Komodo and WCCC

[Rodolfo Leoni]

Years ago, when Richard sent me a new version of The Baron for testing, he wrote: "Have fun!" For me, this has much more sense than few ELO points.

It is all that matters

Hi Richard !!!

I'm very happy to hear from you again!

What news from The Baron?

I'll PM you my mail address.

Rodolfo

[mjlef]

I agree Stockfish should be allowed to partecipate. ..............

..........While doing so, what's the cost of congratulations?

I am basically repeating things here, but since I have been encouraging Stockfish to participate, I want to make it clear that I know of nothing that would prevent them from participating except Marco and some of the authors saying they do not want it to. I do not understand the reasons, so it is best to ask them directly.

It has been my fault to think Stockfish was excluded from participating. I'm sorry for that and I'm happy to heve my ideas more clear now.

Preparing for the WCCC is a lot of work. You need to make a good book suitable for your program. You need to find suitable hardware (a mere quad will not suffice). You need to pay for travel, hotel and other expenses. If you enter all three competitions, it is basically 7 days of continuous work. In the evenings you are not playing you have to modify your book to not repeat lines. It is a big undertaking and I am glad we had Erdo as our operator and book maker. I hope that Stockfish will compete in the future. They have a great program.

I think Erdogan has been great. I want to congratulate to him too, because I think he contributed a lot. Not only with book, with heart too. You're lucky to have such a man in the team.

...................................

People have made wild claims here about strength, but only a few people have access to current Komodo and Shredder development versions. You cannot compare fast games with old programs with long games and new programs. I know Komodo has gained a lot of elo since the 11.01 release.
I would guess that Shredder has as well since Stefan's last release. And claims Rybka was 600 elo stronger than all other programs at the time is just not backed up by the available data. It is not hard to look up ratings on the various lists. Try to do that and be more factual.

You seem angry and I don't understand it. I started this thread because there was a lot of indifference about WCCC and, while doing so, I repeated my congrats to the team. If you want, I can repeat it again.

While I was spending my evenings (and a part of nights) at Olivier's Chesswar and Openwar broadcasting. it was clear enough how Rybka was superior at those times. The 100% performance was boring too, and people often gave their attention on other than Rybka games, like the fact a pizza was their dinner and so. Spike 1.3 has been of some interest, but at its first Openwar it was clear the strenght difference. Not 600 ELO, but 300+ for sure.

Perhaps someone will start a poll asking if Stockfish should enter these tournaments? If there is a huge demand, maybe they will change their minds and enter next year.

Mark

I hope it's clear I'm not against Komodo or business from chess or anything else. I wanted to underline business is far more difficult today than it was ten years ago. But maybe it's true in every field of activity.

Stockfish absence is a damage for Komodo, I guess. People will always say "Stockfish!" when Komodo wins. If someone has a way to convince Marco & C. to participate I'll be happy and I'm sure a lot of more people would follow the event.

Regards,
Rodolfo

Thanks.

I am not at all angry with you or anyone else. I am an engineer, and perhaps my very direct writing style can sound like anger. I just like to correct things I think are inaccurate.

When a program gets to about 150 elo stronger than all others, it starts winning about 70% of the time, or more, and it indeed gets less interesting. But other programs seem to eventually catch up. The very active Stockfish development is showing that the human brain can lead to a lot more elo gain than just due to faster hardware. It is wonderful to watch and participate in.

Mark

[mjlef]

Years ago, when Richard sent me a new version of The Baron for testing, he wrote: "Have fun!" For me, this has much more sense than few ELO points.

It is all that matters

BTW, Richard is one of the nicest people you will ever meet. Attending the WCCC in person is great because you get to meet people like him in person.

[mjlef]

I wanted to understand why such an indifference about WCCC, and it's deriving away. Since now, I'll ignore everything off topic.

Well,

1. From an academic (AI/computer science) standpoint, computer chess isn't so hot anymore. Most improvements now are not due to better science, but due to better engineering. Sure, there are some types of problems that are still interesting (deep mates, help mates, retrograde problems, issues dealing with chess variants; hell, even what determines the relative value of chess pieces) but none of it is of wide general interest. I always assumed that WCCC had a computer science conference attached to it, but that seems to not (no longer?) be the case.
2. From a commercial standpoint, computer chess is dead, at least when it comes to playing strength. The average human consumer has no chance to draw, let alone win, at all against a strong chess program at full strength (neither does a professional chess player, but that's a niche market anyway). So if I have a program that is much better than I am already, why do I need to buy a new one? Not for playing strength. Perhaps for GUI features or analysis capabilities. Those things are not even considered in WCCC. All of that is before considering that there are a host of really strong free chess engines.
3. From the point of view of those obsessed with the relative ranking of chess engines, the number of games is too short. There's the mistaken belief that the "champion" is the "strongest" rather than the "winner of the championship". The championship is not about figuring out which engine is the strongest (although the strongest engine clearly has the best chance to win the championship), it's also (mainly) about interesting and exciting games - and there is no shortage of those to be had elsewhere. Hell, if you wanted to, you could run a match between strong engines on your laptop and watch exciting games that way.

Anyway, that's my €0,02 for what that's worth.

I am in a lot of agreement with what you have written. A small disagreement in what to call what we do. Although I am an engineer, and proud of if, I still think the stuff Larry and I get to do each day is pretty close to pure science much of the time. We hypothesize about a new search or evaluation term. We test that hypothesis by running many thousands of games, and we use statistics to guide it in what ideas to keep or toss. There is some "engineering" like coming up with better data structure to speed up a move generator and such.

People indeed can get free super strong chess software. But that does not diminish the value of making chess engines even stronger. With improvements they can analyze deeper and better in less time. A version of say Stockfish written this month lets you see better chess one a cheap desktop PC than what you could see a few years ago on a very expensive server. Science seems expand our options and nothing seem to ever fully die. Cars have been around 100 year+ years, but people still enjoy riding horses. And people are still making horseshoes.

I suppose there is no solution to people who assume the winner of a few rounds at a tournament is the "strongest". Strength is measured much more accurately in the thousands of games by rating groups. Limits in human endurance (and time you can get off from work, and the amount you can pay for a hotel) means we have to make do with what can fit into a week or so. Going online is a reasonable solution to that (like TCEC). But it misses out on the one to one conversations and ideas that can be exchanged. But perhaps online video chat means we can get much of that in an online event. And the matches can last many more rounds, giving the strongest programs a better change of proving themselves.

Mark

[Kotlov]

I am in a lot of agreement with what you have written. A small disagreement in what to call what we do. Although I am an engineer, and proud of if, I still think the stuff Larry and I get to do each day is pretty close to pure science much of the time. We hypothesize about a new search or evaluation term. We test that hypothesis by running many thousands of games, and we use statistics to guide it in what ideas to keep or toss. There is some "engineering" like coming up with better data structure to speed up a move generator and such.

What is the code difference between K and SF?
What is the fundamental code difference between K and SF?

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

well, it is obvious, since Van Gogh, no more great painters,

Matisse? Picasso?

since Mozart, very few great musicians,

Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Shostakovic, Mahler... you know what, I know more who came after Mozart.

since Newton, very few great mathematicians, etc.

Laplace, Gauss, Euler...

all those people never attended any kind of conference or took artistic advice, but still their names are carved in gold.

You do know the myth of people from "outside" a field revolutionising the field without any formal training is just that, right? A myth, that is.

people who attend scientific conferences mainly remain unnoticed, at least I can not think of a single worthy name.

Well, that says a great deal about you.

There are about five people in that image I have not heard about. All the other ones are notable. Mme Curie doubly so.

and it is only about natural, in order to create, you need tabula rasa, no knowledge whasoever about the past; once you know about the past, all you can do is repeat things already well known.

You are quite wrong (again).
Conversely, those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.[/img]

I said very few, and you listed just a few.

what about great scientists, mathematicians, artists, novelists, musician, poets, in the last 50 years or so, mine and yours lifetime?

just mention a single poet, a single one, apart from Vysotsky

a single mathematician

a single painter who sells as Van Gogh does

a single novelist who got higher fame than Hugo and Senkievicz, for example a single one?

you can not, because there are not such.

that tells a lot about me, you and the world we are living in.

no more creativity, plain boring routine and plagiarism.

btw., have not you read Asimov's Foundation?

Trantor is the Earth of today, no doubt about it.

nevermind, we will never share similar point of view.

good liuck with your next scientific conference.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

btw., how can you create, when you follow examples?

all creative works of the past have been done by doing away with examples and choosing a new path.

that is why all the different schools of thought never agreed with each other.

it is by abolishing the old that the new came to light.

if you do not abolish the old and attempt to install a new order, what are you creating? you are simply borrowing past knowledge and experience, but that is certainly not creativity.

I guess you are one of those guys who enjoy attending courses of the type 'creative writing', or maybe, 'creative programming', or, even better, 'a creative approach to creative chess engine building'

PS. you were the first to attck, not me, mine were just general considerations.

[Henk]

Plagiarism is of all time. Van Gogh copying Japanese art. Mondrian copying Van der Leck and window mosaics from churches.

Rembrandt imitating Caravaggio or Italian art.

Might even be that the more successful they were the more they stole. Of course there are exceptions.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

A huge number of paradigms were changed from 1905 to 1935. In all fields of science and the arts. This obviously required great minds.

most of them associated with 'decadent' art or science, 'decdent' novelism and poetry, as well as post-paradigms and post-post-paradigms.

you do not have to go any further than just trying to interpret those words:
- decadence and
- post-post culture

but I agree, writers and scientists of the early 20th century, even though mostly humble, are much more productive than modern artists and scientists.

modern art and science almost does not exist, they are all attending wise conferences.

in what way you could compare Adele(I do not even know how this is written) to the Beatles and Mozart?
or, even Grisham, who still writes well, but mostly has no topic, to authors who wrote about real war, real love, and real life?

or, (trying to think of a modern scientist, but to no avail), with, say, Newton?

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

Apparently reading comprehension has reached an all-time low. Stockfish CAN participate if the authors want. The only ICGA rule preventing them from participating is that the AUTHORS have to either participate directly, or agree to allow someone else to operate the program. So the only thing preventing Stockfish from competing is the authors. And there is NO rule the ICGA can create that would be able to force them to participate if they don't want to.

Pretty simple, pretty concise. You are barking up the wrong tree...

I'd rather say... lack of knowledge about rules.

It was more important for me to understand people perception of the event. It's clear enough, now, that ICGA has to change several things for WCCC survival. While I consider Komodo deserves the title as the team is not guilty for Stockfish absence, I'm understanding this event is commercial-driven. Out of 4 participants, 3 were commercial. Organizers tried to justify Chiron presence because of its top ranking, but some free engines are stronger than Chiron.

I still have my attention here:

I was there on Friday afternoon last week to see playoffs. Almost no visitors there. But other games had already finished in days before. Operators liked it better that 'stupid visitors' keep quiet. So maybe best to watch games only via internet.

A wrong attitude towards public is a potential nuclear explosion. If some media operator could have such an impression that'd have been the worst advertising for computer chess.

CC fans are already bored of events like WCCC. I guess this one could represent opinion on many:

I am very, very grateful for the work of team Stockfish.

What this people are doing is the greatest gift in the world for all chessplayers.

As an chessenthusisast i don´t need a WCCC.

All i need is a project of chessprogramming like team Stockfish is doing.

Leave me alone with the marketing stuff of all these businesspeople.

Do cooperate projects like team Stockfish is doing and the world is a better place.

Thx for your attention.

The universe of computer chess has forever been altered by the "big bang". Started with Deep Blue / Kasparov, then on to today where a GM really needs a handicap to have a reasonable chance in a game. Hard for anyone to get worked up over a tournament when they have a super-GM on their laptop, pad or even phone.

Interest in tournaments is down, and interest in computer chess will likely continue to wane over time. When a good book reaches the climax, the denouement can't continue forever. Computer chess reached that "climax" when computers clearly passed GM players in terms of playing strength.

Then there's the cheating that has been going on for MANY years. Too many clones/derivatives. Too many interested more in winning and less in the game and fairness.

It's a combination of many factors. I am not even sure there is much gas left in the game of go, after the alpha go match.

precisely, chess is decadent, dead, post-post-modern.

I was trying to explain this to those very stubborn guys over there, but they claim quite the opposite.

For example, Evert says computer chess is dead, evrything in there has already been discovered, but at the same time he sticks to the point that science as a whole is vastly progressing.

how should I understand that double-faceted approach?