Levy's interview on Chessbase about ICGA/rybka

[noctiferus]

The second part of Levy's interview is here:
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7908

[JuLieN]

The second part of Levy's interview is here:
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7908

I just read it, and the questions were incredibly aggressive and orientated. Also, they shown that those who wrote the questions had no understanding of what the ICGA is neither what is really reproached to Rybka (for instance, they still did't get that ICGA doesn't care about copyright but about its own sport rule and that Rybka was accused to use Fruit code without asking for permission, not being reproached to not be 100% original.)

To me, this "interview" looks a lot more like aggressive forum posters throwing orientated questions at David Levy than like a professional journalism work. It looks like the same c**p one can read all along threads in fora.

[Laskos]

The second part of Levy's interview is here:
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7908

Damn, this is a smear campaign by CB/Rybka against ICGA. They want a passionate mob justice of their own (for CB readers an buyers), as though all the forums (CCC included) are not enough. Was that the only way for Vas? Pretty ugly. Anyway, Levy should have not entered into these dirty CB tricks. What is generally left (for not very informed) is the first question (the following are similar):

ChessBase: Critics of the ICGA say that at least some of the members of the panel that led the investigation harboured deep personal animosity towards Vasik Rajlich and had been attacking him for years. This can be easily proved by citing many thousands of forum postings before, during and after the investigation process. Was it wise of the ICGA to rely on such members and in fact elect them to lead the investigation and draft the final report? In civil or criminal court this would have lead to an immediate mistrial.


Kai

[OliverUwira]

Levy: So much of the pro-Rajlich rhetoric on the forums, and some of the questions in this interview, seem to be aimed at nothing more than discrediting people. Neither the forum postings nor the questions in this interview have seriously questioned the accuracy of the evidence examined by the panel. In fact I have yet to see anything that seriously questions the accuracy of that evidence.

This should have been said right at the beginning of part 1.

[Laskos]

The second part of Levy's interview is here:
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7908

Damn, this is a smear campaign by CB/Rybka against ICGA. They want a passionate mob justice of their own (for CB readers an buyers), as though all the forums (CCC included) are not enough. Was that the only way for Vas? Pretty ugly. Anyway, Levy should have not entered into these dirty CB tricks. What is generally left (for not very informed) is the first question (the following are similar):

ChessBase: Critics of the ICGA say that at least some of the members of the panel that led the investigation harboured deep personal animosity towards Vasik Rajlich and had been attacking him for years. This can be easily proved by citing many thousands of forum postings before, during and after the investigation process. Was it wise of the ICGA to rely on such members and in fact elect them to lead the investigation and draft the final report? In civil or criminal court this would have lead to an immediate mistrial.


Kai

And CB, in its affect-oriented questions, doesn't hesitate to call as clones other engines (not sold by CB), a "fact" understood as proven by average readers.

Houdini, which experts say is a derivative of Ippolit, in turn a derivative of Rybka (which is in third place)

Only the beloved and passionately innocent Rybka is sensitive to these accusations.

Kai

[Adam Hair]

The second part of Levy's interview is here:
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7908

I just read it, and the questions were incredibly aggressive and orientated. Also, they shown that those who wrote the questions had no understanding of what the ICGA is neither what is really reproached to Rybka (for instance, they still did't get that ICGA doesn't care about copyright but about its own sport rule and that Rybka was accused to use Fruit code without asking for permission, not being reproached to not be 100% original.)

To me, this "interview" looks a lot more like aggressive forum posters throwing orientated questions at David Levy than like a professional journalism work. It looks like the same c**p one can read all along threads in fora.

I can only draw the same conclusion as you have.

I have multiple issues with the interview, but I will highlight just one.

Just like the engine market, the ICGA World Computer Chess Championship would seem to be in a crisis: the top seed and winner of the most recent ICGA event is in place 53 of the CCRL Computer Rating list (January 29, 2012).

They conveniently ignored the ranking assigned to Junior in the CCRL 40/40 list and instead used the position of the first Junior version found in the complete list. The complete list includes every version of every engine we test, which means multiple versions of Stockfish, Critter, Rybka, Houdini, Naum, Komodo, etc... are on the complete list. Use this list instead: http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/
Junior is actually ranked 9th on the CCRL 40/40 list, and easily could be 7th after more testing.

[Rolf]

The second part of Levy's interview is here:
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7908

Please take a look into my other message in the other thread about Rybka 1 HERE
http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 411#449411

I want to present two points that do unrefutably prove that the anti-Rybka ICGA side is completely off the road.

(1) First of all their mathematical foolishness.
If you have 300 programmers (amateurs and pros) and gather 34 in a special ICGA panel and then only 16 voted, then even the result of 16-0 isnt a clear result at all. Levy says if it had been 9-7 then the staff should have taken some serious considerations out of doubt.

However this is against all knowledge coming from stats. If 18 out of 34 (out of a population of over 300!) abstained, this is a clear vote that they didnt agree with the basically called for endresult of the guilty side. But for many reasons in the peer group they didnt want to link their name with such a voting either. That's a typical sociopsychological problem. Anyway, ONLY 16 of the 34, so, less than 50% and less than 5% of all chess programmers voted against Vas Rajlich. That is the correct spelling of the result. Since all knew of the problem and could have cared to participate. If not, they must have had reasons to abstain. I could guess that they didnt agree with the witchhunt of the anti Vas people.

(2) It's completely wrong to apply a processing that examins the legality of programs on a complaint step by step basis. Because first of all, if I have a rule 2 I must guarantee that this rule is enforcable right from the start and not 10 years later. Otherwise no interesting sport. If you didnt have exact rules for the famous 2 condition then after many years you cant reopen the case. It's against the reality of human life. No matter what a certain player might have done wrong. Maybe this then enters the field of historical taboos.

[OliverUwira]

Because first of all, if I have a rule 2 I must guarantee that this rule is enforcable right from the start and not 10 years later. Otherwise no interesting sport. If you didnt have exact rules for the famous 2 condition then after many years you cant reopen the case.

Damn right, we also wouldn't want to strip Lance Armstrong off of his marvellous seven consecutive wins at the Tour de France.

[Rolf]

Because first of all, if I have a rule 2 I must guarantee that this rule is enforcable right from the start and not 10 years later. Otherwise no interesting sport. If you didnt have exact rules for the famous 2 condition then after many years you cant reopen the case.

Damn right, we also wouldn't want to strip Lance Armstrong off of his marvellous seven consecutive wins at the Tour de France.

Dont be surprised, this is my next point. From now on we are living under a false reality of the ICGA with the suspicion that all engines are copies until the holy ICGA has decided otherwise. Meaning that nothing has any importance anymore. That is the bad side of the smear campaign.

[Harvey Williamson]

From now on we are living under a false reality of the ICGA with the suspicion that all engines are copies until the holy ICGA has decided otherwise. Meaning that nothing has any importance anymore. That is the bad side of the smear campaign.

the ICGA takes no view on an engine unless it enters on of its events.