Looks like Deep Sjeng wins cct12

[Don]

Thanks Peter for the great tourney.

After the tourney we always end up with a few criticism of a few players or amendments to the rules but there is no mention of the positives from the back of the tourney.

On that note I,on behalf of the Sjeng team would like to thank all co-competitors and Peter for voting to play blitz 5/3 which the cluster was tested at.

So there is still sportmanship left and its not always we have to win at any cost!!

Secondly a brief report on the whole tourney in the absence of GCP.
We ran Erdo's book the first 2 rounds and had a few problems with the aquarium book adapter both R1 and R2 red moves were played and we were lucky we escaped with a draw vs Diep.

This game I knew Diep wasnt kibitzing but when I was asking Erdo he was giving me diep evals.I had to inform Peter about it but left it at that.

After this round we had to change books to a test book from myself hoping it didnt play red moves and of course it didnt....

I wouldnt go into the rest of the games but the hiarcs game was deep in book but remember the fact this was more of a test book rather than a proper prepared tourney book as we did not have any other choice nor the time to do one just during the tour.

Keeping this in mind the cluster did play some strong games the ones vs shredder and gives a direct indication of the its hardware and engine strength due to the efforts put in by GCP.

I would like to thank GCP for letting me operate Sjeng in this tourney and thank you once again Peter for organising this great tourney.

Lastly I would like to thank Erdo,Jens and Bert for all their efforts from testing, book making to make this a memorable win for Sjeng.

Sjeng was incredible, what a powerful combination of hardware and great software!

I agree that the tournament was well run - and I appreciate that TD work is a thankless job that is sometimes going to involve some pain or some thick skin.

[Don]

1) That this isn't the first time this has happened with Junior (I read the reports from Pamplona and you were there) - they really need to sort out their remote setup.

2

It happened to all of us in Pamplona and more so in China. There was nobody shouting I claim a forfeit although the rules probably allow them to. As usual with these events a very friendly and sportsmanlike attitude was adopted by all. Rules should be applied strictly to those who refuse to abide by them as Diep did otherwise it should be played within the spirit of the rules not the letter of the law. Don is coming to Leiden the internet there can be a bit problematic but everybody wants to see the game decided over the board and not by internet or other issues.

Then the rules should reflect that. If you get into the mode where you interpret rules as you go, you are asking for big trouble. You might as well not have rules. And the rules should not depend on your opponents graciousness or lack of it because that means it will not be administered in an even handed way but based only on social status or nepotism or popularity.

For instance what does the spirit of the rules say about your flag falling 5 seconds before the computer responds on move 40. What if it's 10 seconds before, or 30 seconds before or on move 39 or move 38? What if the operator was walking around talking to others instead of paying attention? What is clear cut to you may not be clear cut to someone else.

The flag rule is just one example, but because it a rule that I expect to be clearly enforced, I have put a lot of work into making sure that doesn't happen in my own program. That probably weakens my program a little, because if I knew that this depended on the "spirit" of the rules I probably would not put any work into this, so what if I go over a few seconds or a few minutes. At some point it might get into a contest of seeing what you can get away with. But then if I went too far over and someone protested I could start calling him names and saying he is a bad sport? Do you see how insane it would be to take such a casual attitude toward rules?

Far simpler to just cover the rules without exception but not to make rules that you are not comfortable with. Also, don't make a rule and then berate someone for expecting it to be applied.

What is your view on adjusting settings during the game? Is that in the spirit of the rules? Things like this need to be covered so that there are no misunderstandings and they need to be covered consistently across the board and without exceptions based on personal bias, opinion or elitism.

I personally believe the rules tend to be "stretched" if the program author is well known and/or well liked - but I find this offensive. I was once allowed to have 2 entrants at a world championship and in retrospect I thought this was unfair. However one of my entries was clearly inferior - a very old program there to just fill out the crosstable and make an even number of participants to avoid bye's. But it still didn't set well with me even though nobody else seemed to care and I would not let this happen again.

[Harvey Williamson]

What is your view on adjusting settings during the game? Is that in the spirit of the rules? Things like this need to be covered so that there are no misunderstandings and they need to be covered consistently across the board and without exceptions based on personal bias, opinion or elitism.

.

I guess you do not want to address Amir's points that show a different story to the one you tell. Amir's story is supported by your own operator.

As for the above it was wrong it happened years ago and if I had not admitted to it nobody would have known about it. Is the best defence you have to dig up old dirt?

Anyway enough of this. I hope you get the MP Komodo working soon and look forward to seeing you in Leiden.

[Suj]

Forgot to mention this.

During Sjeng's game vs shredder it looked as though the master had crashed and we had lost almost 15 mins.

Thanks to Enrico who provided me with a timely advice of disconnecting and rejoining so that I dont lose more valuable.

[Peter Skinner]

I'm not saying anything improper happened, but I was pretty annoyed about how it all went down with no possible chance of verification and for several minutes I felt I was being ignored by the TD who would not respond to me. I think that he was probably just very busy.

I wasn't trying to ignore you at all Don. In fact I was very busy trying to get all the games finalized in the PGN file (BabasChess was good to a point in getting the games, but for some reason didn't capture all the games). I simply didn't see you "tell" me anything until I was alerted via MSN that you were looking to talk to me. At which point I sent you a tell asking if something was wrong.

When the TD did get back to me (someone else requested that he should do so) I felt like I had to fight to get treated fairly on this. I should have been able to say that "here are YOUR rules, they were violated, and I claim the win." I should not be chastised in any way for this or made to feel guilty for this. In fact, I thinks it's dead wrong because rules like this are designed to ADD stability and certainty to a tournament, not to detract from this. Rules like this spell out what should happen in circumstances that the TD anticipates might happen and by censoring those who expect the rules to be fairly administered just undermines the stability of such events.

You made the claim 43 minutes after play had begun again. I was busy during the final round preparing for the blitz tournament, getting the website updated, and sorting the games in the PGN file (As noted above). I really didn't realize that Junior was gone for longer than 5 minutes at the time of disconnection, and Amir was quite clear that Junior was rebooting. Looking at the logs, it was 7 mins, 43 seconds that Junior was gone. My issue was that it took 43 minutes for you to claim the win, or make issue of Junior's reconnection issue.

You stated to me you weren't there at the time, but here you say you were. Which is it? Your operator even made a comment in channel 64 "Good thing I am not Vincent.."

No one took issue with the amount of time that Junior had taken to return until it looked like you were going to lose that game. The "almost 10 minutes" issue wasn't brought up until almost an hour later. THIS is what I had an issue with. And yes, taking all the facts into consideration, I do feel like it was really poor sportsmanship. That is my opinion, and frankly, I am entitled to it. I did enforce the rules when asked.

I am sure Amir didn't like it, probably due to the same reasons I have, but they were enforced regardless. Ktulu lost round 9 as well due to disconnection, even though the other author thought Ktulu should have received the win.

I don't have time while running a manual event to watch 14 boards like a hawk. I rely on sportsmanship, and the participants to alert me to issues when I don't see them myself. Junior, in my mind came back quickly, but that was probably due to how busy I was. I didn't realize that so much time had passed. Someone should have claimed that win immediately. Not 43 minutes later.

Peter

[Don]

What is your view on adjusting settings during the game? Is that in the spirit of the rules? Things like this need to be covered so that there are no misunderstandings and they need to be covered consistently across the board and without exceptions based on personal bias, opinion or elitism.

.

I guess you do not want to address Amir's points that show a different story to the one you tell. Amir's story is supported by your own operator.

Amir does not tell a different story - he is just explaining what happened. I did not try to explain what happened on their end, only on my own end. I don't see the conflict here.

It's true that I presented a hypothetical scenario that cleared them of anything wrong, is this what you are having a problem with?

In the end I made a decision based on what the rules state should happen in the exact situation that DID happen.

I admit that I was frustrated by lack of knowledge and experience with FICS and Gary will tell you that I did not know my way around the interface. He had to help me with changing channels and how to contact the TD and things like this. So don't assume that I knew exactly what was going on and was an insider on all the gossip that was happening, I wasn't.

As for the above it was wrong it happened years ago and if I had not admitted to it nobody would have known about it. Is the best defense you have to dig up old dirt?

It's just that you are so quick to condemn me for something that was within the rules, while you did something that was outside the rules. So I honestly wanted to know how you felt about that - and now I have my answer. Since you admit it was a mistake that is good enough for me and it won't be mentioned again but you should take care to not throw stones when you live in a glass house.

Anyway enough of this. I hope you get the MP Komodo working soon and look forward to seeing you in Leiden.

Agreed. I don't have the time to stay on this subject and so I will cry uncle at this point.

[Harvey Williamson]

Amir does not tell a different story - he is just explaining what happened. I did not try to explain what happened on their end, only on my own end. I don't see the conflict here.
It's true that I presented a hypothetical scenario that cleared them of anything wrong, is this what you are having a problem with?

As you ask a question I must respond.

I think Amir does tell a different story because you claim nobody was seeing his evaluations. Your own operator was seeing them and agreed to play on. If you don't want to abide by your operators decision then perhaps you should operate yourself next time.

[Don]

I'm not saying anything improper happened, but I was pretty annoyed about how it all went down with no possible chance of verification and for several minutes I felt I was being ignored by the TD who would not respond to me. I think that he was probably just very busy.

I wasn't trying to ignore you at all Don. In fact I was very busy trying to get all the games finalized in the PGN file (BabasChess was good to a point in getting the games, but for some reason didn't capture all the games). I simply didn't see you "tell" me anything until I was alerted via MSN that you were looking to talk to me. At which point I sent you a tell asking if something was wrong.

Peter, I was just frustrated and I did not know my way around the interface, so I am sorry about that remark. I eventually did come to the conclusion that you were probably busy doing TD stuff.

When the TD did get back to me (someone else requested that he should do so) I felt like I had to fight to get treated fairly on this. I should have been able to say that "here are YOUR rules, they were violated, and I claim the win." I should not be chastised in any way for this or made to feel guilty for this. In fact, I thinks it's dead wrong because rules like this are designed to ADD stability and certainty to a tournament, not to detract from this. Rules like this spell out what should happen in circumstances that the TD anticipates might happen and by censoring those who expect the rules to be fairly administered just undermines the stability of such events.

You made the claim 43 minutes after play had begun again. I was busy during the final round preparing for the blitz tournament, getting the website updated, and sorting the games in the PGN file (As noted above). I really didn't realize that Junior was gone for longer than 5 minutes at the time of disconnection, and Amir was quite clear that Junior was rebooting. Looking at the logs, it was 7 mins, 43 seconds that Junior was gone. My issue was that it took 43 minutes for you to claim the win, or make issue of Junior's reconnection issue.

You stated to me you weren't there at the time, but here you say you were. Which is it? Your operator even made a comment in channel 64 "Good thing I am not Vincent.."

No one took issue with the amount of time that Junior had taken to return until it looked like you were going to lose that game. The "almost 10 minutes" issue wasn't brought up until almost an hour later. THIS is what I had an issue with. And yes, taking all the facts into consideration, I do feel like it was really poor sportsmanship. That is my opinion, and frankly, I am entitled to it. I did enforce the rules when asked.

I am sure Amir didn't like it, probably due to the same reasons I have, but they were enforced regardless. Ktulu lost round 9 as well due to disconnection, even though the other author thought Ktulu should have received the win.

I don't have time while running a manual event to watch 14 boards like a hawk. I rely on sportsmanship, and the participants to alert me to issues when I don't see them myself. Junior, in my mind came back quickly, but that was probably due to how busy I was. I didn't realize that so much time had passed. Someone should have claimed that win immediately. Not 43 minutes later.

This is wearing me down, but let me give an answer then I hope we can stop. Let me just say that I don't fault you for anything and I think you handled this fairly. From you point of view it probably seemed that I went on vacation for 43 minutes and then suddenly appeared to claim a win. That is not how it was from my point of view and to me everything took too much time. I honestly thought the game was over after the disconnect but I was frustrated that I could not see a result update and walked away for a few minutes to use the bathroom. When I came back I saw the game back on-line and I did not even know who to contact and started conversing with Gary on what to do. I had to figure out how to send a message (shout), what the rules were, how I should proceed and so on. I shouted a comment about no kibtiz and it took me some time to actually figure out what was going on. It took me a while to sort everything out on my end and of course I was also frustrated waiting on responses from you and Gary. I'm also not the best at making split second decisions.

Gary told me that he had agreed to play on and we had a conversation about that using the "tell" command. I almost let that pass but I was actually a little bothered that I was not consulted, after all I am the author. Gary may not have known that I was on-line as I was silent almost the entire time I was watching games.

So I just hope to get all of this behind us. I got what I asked for, the rules were followed, a few unkind words were said and if I hurt anyone with anything I said I apologize. We are surely going to have to get used to each other and will meet again I am sure.

Peter

[Don]

Amir does not tell a different story - he is just explaining what happened. I did not try to explain what happened on their end, only on my own end. I don't see the conflict here.
It's true that I presented a hypothetical scenario that cleared them of anything wrong, is this what you are having a problem with?

As you ask a question I must respond.

I think Amir does tell a different story because you claim nobody was seeing his evaluations. Your own operator was seeing them and agreed to play on. If you don't want to abide by your operators decision then perhaps you should operate yourself next time.

I'll respond in private.

[garybelton]

Gary will tell you that I did not know my way around the interface. He had to help me with changing channels and how to contact the TD and things like this

Yes all this is very true, it'll be a lot easier for you next time Don