Participants WCCC 2007

[Gerd Isenberg]

Hi Gerd,

The ICGA and some participants as well, worry about the low number of participants. We have to play 11 rounds.

well, I think here we get closer to the real reason why they allow such things like GridChess. Shouldn't they better think about the reasons why number of participants get lower & lower ?
As far as I know they get a lot of money from the tournament site, I had 40.000 $ in mind. With that it's easy to get more participants: how about free hotel, free flight for amateurs ? To allow more and more derivated work definitely wont rise the attractiveness of the tournament. I am very sure that it is not only Richard and me who feels sad about that development.

Greets, Thomas

Hi Thomas,

Yes, that would be nice - at least they could have reserved some nice cabins at the near camping ground

Also for the professionals the 500 euro entry fee seems anachronistical. The high times with huge earns in computer-chess seems over.

But imagine if they propose free travel and accommodation, food, drinks - and suddenly over 100 programmers from whole over the world would register - oups.

Fairly, IGCA/ICCA often, but not always gave financial support for some (in order of registration date), if not all amateurs in the past, like paying flight costs, partly or total, lower hotel prices and free food and drinks inside the tournament hall. Not to mention the huge final ceremony with the free dinner.

Cheers,
Gerd

[Gerd Isenberg]

Hi Gerd,
i wish you very much luck at the WCCC. You are one of the programmer who are very objective and fair. And it is obvious that chess programming is fun for you and you do not want to earn money or win every tournament. you are a great guy. you can accept things which you don´t like and you give everybody a second chance. Not everyone is doing that.

It is as like always in this forum when i comment something. Some people do not want to understand me they only search for negative things in my sentences.

but it doesn´t matter. I quit chess programming. This hobby is taken to seriously from some people here. From commercial programmers i can understand their hate against fruit/toga and me a little bit, because it makes no fun to loose against an open source engine and it could decrease their selling rates. but i cant´t understand it from amateurs.

Have fun with your hobby and i wish you a lot of success.

Thomas

Hi Thomas,

thank you for your very kind words!

I already earned enough money from computer-chess during my short commercial career. Yes, the first year it was quite good.
Intelligent Simultaneous Chess, Dos-IsiChess with a windows like md-interface and up to ten board-windows, was exclusively sold for 145,- Mark by a german chess dealer. Since 95 things went down the hill since my dealer prefered to sue with competitors and the program was not that strong of course. I started to sell chess books for my dealer at great human chess tournaments and was close to bankrupt in 97, as i found a job i still do today - software developer for gas- and oil businesses and skada-systems.

I got amateur again - is there another sport where this is possible?

And you may reconsider implemeting some new stuff in Toga without any stress, to keep it private for a while

Cheers,
Gerd

[Theo van der Storm]

OK... this makes a little more sense now. I was contacted a while back and asked about it. My response was along the lines of this:

(a) I'm not going to participate this year as things were thrown together too quickly and there was not enough time to make the kind of preparations we would normally want for playing in a WCCC (hardware, book, program changes, etc.)

(b) I have strong reservations about allowing any "entity" to compete if it is based primarily on one or more chess programs, even if the authors agree. If one of the agreeing authors also participates then I would be 100% against the idea since two entries for the same program should not be allowed (but there is precedent as ICCA allowed "Gunda" (a crafty clone) to enter the WCCC in either 1996 or 1997, so there is a bit of precedent albiet a bad one.

(c) I told them that if the ICGA chose to allow such entries, then I would have no objection, but that I personally strongly disagreed with the idea in general...

Please note I'm not in the ICGA organisation, so this is just my opinion.
(a)
You appear to be participating, because you are listed in a team.
(b)
A "team" is not a team unless all members agree it is.
(c)
An entry is invalid if the authors are not in the team associated with the entry.
Are you saying you're not part of the team?
If so then they cannot use Crafty code.

[Kirill Kryukov]

OK... this makes a little more sense now. I was contacted a while back and asked about it. My response was along the lines of this:

(a) I'm not going to participate this year as things were thrown together too quickly and there was not enough time to make the kind of preparations we would normally want for playing in a WCCC (hardware, book, program changes, etc.)

Hi Bob! Does this mean Crafty 21.5 source can be open now?

Best,
Kirill

[rdan1987]

I quit chess programming.

Does that mean we won't see a new Toga?

[chessfurby]

Thomas, i am not a programmer or something. I just enjoy playing and testing with the engines that you guys come up with. Personally i welcome every engine that adds variety to computer chess. Toga is among the strongest. So nevertheless id like to say thanx. Maybe you fiond the time and motivation to write an engine sometime, i will surely test and enjoy it as will others.

Cheers

[cooldalek]

I quit chess programming.

Does that mean we won't see a new Toga?

Looks like it. Don't blame him. Some people on here are just unbelievable. They get a bunch of engines for free and ..... I give up.

[Graham Banks]

I quit chess programming.

Does that mean we won't see a new Toga?

Unfortunately seems that way.

I really fail to see what the problem is that some people have with Toga.
The Fruit 2.1 source code was released under the GPL license.
Seems that Thomas has taken advantage of Fabien's generosity to further improve on Fruit 2.1.
Why should that be a problem?

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

I quit chess programming.

Does that mean we won't see a new Toga?

Unfortunately seems that way.

I really fail to see what the problem is that some people have with Toga.
The Fruit 2.1 source code was released under the GPL license.
Seems that Thomas has taken advantage of Fabien's generosity to further improve on Fruit 2.1.
Why should that be a problem?

Hi Graham,
That should be a problem because his creation wiped the floor with their engines and he was attacked that this is not an original work....
To improve something which is already damn good is not easy and Thomas did a great job

[Graham Banks]

I quit chess programming.

Does that mean we won't see a new Toga?

Unfortunately seems that way.

I really fail to see what the problem is that some people have with Toga.
The Fruit 2.1 source code was released under the GPL license.
Seems that Thomas has taken advantage of Fabien's generosity to further improve on Fruit 2.1.
Why should that be a problem?

Hi Graham,
That should be a problem because his creation wiped the floor with their engines and he was attacked that this is not an original work....
To improve something which is already damn good is not easy and Thomas did a great job

Agreed.
The way that people treat others makes me sad sometimes.