kgburcham wrote:
Now can any of the programs in that tournament play at a 3000 level?
Yawn
Against humans they are all 3000+ except Merlin. Dont forget Hiarcs on a pocket pc played in a GM tournament 2 years in a row in Argentina. It got 2 GM norms and a 2931 rating. This was in 2008/9
Maybe there are 3000+ but we have no evidence for it because
I believe that we do not have relevant games against humans to know.
Correct me if I am wrong but I believe that the games of the humans against pocket hiarcs did not change their rating and a draw against hiarcs could not help humans to achieve a GM norm or IM norm.
In this situation we cannot get a reliable performance.
I also think that even based on reliable performance we cannot get a reliable rating if the computer score 9.5 out of 10 because a player may perform better against relatively weak players so if you want to get a reliable performance of 3000 against humans then you need a tournament when all the opponent are above 2700 and have a motivation not to lose against the computer because an additional 1/2 point can give them better rating and also better money prize like the game against humans.
Congratulations to the Junior team, perennial champions!
In general, this has been a very exciting tournament to follow. Unbalanced positions all over the place! All the games were worthy of study. And so many English openings, very strange. It didn't seem that the book prep went very deep this year.
Here's hoping the event will attract more competitors next year. If funding is an issue, maybe we could fund a stipend or something, so that some of the top rating list engines could participate. Seems kind of ridiculous not to even have Stockfish playing.
Out of curiosity, if one had the funds and free time, is there anything stopping one from entering Stockfish oneself next year? And more controversially, could any random anon attempt to enter an IvanHoe? (It would be funny to play one of the pseudonym attributed engines while wearing a Guy Fawkes mask!)
The ICGA is about as recognized as Grandma's Cookies & Bridge Club in the neighborhood. It exits only in our minds:
"Q: Tell us a little more about the ICGA: in what jurisdiction is it registered, where does it make its tax returns and who is legally and financially responsible for the organisation?
A: I do not see what connection this has with the Rybka scandal but I am happy to answer the question anyway. The ICGA is a non-profit organisation and as such we have no obligation to register anywhere for tax or legal purposes. We do not make tax returns, and on all our invoices we state that no VAT is payable"
Yes, ICGA is affiliated to FIDE as far as I know, but I don't know the exact nature of that link-up. They have both been around for a long time. But that does not mean that ICGA have a monopoly on the "World Champion" title. They don't.
Adam Hair wrote:
The ICGA has been conducting a tournament that was considered the "World Championship" by engine authors at its inception. At no point has there been any tournament that has supplanted the ICGA's tournament. Thus, the winner of the ICGA tournament should still be considered the "World Champion", regardless of which engines actually compete in it.
If some other tournament is established that has superior support from the engine authors, then it should be considered the "World Championship". At the moment, there is no such tournament.
ICGA was the first, but for sure there are other far better tournaments now - all online - that are more deserving of the title. But as I said, anyone including the ICGA can run a tournament and call it the World Championship. Others are dong it already, so there are multiple world champions. The enthusiasts among us know that the ICGA world champion is almost certainly not among the top 10 in the world. Enough said !
nTCEC is in a totally different league to the ICGA tournaments. That is 100 times more deserving of a World Championship title than anything else. But Martin is somewhat more modest than the ICGA, and doesn't call it as such.
ICGA tournaments have a place in bring programmers together to chat, but that is it these days, nothing more.
The ICGA tournament has been the World Championship due to the recognition of the engine authors ever since 1977. No other tournament has received recognition from the authors as being the World Championship, so far.
I agree that nTCEC has far more interest among authors and enthusiasts than the ICGA. And winning it seems to have far more prestige at the present time. So perhaps it will become the de facto World Championship.
Adam Hair wrote:
I agree that nTCEC has far more interest among authors and enthusiasts than the ICGA. And winning it seems to have far more prestige at the present time. So perhaps it will become the de facto World Championship.
I think it already has. It has all the top engines, fast hardware and decent time control. A lot of engine authors follow the games, as do 100+ observers at any point in time. Martin really has done a superb job with this.
Almost, but it is limited to UCI- or WB. engines, which excludes cb-native Fritz and maybe some others. Season 2 also requires to support min. 8 threads mp., and I just saw that e.g. Gull 2.2 supports up to 4, only. Quazar 0.4 which gave a good show in season 1, is even singlethread only.
Of course it would not be promising to play with 4 cores or less against 16 anyway. Nevertheless, in stage 4 of season 1 for example, single Komodo could draw 13 of 18 games against 16 core top opponents (H/SF/R), at least.
