind of limitation belongs.

No way to tell what a remote machine looks like, so this just offers yet another way to skirt the rules and gain a competitive advantage over the others. Won't happen? Check FIdelity years ago. Those days were miserable.

[bob]

So a few weak-kneed developers who want to restrict hardware because they either don't have the necessary skill, or else don't want to expend the effort, should have the say-so for an event that has 30+ years of history? It is not a "world championship" if the best players in the world don't compete. It is something less. Change the name to "uniform platform world computer chess championship" and be done with it. At least most will know that there are _strong_ players around that just were not allowed to compete. Or else get off the stick and do the development work rather than trying to propose rules that penalize those that do, to gain an advantage for those that do not.

It really is that simple...

This event is a _lot_ bigger than just a couple of lazy programming teams. It has 35 years of history behind it that should _not_ be undone. The old WMCCC events were limited hardware. The WCCCs never were. Go back to the WMCCC event if you insist on uniform hardware and let the WCCC mean that the strongest computer chess players available are allowed to play.

Unfortunately, commercial software authors whose engines are weaker than Rybka (and that is all of them actually) may be tempted to try to reduce Rybka's advantage as much as they can, for obvious monetary reasons. Most do not. With the WCCC being played with so few games, upsets can happen, and the temptation is definitely there to handicap Rybka as much as possible so as to be ready to take an advantage of any surprises. Most do not, most are sporting.

It is clear we need two events to try and keep most people happy. A WMCCC event for uniform hardware, and WCCC being unlimited, completely open. And it is also my view that the "World Champion" title should apply to the open, unlimited tournament and not the restricted one. The audience want to see the highest quality chess possible, and that is what something like Cluster Rybka gives.

You are right about the monetary reasons I doubt any can afford Rybkas Cluster unless they have access to University hardware and have an academic project. Whatever the World Championship is about it is certainly not all about Rybka. I found on the Rybka forum by looking back in the archives to the Amsterdam tournament when others had Clusters and Rybka did not that the fanboys said Clusters = bad/unfair on Rybka.

Say a commercial program lets use Zappa as an eg. - it wins WCCC on fast 64bit hardware. When it won 3 or 4 years ago people said wow I must have that engine - they bought it and found on their single 32bit machines it was only mediocre - weaker than Junior and Shredder who also competed that year. Is this fair to customers/spectators & sponsors?

No, it shows stupidity. Do you believe that the Ford you see in a nascar race will provide the same performance as a ford you buy at a local Ford dealer? Hardly anybody is that stupid. If they are, that really is their problem...

Well - I wish Computer Chess worked like that. Everyone who owns a car has heard of Ford - they probably even know where their local dealer is. The one time people outside of these forums, possibly, gets to hear about Computer chess is the World Championship. So I can not blame people not in the know for wanting to own the winner thinking that it will be the best on their machine.

You are kidding, right? The ICGA does such an outstanding job of publicity for these events, we've had many cases where even the programmers could not find out what was going on inside the playing area unless we were physically there...

[Harvey Williamson]

Say a commercial program lets use Zappa as an eg. - it wins WCCC on fast 64bit hardware. When it won 3 or 4 years ago people said wow I must have that engine - they bought it and found on their single 32bit machines it was only mediocre - weaker than Junior and Shredder who also competed that year. Is this fair to customers/spectators & sponsors?

Can you tell me exactly the names of the people who bought Zappa directly as a result of that tournament, and ran it on their single CPU 32-bit machine and then complained ?
And anyway, an intelligent sensible person is unlikely in my view to use the result of one tournament as their sole point of reference for their purchasing decision. If they do, then they have only themselves to blame.

That is quite funny - you could say the exact same thing about the unaffordable for most W5580 machines that played in WCCC Forget clusters, 99% people could only dream about a W5580. A cluster of multiple Quad Core Intel boxes for example would be cheaper than the W5580, as pointed out many times by other people here

I know that as Zappa was an American program sales were huge, in the USA, after it won and the complaints followed soon after.

Huge = maybe total sales of 500 copies at best???

People keep using this Cluster is cheaper argument. But people do not turn up to tournaments with cheap Clusters - Sjengs was actually, allegedly, more expensive than Rybkas. I say allegedly because GCP will not confirm what was in his borrowed cluster. Neither was anyone allowed to benchmark the machine he played the main tournament with.

People also show up with ND hardware that is not yet commercially available, or hardware with wild overclocking and cooling... This doesn't stop the "arms race" it just pushes it into a different direction.

People may only be able to dream of owning the machines that Shredder, Hiarcs, Sjeng, Junior and Rybka used this year - but anyone can walk into a shop and order one knowing that any of the above programs will run on them out of the box.

Well it is not for me to say what the sales figures were but if its 1000 or 1 million the point is the same.

I agree in the cluster tournament people can keep its contents secret - the nature of a limited tournament to me implies people if asked should prove what hardware they are using or at least allow a simple benchmark to be run. I did not insist at the WCCC as I have no reason to believe GCP would not be honest.

What good is a rule that can't be enforced? I'd not find it hard at all to make a 32-core box look like an 8-core box except when running Crafty. Linux is open source and could be fixed up to look like an 8-core box when it really has 32. So you need the machine "on site". Which is not common, although it used to be a requirement in the WMCCC events, which is where this kind of limitation belongs.

No way to tell what a remote machine looks like, so this just offers yet another way to skirt the rules and gain a competitive advantage over the others. Won't happen? Check FIdelity years ago. Those days were miserable.

All I can say is that anyone found cheating should receive a long ban. But I agree if someone really wants to cheat they will find a way. Even with Clusters cheating is still possible - who knows what engine anyone is really running?

[Harvey Williamson]

So a few weak-kneed developers who want to restrict hardware because they either don't have the necessary skill, or else don't want to expend the effort, should have the say-so for an event that has 30+ years of history? It is not a "world championship" if the best players in the world don't compete. It is something less. Change the name to "uniform platform world computer chess championship" and be done with it. At least most will know that there are _strong_ players around that just were not allowed to compete. Or else get off the stick and do the development work rather than trying to propose rules that penalize those that do, to gain an advantage for those that do not.

It really is that simple...

This event is a _lot_ bigger than just a couple of lazy programming teams. It has 35 years of history behind it that should _not_ be undone. The old WMCCC events were limited hardware. The WCCCs never were. Go back to the WMCCC event if you insist on uniform hardware and let the WCCC mean that the strongest computer chess players available are allowed to play.

Unfortunately, commercial software authors whose engines are weaker than Rybka (and that is all of them actually) may be tempted to try to reduce Rybka's advantage as much as they can, for obvious monetary reasons. Most do not. With the WCCC being played with so few games, upsets can happen, and the temptation is definitely there to handicap Rybka as much as possible so as to be ready to take an advantage of any surprises. Most do not, most are sporting.

It is clear we need two events to try and keep most people happy. A WMCCC event for uniform hardware, and WCCC being unlimited, completely open. And it is also my view that the "World Champion" title should apply to the open, unlimited tournament and not the restricted one. The audience want to see the highest quality chess possible, and that is what something like Cluster Rybka gives.

You are right about the monetary reasons I doubt any can afford Rybkas Cluster unless they have access to University hardware and have an academic project. Whatever the World Championship is about it is certainly not all about Rybka. I found on the Rybka forum by looking back in the archives to the Amsterdam tournament when others had Clusters and Rybka did not that the fanboys said Clusters = bad/unfair on Rybka.

Say a commercial program lets use Zappa as an eg. - it wins WCCC on fast 64bit hardware. When it won 3 or 4 years ago people said wow I must have that engine - they bought it and found on their single 32bit machines it was only mediocre - weaker than Junior and Shredder who also competed that year. Is this fair to customers/spectators & sponsors?

No, it shows stupidity. Do you believe that the Ford you see in a nascar race will provide the same performance as a ford you buy at a local Ford dealer? Hardly anybody is that stupid. If they are, that really is their problem...

Well - I wish Computer Chess worked like that. Everyone who owns a car has heard of Ford - they probably even know where their local dealer is. The one time people outside of these forums, possibly, gets to hear about Computer chess is the World Championship. So I can not blame people not in the know for wanting to own the winner thinking that it will be the best on their machine.

You are kidding, right? The ICGA does such an outstanding job of publicity for these events, we've had many cases where even the programmers could not find out what was going on inside the playing area unless we were physically there...

yes during recent tournaments the only coverage is usually from people like me or the Rybka team broadcasting the games on Playchess. However the final results are available and that is what I was referring to. Pamplona was an exception with live web coverage and even an audio commentary available.

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

yes during recent tournaments the only coverage is usually from people like me or the Rybka team broadcasting the games on Playchess. However the final results are available and that is what I was referring to.

The PGN's from the World Championship are still not available on the ICGA website.

[Harvey Williamson]

yes during recent tournaments the only coverage is usually from people like me or the Rybka team broadcasting the games on Playchess. However the final results are available and that is what I was referring to.

The PGN's from the World Championship are still not available on the ICGA website.

If you mean the hardware tournament the reason is that although asked the competitors did not, all, supply them. The world Championship games are there.

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

If you mean the hardware tournament the reason is that although asked the competitors did not, all, supply them. The world Championship games are there.

I don't think I was ever asked. (If I was, I must have missed the mail)

[Harvey Williamson]

If you mean the hardware tournament the reason is that although asked the competitors did not, all, supply them. The world Championship games are there.

I don't think I was ever asked. (If I was, I must have missed the mail)

I do not think you were there? It is up to the operator to supply the PGN - I have no idea if yours did or not. Although I seem to remember in China you and I did most of the work of collating the PGN's and you did most of the ICGA website updates.