FIDE Ethics Commission ruling on ICGA/Rybka complaint

[Terry McCracken]

All the EC said is that a penalty should not be more severe than that allowed by the FIDE rules, UNLESS the ICGA rules specifically lay out such penalties in writing. A reasonable request. But they did not even insist that the ICGA rules be modified, just a warning that they should be.

As far as the entire Rybka affair goes, they dismissed it outright as being outside of their purview. Which most of us expected. The entire basis of the complaint was "The ICGA was a bunch of bad boys and ought to be slapped down." No specifics, as usual. As far as the shortcoming in the rules, that will be addressed. As far as potentially reconsidering the lifetime ban, no idea. I suspect that won't happen.

One thing is for sure.

The ICGA are going to have to get their act together real quick, as they're no longer seen by many as having the same importance, relevance or mana that they used to have before this whole affair.

This can be seen in their so called World Championships, which are now little more than second rate events, currently shunned by many of the top engine authors and therefore sadly often used by the title winners as propaganda to con unsuspecting buyers (if their product is commercial).

In effect, they've lost touch with much of the computer chess community. That should concern them, surely.

mana (Maori word meaning prestige, authority, control, power, influence, status)

Guess I'll cop the usual abuse from the usual offenders for posting this.

This is trolling Graham. If the mods delete this then they are not worthy to moderate CCC.

You should get kicked when you fly out as some kind of authority, (which you're not) and state opinions as facts.

You put a target on your front and back in bold, and say "Shoot Me!"

[Terry McCracken]

There was no "ruling against the ICGA".

ICGA has to be sanctioned with a warning

NOT from the ethics complaint. "This complaint has to be dismissed."

They simply pointed out our rules didn't specify penalties, which means we need to fix that..

Sanctioning Mr Rajlich with a lifetime ban, ICGA violated par. 2.2 and par. 2.2.10 of the FIDE Code of Ethics.

On the other point the EC essentially said it has no power to interfere with the application of "tournament rules", even if they are applied out of the blue many years after the tournament took place. Easy way out. Doesn't mean good or bad, only means they won't look into it.

This means that the ICGA could in theory strip your 1983 title on some alleged Rule 2 violation and the EC would condone it.

You realize how specious your analogy is? Any lawyers here?

Here.

Yes, thanks for your endgame table bases. Did I say specious? Maybe spurious is more in order.

[Albert Silver]

I see it being discussed here - http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... ?tid=30118

As they are being selective in that thread and you are not able to read the full report I will post this snip from the report

"There are no violations of any FIDE rules."

"There is no evidence that the members of the ICGA Executive Committee - the only ICGA organ responsible for the decision - did not act in an impartial way."

" For these reasons, under this profile, the complaint has to be dismissed."

I think everyone should wait till FIDE allow us to publish it in full and then discuss it.

I specifically asked David to ask FIDE about this. Their response was that discussing the report was fine, but we should leave out their "reasoning" as to how they addressed each point until the report is officially published by FIDE. So it would seem that discussing their findings is perfectly acceptable, just not their detailed reasoning behind each finding...

While we are here, the ONLY quibble FIDE had with the ICGA was that we did not give any sort of potential penalties in the charter or rules. I consider that a reasonable issue that can easily be addressed. Right now it only says "at the discretion of ..." but it should be amended to add something like "disqualification from the event in question, and possibly a ban from future participation for a period of time from one year to a lifetime ban."

I personally can't imagine someone getting caught cheating and then returning to play in another event. But I suppose someone might.

Fernando Collor was tried and condemned after resigning the Brazilian presidency hoping to stave off the impeachment trial of corruption (and all that entails). Years later he ran for senator and was elected.

[Graham Banks]

.....You should get kicked when you fly out as some kind of authority, (which you're not) and state opinions as facts.

You put a target on your front and back in bold, and say "Shoot Me!"

I'm no more an authority than most other members here. I'm just stating my thoughts.

I'll add that I don't believe that the authors of commercial engines deliberately mislead prospective buyers, so con was the wrong word to use.
If they have won the title, there is nothing untruthful in stating that as an achievement when marketing their product.
What I really meant was that many buyers would be unaware that there are actually much stronger engines available,

[Dirt]

Let's assume the ICGA had organised a football match between teams of chess programmers.

The TD, acting as referee, awarded a goal even though the ball did not cross the line.

This feels more like a cycle race, where years later you discover someone was taking performance enhancing drugs. Then they might be stripped of any titles they have won.

Or maybe not like either one. Analogies can be misleading.

[lucasart]

All the EC said is that a penalty should not be more severe than that allowed by the FIDE rules, UNLESS the ICGA rules specifically lay out such penalties in writing. A reasonable request. But they did not even insist that the ICGA rules be modified, just a warning that they should be.

As far as the entire Rybka affair goes, they dismissed it outright as being outside of their purview. Which most of us expected. The entire basis of the complaint was "The ICGA was a bunch of bad boys and ought to be slapped down." No specifics, as usual. As far as the shortcoming in the rules, that will be addressed. As far as potentially reconsidering the lifetime ban, no idea. I suspect that won't happen.

One thing is for sure.

The ICGA are going to have to get their act together real quick, as they're no longer seen by many as having the same importance, relevance or mana that they used to have before this whole affair.

This can be seen in their so called World Championships, which are now little more than second rate events, currently shunned by many of the top engine authors and therefore sadly often used by the title winners as propaganda to con unsuspecting buyers (if their product is commercial).

In effect, they've lost touch with much of the computer chess community. That should concern them, surely.

mana (Maori word meaning prestige, authority, control, power, influence, status)

Guess I'll cop the usual abuse from the usual offenders for posting this.

Nice post. 100% agree.

PS: don't pay attention to Terry. he's a professional troll. nobody with an IQ>80 pays attention to what he says. It's only background noise we shouldn't respond to (never feed a troll).

[hgm]

This can be seen in their so called World Championships, which are now little more than second rate events, currently shunned by many of the top engine authors and therefore sadly often used by the title winners as propaganda to con unsuspecting buyers (if their product is commercial).

If there is any 'conning' going on, it is really the producers of engines like Stockfish that carry the blame for this. By failing to take their responsibility as major title candidate, for various ideological reasons, they willingly create a situation where unsuspecting buyers can be confused. They are the prime architects of this 'con', duping their would-be users, and driving them in the arms of unsuspecting commercials that just run their business in an honest way.

[Graham Banks]

........commercials that just run their business in an honest way.

Of course. I'm not wanting to accuse them otherwise.
For example, I regard both Mark Uniacke and Amir Ban as honest people, with whom I have no issue at all. I enjoy testing their engines and appreciate the hard work that they put into improving them.

It's the ICGA World Championship title that is currently the con, as the event is not attracting the top quality field of participants that it regularly used to prior to the Rybka affair.

However, that's not necessarily the fault of those that do choose to participate, and I can certainly understand that the title winners still feel proud of their achievement. They're not being dishonest in mentioning these titles in their marketing either.

[hgm]

It's the ICGA World Championship title that is currently the con, as the event is not attracting the top quality field of participants that it regularly used to prior to the Rybka affair.

Well, when the world's nr 1 program refuses to participate in a World Championship as a matter of principle you can hardly blame that on ICGA or the Rybka affair. If there had been no Rybka affair at all, Rybka would have been taken the flak for being a mock World Champion that the same people now direct at HIARCS. (As I am pretty sure that Vas would have continued participating for as long as he was winning the event, and would have had no scrupules to use the title for advertizing either.)

You cannot blame organizers of a World Championship for matters they have no control over. And unfortunately it is in general beyond your control whether someone participates or not. I don't think it would be a good idea to force programs to participate against the wish of their author, and in many cases if would be plain illegal to do so (because the license forbids it). That means the decision to mislead people by having a false World Champion rests solely with the 'rightful' World Champion. Simply because no one else could have any effect on this.

[Roger Brown]

I'm no more an authority than most other members here. I'm just stating my thoughts.

I'll add that I don't believe that the authors of commercial engines deliberately mislead prospective buyers, so con was the wrong word to use.
If they have won the title, there is nothing untruthful in stating that as an achievement when marketing their product.
What I really meant was that many buyers would be unaware that there are actually much stronger engines available,

Hello Graham,

While I am happy that you sensibly retreated on an aspect of the use of the unfortunate word con, I am still fascinated with what you left there.

For years, Fritz - I am deliberately picking on a popular chess engine and gui product - has been sold as being World Champion.

For years - pre-Rybka incidentally - Fritz was NOT the strongest engine in the world.

Have you ever written Chessbase demanding that they stop tricking their buyers? I seriously doubt it.

Further, how can ignorance on the part of users be ascribed to any administrative or commercial body?

There might be a bargain on a particular item in X location, but I end up paying twice as much for it in Y, being unaware of the item's availability in X. Was I duped by the seller in Y?

Seriously? Is that not what happens in competitive markets of any description every day?

Seems like a bizarre position for you to take...

Later.