A problem CC community has

[hgm]

My guess, always from outside, is that membership of outsiders would proceed along the same farsa: splitted in people that decide (one of them, Bob, writing here with scaring myopic and obtuse view) and follow up that are just insrumental to the first group but have no real influence at all.

You could not be any farther from the truth.

ICGA takes every participant equally seriously. I have participated with micro-Max, and later with Joker, and because of that I still regularly receive e-mail, querying me for what I think about proposed rule changes, if I have any suggestions in addition to what they propose, etc.

So you'd better not speculate about things you have no clue of...

[Rebel]

Everybody knows Rybka 3 is above suspicion (even Ken Thompson said so) and yet the boycott continues. Until then the problem remains. First something has to change between the ears of some programmers before the CC community can move on. It has been long enough by now.

Where whould R3 be without the cheating before ...?

One year behind ?

A remark like this only shows your lack of insight in chess programming and the course it has taken the last 10 years with all the free knowledge and available source code whether GPL protected or free of use. Even if you believe that Vasik copied Fruit then the shortcut is not more than 1 year.

With nowadays resources you can write your first 2000-2200 elo in a couple of months, ask Don, Richard. Perhaps in the 2003-2005 period a bit longer.

Then ask yourself this question, what's more hard, to move from 2200 to 2700 or to move from 2700 to 3100 in a couple of years? If you are capable of adding 400 elo in a couple of years and rule as he ruled then those first 2700 elo are really not that hard.

And besides, you do realize the ICGA verdict is not unchallenged? There is growing group of chess programmers that has another view and your opinion as non-programmer is mainly based on who you have chosen to believe.

But anyhow, you start to late in the chain of causes with your demand. It is VR who has to show some regret.

I don't think that's fair reasoning. The man says he is innocent. I think he is right.

Not just because of his copying but as well because of his disrespect towards the organisation which gave him the titles (and he took them very willingly because they ment money!) VR has to show some hindsight and to appologize THEN, and only THEN, there might be a change on the programmer side!

BTW, it is vey interesting that VR itself is not showing any interest in all of this but some self declared advocates do not rest to keep the whole topic alive. It would already be completly dead and buried without them and we would have a much helthier CC comunity! VR is showing more understanding than these troublemakers. If they dont like it: go make your own organisation and see how far you can get there - Bye bye!


Ingo

[Laskos]

My guess, always from outside, is that membership of outsiders would proceed along the same farsa: splitted in people that decide (one of them, Bob, writing here with scaring myopic and obtuse view) and follow up that are just insrumental to the first group but have no real influence at all.

You could not be any farther from the truth.

ICGA takes every participant equally seriously. I have participated with micro-Max, and later with Joker, and because of that I still regularly receive e-mail, querying me for what I think about proposed rule changes, if I have any suggestions in addition to what they propose, etc.

So you'd better not speculate about things you have no clue of...

With micro-Max at WCCC (probability (10^(-3))^11 to win WCCC) you are testing Littlewood's Law that an individual can expect to experience "miracles" at the rate of about one per month, or the Law of Truly Large Numbers that with a sample size large enough, any outrageous thing is likely to happen.

Aren't you? I suggest you participate with some 10^33 micro-Maxes at every WCCC to prove these laws.

Kai

[hgm]

What is your point? I already have participated with micro-Max.

My point was that even because of participating with a totally laughable contender, ICGA takes my input w.r.t. rule changes equally serious as, for intance, those of SMK. Of course I don't take advantage of that, out of modesty.

Did it ever occur to you that there could be reasons to participate to WCCC other than to win? Like to socialize with top engine programers, and learn from them?

[Laskos]

What is your point? I already have participated with micro-Max.

My point was that even because of participating with a totally laughable contender, ICGA takes my input w.r.t. rule changes equally serious as, for intance, those of SMK. Of course I don't take advantage of that, out of modesty.

Did it ever occur to you that there could be reasons to participate to WCCC other than to win? Like to socialize with top engine programers, and learn from them?

Yes, I would like to socialize with Anand and Kramnik, and I bet I am at least the level of micro-Max. Lucky you, ICGA and WCCC.

Kai

[mcostalba]

I'd be very curious to know Tord viewpoint, as he posted Fabien open letter here. I've got the impression he's gone from Stockfish project, maybe because of disagreements with you about ICGA, clones, etc. But, being this one only an impression, I'd like to hear from you how things are inside the Team. With the hope to not offend you.

No offence at all. We have never discussed about ICGA (that I discovered only recently) nor clones or tournaments. All our discussion have been on strictly technical points.

Actually my first discussion about tournaments and ICGA was the monster thread that I started few days ago. I have to admit I was never interested in this topic (I was and still I am not interested in tournaments) and I also knew almost nothing of ICGA until few weeks ago.

[rodolfoleoni]

I'd be very curious to know Tord viewpoint, as he posted Fabien open letter here. I've got the impression he's gone from Stockfish project, maybe because of disagreements with you about ICGA, clones, etc. But, being this one only an impression, I'd like to hear from you how things are inside the Team. With the hope to not offend you.

No offence at all. We have never discussed about ICGA (that I discovered only recently) nor clones or tournaments. All our discussion have been on strictly technical points.

Actually my first discussion about tournaments and ICGA was the monster thread that I started few days ago. I have to admit I was never interested in this topic (I was and still I am not interested in tournaments) and I also knew almost nothing of ICGA until few weeks ago.

I've my own interpretation of everything happened in these years.

- Rybka affair: just after the first appearance of R1 I remember several posts on talkchess. Several people claimed R1 had "stolen" something from Fruit. Not based on RE or hex reading, but only by comparing engines output. What was a clue these years has become a sentence 5-6 years later. Still, ICGA offers VR a way out of this, by showing them a clean code, but without any answer.

- Ippo & derivatives: appeared out from "nothing", and that's not possible at all. VR claiming them as clones of R3, and they probably performed something similar to what VR did with Fruit: double window and code translation. Which of course should be considered illegal. This brought a revolution as some programmers started looking into them, grabbing every idea they could. Nothing wrong about this, except maybe from an ethics viewpoint. In fact, all these data shouldn't have never been available. Then, they were those which took the whole package and started modifiyng it, creating several forks from that probably illegal sources.

Yes, world has changed, to direction of ruleless developement of computer chess. Should ICGA close its eyes and admit everything to its events? I don't think so. You may argue that WCCC average engine strenght was low, but they all were honest original engines built up through many years of work. It should have been great to see Komodo, Stockfish, Crafty, Spark, Spike, Critter and many others in the tourney, but every author had own reasons to stay out. I guess many had economic reasons. So, honor to those who went there playing the WCCC in these troubled times. And honor to Junior and Hiarcs World Champions of their respective tourneys.

There are several interesting tourneys around. Spike won this Chesswar edition (broadcasted), despite the presence of Critter, Komodo, and Stockfish. WBEC Premier division is in progress. Graham often organizes 8 cores tourneys (broadcasted).

[bob]

We can read lots of posts about how crap was last ICGA WCCC, lots of ideas, lots of people in favor/against any idea. No real fresh air. Just confusing particles flying around, while the best way to do something would probably be to act from inside ICGA. To become members, to come with a revisitation of rules. To finally get a clear sentence about Ippo/Robbo/Ivan + derivatives. Because the community can solve this problem only if it can look at it straight into its "eyes".

Is the problem the different hardware of each participant? ICGA organized the WCSC just after WCCC. Engines running the same software, and Hiarcs won it. Stockfish and Komodo would have good chances there.

Is the problem rule #2? Why don't introduce a rule about a separate Championship where derivatives are allowed? (The above sentence would be needed, of course)

But what many people seem to not understand is there's already a organization, and it can be improved a lot with positive proposals. E.g., Adam Hair had an excellent idea about satellite locations around the world, to allow more programmers to participate.

Let us give ICGA positive inputs for the future!

Yes, join the ICGA and join the debate there.

Harvey, allow me a few words,

I know David for 25+ years and I am confident he will go all the way the programmers want him to go. The problem is not David nor the ICGA (=David) but its programmers and the ongoing boycott of Rybka as lastly demonstrated when Peter Skinner was in favor to allow Rybka in his CCT tournament.

Everybody knows Rybka 3 is above suspicion (even Ken Thompson said so) and yet the boycott continues. Until then the problem remains. First something has to change between the ears of some programmers before the CC community can move on. It has been long enough by now.

Please do NOT misquote Ken. He did not say that Rybka 3 is "above suspicion". He said the evidence was not as clear and that nothing had been proven YET...

[bob]

I know David for 25+ years and I am confident he will go all the way the programmers want him to go. The problem is not David nor the ICGA (=David) but its programmers and the ongoing boycott of Rybka as lastly demonstrated when Peter Skinner was in favor to allow Rybka in his CCT tournament.

Everybody knows Rybka 3 is above suspicion (even Ken Thompson said so) and yet the boycott continues. Until then the problem remains. First something has to change between the ears of some programmers before the CC community can move on. It has been long enough by now.

Then why not ask Vas to talk to the ICGA and the case can be reopened. he could perhaps show the R3 code to ken who I think would be trusted by all sides.

The offer is appreciated but I think you first need to check some of the programmers else you will go the CSVN way.

I believe we all have said the same thing. Should he show that the current Rybka is clean, there would be no problem letting it compete. The only issue would be the current ban for past (very) bad behavior...

[bob]

As far as i Know membership is open to anyone with an interest in Computer games.

Also the tournament is open to any (original) engine, in theory. But seen from outside, it seems that there are few partecipants that rule it (in any sense) and the others that are used by the first group just to make up the number (a world championship with 3 engines would be too much even for ICGA).

My guess, always from outside, is that membership of outsiders would proceed along the same farsa: splitted in people that decide (one of them, Bob, writing here with scaring myopic and obtuse view) and follow up that are just insrumental to the first group but have no real influence at all.

I don't believe you can change ICGA from inside becuase people governing it are fossilized since decades. The only thing absolutely clear to them is that they don't want to give up and retire (as they should).


P.S: Before Don chimes in moved by his "getting older" phobia, I just want to clarify that is not a problem of anagraphic age, but of mentale age: you are mentally old when you are no more able to accept the change but you continue to do what you have always done.

For the record, there was a time when _I_ was a "newcomer" to computer chess. Same has been the case for ALL previous authors. Yet we participated, voted on rules we wanted, and then abided by them. Your statement makes little sense.