World Computer Chess Championship 2009 - Pamplona 10-18 May

[Harvey Williamson]

Do you think anyone outside our small community has heard of any of the testers? I seriously doubt it. That is why i think we need a WCCC that can be explained easily to the public through the media. The 8 core limit which I support needs to be regularly reviewed.

[turbojuice1122]

I agree that people outside of our small community have generally not heard of CEGT or SSDF--though they do definitely come across them in Google searches about information when they are new to the hobby and want information (that is how I came across SSDF long ago).

However, this doesn't address the fact that WCCC is made a sham in name by this restriction--it basically turns it into a small tournament example of what CEGT or SSDF might do in a day; the only exception is that these testing groups don't use the latest team opening books. Anyway, while I know that some things might be difficult to explain the way they were, I think that they can be even more difficult to explain in other ways, such as:

(1) "How is this a computer chess championship if there is a limitation on hardware? I thought that the computers of tomorrow will have much greater hardware than what is available today, and that this was a demonstration of some of those capabilities."

(2) "Why does this event eliminate the participation of projects such as Gridchess or cluster Crafty or Rybka Cluster in the main event?"

(3) "Why does this event eliminate the inclusion of commercial entities such as Deep Blue or Hydra, which have been able to show their capabilities in such events in the past, thus gaining more publicity?"

There will always be difficult questions to answer no matter what you do. The event should at least be aptly named, or go by its name, instead of becoming like the FIDE "world chess championships" as they existed in the knockout cycles starting in 1997.

[Harvey Williamson]

I agree that people outside of our small community have generally not heard of CEGT or SSDF--though they do definitely come across them in Google searches about information when they are new to the hobby and want information (that is how I came across SSDF long ago).

However, this doesn't address the fact that WCCC is made a sham in name by this restriction--it basically turns it into a small tournament example of what CEGT or SSDF might do in a day; the only exception is that these testing groups don't use the latest team opening books. Anyway, while I know that some things might be difficult to explain the way they were, I think that they can be even more difficult to explain in other ways, such as:

(1) "How is this a computer chess championship if there is a limitation on hardware? I thought that the computers of tomorrow will have much greater hardware than what is available today, and that this was a demonstration of some of those capabilities."

(2) "Why does this event eliminate the participation of projects such as Gridchess or cluster Crafty or Rybka Cluster in the main event?"

(3) "Why does this event eliminate the inclusion of commercial entities such as Deep Blue or Hydra, which have been able to show their capabilities in such events in the past, thus gaining more publicity?"

There will always be difficult questions to answer no matter what you do. The event should at least be aptly named, or go by its name, instead of becoming like the FIDE "world chess championships" as they existed in the knockout cycles starting in 1997.

I suppose it comes down to what you want to get out of the championship. If you want to interest the public and get them to buy the top commercial engines, and run them on normal hardware, then a more level playing field has to be the way to go. As someone who knows a lot about the media this is the main way to interest them.

There is a new event running alongside the WCCC which is open and matches like Hydra v Rybka could be run in.

Maybe if Vas had not spent so long working on his cluster his customers would have received a bug fixed R3 by now!?

[IA]

Excellent CPU for the championship of the world in Pamplona For Hiarcs 12.x …..

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,8813.html

AMD 6.000 MHZ......

http://www.xataka.com/otros/amd-phenom- ... do-a-6-ghz

Regards...

[IA]

As for relation quality I boast the best 2 chip for the chess are the " Intel i7 920 " and the " AMD Phenom II x4 940 " later this one excellently but expensivly " i7 940 ", a good serious alternative 2 CPU i7 920 accelerated ones … …..


Regards …

[Harvey Williamson]

The tournament is not so far away now. Flights are booked. I am flying from London to Bilbao. Hans van der Zijden(Rybka operator) will fly into London from Amsterdam and join me on the flight to Bilbao. We will then hire a car and drive to our Hotel in Pamplona.

Also in the same Hotel will be Richard Pijl(The Baron) Stefan Meyer-Kahlen(Shredder) and Vincent Diepeveen(Diep) and probably a few others. I hear that Richard and Vincent will share a room so I hope neither of them snore!

after last years WCCC in China and our fascination with the menu in the Hotel Hans and I have already looked up the Spanish for 'Ox Penis'

[Dark Horse]

Harvey be careful you dont get served a load of bull

[Harvey Williamson]

so far:

WCCC

Danasah - Pedro Castro
Deep Junior – Amir Ban, Shay Bushinsky
Deep Sjeng – G-Carlo Pascutto
Equinox – Giancarlo Delli Colli, Stefano Rocchi
HIARCS – Mark Uniacke
Joker – Harm Geert Muller
Jonny – Johannes Zwanger
Pandix 2009 AI – Gyula Horvath
Rybka – Vasik Rajlich
Shredder – Stefan Meyer-Kahlen
The Baron – Richard Pijl

Diep is considering participating in the WCCC in addition to the COOCT. - this is the no limit tournament - the details of the length of games and number of rounds is still to be decided.

COOCT

Deep Sjeng – G-Carlo Pascutto
Diep – Vincent Diepeveen
Joker – Harm Geert Muller
Rybka – Vasik Rajlich
Shredder – Stefan Meyer-Kahlen

[gerold]

The tournament is not so far away now. Flights are booked. I am flying from London to Bilbao. Hans van der Zijden(Rybka operator) will fly into London from Amsterdam and join me on the flight to Bilbao. We will then hire a car and drive to our Hotel in Pamplona.

Also in the same Hotel will be Richard Pijl(The Baron) Stefan Meyer-Kahlen(Shredder) and Vincent Diepeveen(Diep) and probably a few others. I hear that Richard and Vincent will share a room so I hope neither of them snore!

after last years WCCC in China and our fascination with the menu in the Hotel Hans and I have already looked up the Spanish for 'Ox Penis'

Beware of the swinging beef

[Harvey Williamson]

New Computer for Pamplona - I like the Red lights

[Carl Bicknell]

I suppose it comes down to what you want to get out of the championship. If you want to interest the public and get them to buy the top commercial engines, and run them on normal hardware, then a more level playing field has to be the way to go. As someone who knows a lot about the media this is the main way to interest them.

There is a new event running alongside the WCCC which is open and matches like Hydra v Rybka could be run in.

Maybe if Vas had not spent so long working on his cluster his customers would have received a bug fixed R3 by now!?

I'm surprised to see you write this. There are several big objections in addition to those raised by Turbojuice:

First, the Deep Blue match aroused MASSIVE interest, much more than Deep Fritz 10 v Kramnik did. The size of the hardware was one of the big things IBM paraded around and used to bump up their stock prices. Put simply, people came to gaze at Deep Blue's stats.

Secondly, since you and Mark have argued eloquently about the fairness issue, with several valid points, are you - a spokesperson for this justice - really saying that all dedicated super-computers (Deep Thought / Cilkchess / Hydra etc) have no right to even compete for the crown of World Champion? If we could rewind a few years could we honestly say that 'Fritz' was the world computer champion in 1997 when it clear that Deep Blue was far stronger? Don't the big machines have right to claim this title if they are the strongest?

Finally, on the issue of fairness issue: Mark gave a convincing simile of Formula 1 racing. The problem is with racing you only see the cars in action as they go round the track - so there is a great need to see which is the fastest - and therefore there needs to be some degree of equality of engine size etc. (Although part of this is for the driver's safety)
However, in chess this is already accounted for - CEGT / CCRL and SSDF. We already KNOW which is the best program, the purpose of a tournament is NOT to establish which is the best piece of software.
Rather it is more like two armies going to war. When we (England) went to war against Iraq, did we compensate for the fact that they had inferior weapons? Is it not the case that we want our best men on the battlefield armed the best equipment? We WANT it to be unfair in war! That's the whole reason why you, Mr. Hallsworth etc come up with such a good opening book - you are TRYING to give your program an 'unfair' advantage over the opposition, and rightly so. As with the opening book, so with the hardware.


Carl [/quote]

[Harvey Williamson]

The Deep Blue match had absolutely nothing to do with the World Championship - and yes was a great match.

It is only us small group of people that know about CEGT/CCRL etc. The only way to make new people interested is to get the general mass media to cover the event and for that to happen it has to be easy to understand. Not you cant own the winner unless you have 8 skulltrails. It needs to be you can walk into a shop and order the machine that won and buy/download the software. The simpler the rules the easier it is to explain it to a general audience and the more likely it is to get coverage.

If you want to compare CEGT/CCRL then I guess they are the football League the World championship is the FA Cup. The best team usually finishes top of the League but does not always win the world cup but the basic rules are the same 22 players and 1 ball.

[Harvey Williamson]

The Deep Blue match had absolutely nothing to do with the World Championship - and yes was a great match.

It is only us small group of people that know about CEGT/CCRL etc. The only way to make new people interested is to get the general mass media to cover the event and for that to happen it has to be easy to understand. Not you cant own the winner unless you have 8 skulltrails. It needs to be you can walk into a shop and order the machine that won and buy/download the software. The simpler the rules the easier it is to explain it to a general audience and the more likely it is to get coverage.

If you want to compare CEGT/CCRL then I guess they are the football League the World championship is the FA Cup. The best team usually finishes top of the League but does not always win the world cup but the basic rules are the same 22 players and 1 ball.

If I was Vas rather than wanting to win on 52 cores when who is the best is always in doubt I would turn up with a quad beat all the 8 cores and then rightly claim to be the undisputed world champion!

[Watchman]

First, the Deep Blue match aroused MASSIVE interest, much more than Deep Fritz 10 v Kramnik did. The size of the hardware was one of the big things IBM paraded around and used to bump up their stock prices. Put simply, people came to gaze at Deep Blue's stats.

And you are saying a cluster (that nets +30 elo) will somehow enthrall and enrapture the masses?

Btw... time to convince Vas to incorporate and go public... brb

[turbojuice1122]

To keep things on the same page, I don't think that the Deep Blue and Kramnik matches are greatly relevant here, but the Hydra supercomputer very much is. This garnered a LOT of media attention because...well...people liked the gawk at its stats--and this was before the match against Adams.

In the case of Rybka cluster, there is no issue about its status of World Computer Chess Champion. Everyone will know that Rybka is by far the strongest program out there no matter what, and the ones who don't, deserve to be duped into buying some other program just because it won a tournament that people choose to call the WCCC (even though it's not any longer--such entities as Gridchess, cluster Crafty, etc. cannot compete at all, and entities that are able to massively parallelize, such as Rybka and Sjeng, are discouraged from doing so, with the main event now being the "Olympiad"), if such ends up being the case and some other program wins this year. The WCCC has always been about experimentation and innovation, and that has been what has made much of the media news in the past. I think that there were more people among the masses interested in following the tournament last year because of the potential awesome power of a cluster Rybka than they will be in this year's tournament that is handicapped in favor of the programs not so easily parallelized. The vast majority of the people keeping their eyes on these things are computer chess enthusiasts anyway, and that's not going to change--so it makes a bit more sense to make these tournaments more appealing to them instead of alienating so many of them with these handicap events being given the name of WCCC. I think that it makes more sense to keep these masses interested than to change things so greatly from how they have been for decades with the hope that it might garner some media attention, with the "best" result being that stories are written and ignored by readers who aren't interested in this stuff anyway, with the interested readers cringing at the instances of misinformation that will obviously abound.