A prediction !

[Steve B]

i wonder if there are any tournaments during the year where all engines must use the same hardware?
i think there are no events like that?

As far as I know only the Chess Classic Chess960 championship is using equal hardware platforms.
Richard.

wow
now that is amazing
the only tournament held on equal hardware and it is not even conventional chess

i imagine it must be too hard to insist that all Entrants in a tourney come equipped with the same or very similar hardware

Startled Regards
Steve

Completely wrong reasoning. There used to be a "uniform platform tournament" run by Don Beal at Queen Mary College in London. It died due to a _complete_ lack of interest by competitors. What is "the" platform of choice? Microsoft? What about the Apple programs? 32 bit or 64 bit? One cpu? What about the SMP search programs.

It was considered too exclusive because many programs were not designed on the "uniform platform" chosen.

The idea was discontinued due to lack of interest.

there is no wrong reasoning
it is my personal preference to see a tournament with a uniform platform..no matter the platform.
at least once a year
i see there is also a lack of interest in the WCCC which has multiple platforms and barley 10 entrants and not even a web site that is adequate

saying that a personal preference is wrong reasoning is like saying the preference of chocolate ice cream is wrong and Vanilla is right
or that my preference for dedicated computers over PC Engines is wrong
its a hobby..nothing more nothing less
Steve

[mclane]

yes it would be great if we would have a uniform platform tournament/championship again.

all these 40 cores versus 8 cores is IMO nonsense.

[pijl]

yes it would be great if we would have a uniform platform tournament/championship again.

all these 40 cores versus 8 cores is IMO nonsense.

As a participant with weaker hardware I would say that this is nonsense.
Of course, a program with better hardware has better chances of winning.
But the hardware factor is not deciding everything. Baron has been capable of drawing or even beating programs on stronger hardware. In a few amount of games anything can happen.
Think of it like a football club with a big and one with a smaller budget. The bigger budget won't guarantee you the win, it only helps in getting it. I have seen noone saying that e.g. the European Champions League (football, the kind where you actually use your feet to control the ball) is nonsense because of the difference in club budgets.
Richard.

[bob]

i wonder if there are any tournaments during the year where all engines must use the same hardware?
i think there are no events like that?

As far as I know only the Chess Classic Chess960 championship is using equal hardware platforms.
Richard.

wow
now that is amazing
the only tournament held on equal hardware and it is not even conventional chess

i imagine it must be too hard to insist that all Entrants in a tourney come equipped with the same or very similar hardware

Startled Regards
Steve

Completely wrong reasoning. There used to be a "uniform platform tournament" run by Don Beal at Queen Mary College in London. It died due to a _complete_ lack of interest by competitors. What is "the" platform of choice? Microsoft? What about the Apple programs? 32 bit or 64 bit? One cpu? What about the SMP search programs.

It was considered too exclusive because many programs were not designed on the "uniform platform" chosen.

The idea was discontinued due to lack of interest.

there is no wrong reasoning
it is my personal preference to see a tournament with a uniform platform..no matter the platform.
at least once a year
i see there is also a lack of interest in the WCCC which has multiple platforms and barley 10 entrants and not even a web site that is adequate

saying that a personal preference is wrong reasoning is like saying the preference of chocolate ice cream is wrong and Vanilla is right
or that my preference for dedicated computers over PC Engines is wrong
its a hobby..nothing more nothing less
Steve

The WCCC is a poor example of anything. It is too expensive to attend. It lasts for 2 weeks, which is too long for working people to attend. It is poorly supported as the lack of online access to live games shows. The list goes on and on.

Your reasoning _is_ wrong. Because, as I said, why would anyone want to exclude a group of programs arbitrarily? Programs are designed around particular architectures. Older macintosh. Intel 32 bit. Intel 64 bit. ARM. Alpha. MIPS. So which architecture are you going to choose for the "uniform platform?" 32 bit? Excludes a significant number of 64 bit programs. 64 bit? Excludes a significant number of non-64 bit programs. Make the 64 bitters run on 32 bit machines? Why penalize them? How many cpus? 1? What about all the work done on parallel search? What about the dedicated hardware type boxes such as deep thought, deep blue, Belle, BeBe, Ed's ARM-based chess machine, the old mephistos on motorola processors? The list goes on and on. It is a bad idea. It isn't a "one size fits all" world in computer chess.

The CCT/ACCA events have a wide variety of hardware and the events are wildly popular. The ICCA event would be just as popular if it were organized in a reasonable way to minimize cost and time. Uniform platform events are unfair to some, no matter which platform you choose. For me to be interested, you would need to choose an 8-core 64 bit architecture. Let everyone run on that same platform and I am in. But the non-parallel-search programs are not going to be interested. And the Apple programs are not going to be interested. etc.

[Steve B]

. For me to be interested, you would need to choose an 8-core 64 bit architecture. Let everyone run on that same platform and I am in. But the non-parallel-search programs are not going to be interested. And the Apple programs are not going to be interested. etc.

personally i would leave the choice of platform to those more informed than me
i dont care if they are all 40 core or all single core or all apple cores(pun)..just as long as the platform is uniform and we have at least one tournament with whom ever participates using the same platform
it does not have to be all inclusive including every engine and it does not have to be billed as a Championship of any kind
just one tournament a year where the platform is the same
i think there would be interest in this
i think what it needs is some sponsorship
a winner take all monetary prize for example
i have a feeling that it would draw interest and a good example of the engines of today

if the market can recover what its lost in the last 10 days i would add $1000 for such a prize fund
if some one wants to remind me of that statement when and if it does recover..then bump this thread up to the top and im in for a grand

Steve

[bob]

. For me to be interested, you would need to choose an 8-core 64 bit architecture. Let everyone run on that same platform and I am in. But the non-parallel-search programs are not going to be interested. And the Apple programs are not going to be interested. etc.

personally i would leave the choice of platform to those more informed than me
i dont care if they are all 40 core or all single core or all apple cores(pun)..just as long as the platform is uniform and we have at least one tournament with whom ever participates using the same platform
it does not have to be all inclusive including every engine and it does not have to be billed as a Championship of any kind
just one tournament a year where the platform is the same
i think there would be interest in this
i think what it needs is some sponsorship
a winner take all monetary prize for example
i have a feeling that it would draw interest and a good example of the engines of today

if the market can recover what its lost in the last 10 days i would add $1000 for such a prize fund
if some one wants to remind me of that statement when and if it does recover..then bump this thread up to the top and im in for a grand

Steve

Actually all it needs is interest. I have the hardware. If everyone provides a winboard (or UCI via polyglot) program, I can run 'em all on my cluster here and play the mother of all tournaments using one cpu per program, or using 2 if everyone agrees.

But the result is not so interesting IMHO, because it has nothing to do with how the strongest play on their "native" hardware. I test like this all the time (uniform platform) to produce consistent results. But I don't run like that in tournaments.

[Ovyron]

all these 40 cores versus 8 cores is IMO nonsense.

Rybka on a dual could win the tourney just as well, I think the extra 38 cores is overkill.

[mclane]

yes.
but they could all play on a dual or a quad. that would IMO be enough.

[Steve B]

yes.
but they could all play on a dual or a quad. that would IMO be enough.

you know if they all played on the same platform..duo or quad..we could see an entirely different outcome

im told that DS3.0 running on a "lowly" quad has won the 9 round ..all play all.. blitz tournament ..out right ..in China ahead of Skull Octals,and 12-40 core Milky Way Clusters

of course the Cell Phone finished last

Same Platform Already Regards
Steve

[Jouni]

From CSS forum:


Stunning!!!!

Jouni