Modern Times wrote:For the public I think this is better then WCCC. Some engines would not qualify under their stricter rules, and live coverage of WCCC games is patchy. nTCEC runs rings around WCCC. But admittedly a different focus - WCCC is allegedly for the programmers, and nTCEC is for the public. So both have their place and their supporters.
I often wondered why the coverage of the WCCC is awful beyond compare. It seems the participants have to big a say in how the event is run, and for a reason I am unable to fathom they are extremely disinterested in putting up a good show. Other games in the ICGA Olympiad do not suffer from this at all. In Go, for instance, they oblige all participants to connect to a publicly accessible server. If your program can't, then you are out, as simple as that.
Especially for Chess, where the technology to play on an ICS has been around for decades, it is truly shameful they display such a disregard for the public.