Rybka disqualified and banned from WCCC

[Harvey Williamson]

http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/rybka ... more-39974

Rybka Disqualified and Banned
from World Computer Chess Championships

David Levy – ICGA President

June 28th 2011


The International Computer Games Association (ICGA) has been conducting an
investigation into allegations that, in the chess program Rybka, the programmer
Vasik Rajlich plagiarized two other programs: Crafty and Fruit. The ICGA has
considered and evaluated the evidence presented to the investigation panel and
the report prepared by the panel’s Secretariat. (The report and evidence files
are attached.) We would like to thank those members of the panel who contributed
to this investigation and the Secretariat for the enormous amount of
conscientious work they have put in to this matter.

By a unanimous 5-0 decision of executive members of the ICGA we find ourselves
in agreement with the verdict of the Secretariat’s report. We are convinced that
the evidence against Vasik Rajlich is both overwhelming in its volume and beyond
reasonable question in its nature. Vasik Rajlich is guilty of plagiarizing the
programs Crafty and Fruit, and has violated the ICGA’s tournament rules with
respect to the World Computer Chess Championships in the years 2006, 2007, 2008,
2009 and 2010. Specifically, Vasik Rajlich, on all five occasions, violated
Tournament Rule 2 which requires that:

Each program must be the original work of the entering developers. Programming
teams whose code is derived from or including game-playing code written by
others must name all other authors, or the source of such code, in their
submission details. Programs which are discovered to be close derivatives of
others (e.g., by playing nearly all moves the same), may be declared invalid by
the Tournament Director after seeking expert advice. For this purpose a listing
of all game-related code running on the system must be available on demand to
the Tournament Director.

By claiming other programmers’ work as his own, and failing to comply with the
abovementioned rule, Vasik Rajlich has unfairly been awarded one shared 2nd-3rd
place (in 2006) and four World Computer Chess Championship titles (in 2007,
2008, 2009 and 2010). Furthermore, it seems to the ICGA that Vasik Rajlich
clearly knew that he was in the wrong in doing so, since he has repeatedly
denied plagiarizing the work of other programmers.


The ICGA regards Vasik Rajlich’s violation of the abovementioned rule as the
most serious offence that a chess programmer and ICGA member can commit with
respect to his peers and to the ICGA. During the course of the investigation and
upon presentation of the Secretariat’s report Vasik Rajlich did not offer,
despite repeated invitations from the ICGA to do so, any kind of defence to the
allegations, or to the evidence, or to the Secretariat’s report, other than to
claim in an e-mail to myself on May 13th 2011 that:

Rybkahas does not "include game-playing code written by others", aside from
standard exceptions which wouldn't count as 'game-playing'.

The vague phrase "derived from game-playing code written by others" also does
not in my view apply to Rybka.


The ICGA is of the view that such a serious offence deserves to be met with
correspondingly serious sanctions against the perpetrator. In deciding on
appropriate sanctions the ICGA has borne in mind the approach of the
International Olympic Committee for dealing with the most serious cases of the
violations of its rules.

The ICGA has therefore decided as follows:

[1] Vasik Rajlich is hereby disqualified from the World Computer Chess
Championships (WCCC) of 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

[2] The 2nd-3rd place awarded to the program called “Rajlich” in the 2006
WCCC is hereby annulled, sole 2nd place is awarded to the program Shredder, and
3rd place in that event is awarded to the program Zappa.


[3] The 1st places and World Computer Chess Champion titles awarded to
the program Rybka in the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 WCCCs are hereby annulled,
and all the other programs that competed in those events are moved up in the
final tournament standings by one place. Thus the revised tournament standings
and titles for those events will now be as follows.


2007

1st Zappa (World Champion)
2nd Loop
=3rd GridChess
=3rd Shredder


2008

1st Hiarcs (World Champion)
2nd Junior
3rd Cluster Toga



2009

=1st Junior (Joint World Champion)
=1st Shredder (Joint World Champion)
=1st Deep Sjeng (Joint World Champion)

2010

=1st Rondo (Joint World Champion)
=1st Thinker (Joint World Champion)
3rd Shredder

[4] In due course those programmers whose programs have been elevated to
World Champion (or joint World Champion) status will receive from the ICGA
replicas of the Shannon trophy for the appropriate years.

[5] The plaques on the Shannon trophy that currently bear the name Rybka
(for the years 2007-2010) will be removed from the trophy and new plaques will
be engraved with the names of the revised winners of the title.

[6] Similarly, the titles of World Computer Speed (Blitz) Chess Champion
that were awarded to Rybka in 2009 and 2010 are hereby annulled. The revised
winners of the speed chess title for those years are therefore:

2009 Shredder

2010 Jonny and Shredder (joint champions)

[7] Vasik Rajlich is banned for life from competing in the World Computer
Chess Championship or any other event organized by or sanctioned by the ICGA.

[8] The ICGA demands that Vasik Rajlich return to the ICGA the four
replicas of the Shannon Trophy presented at the World Computer Chess
Championships in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, and to return to the ICGA all prize
money awarded for Rybka’s performances in those events.




David Levy [President - ICGA]
June 28th 2011

[Bryan Whitby]

Thanks Harvey

[Enrico L. Carrisco]

It sure took a lot longer than it should have. I and many others (Anthony Cozzie, Dr. Hyatt) provided a lot of evidence when Rybka (1.0) beta hit the scene back in 2004.

Here’s a short synopsis copied from CCC archives:

http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1004

Finally, partial justice has been served. I’m glad Fabien finally became involved as that was the missing ingredient.

Ciao!

[Steve B]

Rybka Disqualified and Banned
from World Computer Chess Championships


By a unanimous 5-0 decision
The ICGA has therefore decided as follows:

[1] Vasik Rajlich is hereby disqualified from the World Computer Chess
Championships (WCCC) of 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.


[3] The 1st places and World Computer Chess Champion titles awarded to
the program Rybka in the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 WCCCs are hereby annulled,
Thus the revised tournament standings
and titles for those events will now be as follows.


2007
1st Zappa (World Champion)

2008
1st Hiarcs (World Champion)


2009
=1st Junior (Joint World Champion)
=1st Shredder (Joint World Champion)
=1st Deep Sjeng (Joint World Champion

2010
=1st Rondo (Joint World Champion)
=1st Thinker (Joint World Champion)



David Levy [President - ICGA]
June 28th 2011

Nice to see that every once in a great while..
folks that try to do things in an honest way ..through hard work ..are rewarded ..and folks that cheat are eventaully caught and called out for it
Congrats to the 2007-2010 ICGA World Champions

So It Is Written..So It Shall Be Done Regards
Steve

[mackgra]

In the majority of cases the truth eventually comes out and it is nice to see that it is the case here.
I hope this sets a precedent to all who think of plagiarising the hard work of others is acceptable.
Congratulations to all the real world champions from the previous years!!
Being a Hiarcs man i have to give belated congratulations to team Hiarcs for the 2008 win and i hope the team enjoy the Shannon trophy even if it is 3 years late, better late than never!!

As a final note the recently released Hiarcs opening book is a fantastic achievement, gaining 80+ Elo to the one released a year ago, i hope the engine is also coming along nicely too.

Justice has prevailed.

[Larry]

I dropped into the Rybka forum last night, for the first time ever, since I'm
not a member there. Some are refusing to accept the judges' decision,
claiming that the judges are themselves rival chess program authors and
therefore biased. Of course there is a right of appeal, but I somehow doubt
it will be used. I have read many threads on engine origins, in fact over on
CCC they started a separate "engine origin" forum. It seems to me that the
problem started when the "Fruit" code became open source.

I guess this puts Rybka into the same category as the "Ippolit" programs,
all exceptionally strong, and all released around the same time.
I'm wondering how many chess programs are truly original, from start
to finish. Have you ever tried to write one?...I mean starting with a text
editor and a keyboard?
Larry

[Harvey Williamson]

This post i just found is a nice try to summarise things.

http://www.chess.com/news/rybka-banned- ... itles-3798

'I see a lot of assumptions and questions below about aspects of this case, so let me (as someone whose profession is in the software domain) attempt to offer some clarity from a code licensing perspective:

- Each piece of software is distributed under a certain license (of which there are many types) that the creator of the software decides on. The particular chosen license sets forth the rules of how the code and software may and may not be used, e.g., whether the code of the software is allowed to be reused/copied, and whether to do so requires attribution or payment. For software as an intellectual property, to not comply with the terms of a license is equivalent to stealing (from a legal perspective). So copying without attribution, in this case, makes the author liable for theft, at the least.

- That Rybka is superior in strength to the engines it has allegedly copied from is not surprising: it shows that more than copying has taken place, e.g., the application of some genuine creativity on the part of the creators of Rybka. That, however, does not mean that the copying is less of a violation, so the argument that it's better and therefore not exactly the same is moot; noone claimed that it's exactly the same, merely that portions of it are too much alike to be the result of mere independent creation coinciding by chance.

- The evaluation function is one of the most critical and distinguishing pieces of a chess engine; it's also the part that must be guarded the most if the author wishes to not be easily outdone. This is what makes some engines stronger than others. So copying the evaluation function is the same as grabbing the parts of highest value (without "paying" for them). As an analogy, if you visit a wine cellar and take away a $5 bottle without paying, the owner may choose to avoid the hassle of going after you, but if you took a vintage $5000 bottle away, they may be inclined differently.

- Whether we like or agree with the presence of licenses, especially restrictive licenses (like GPL, for those who know about it), is another point that has no relevance to the discussion. It's the author's choice what license to use, and it's their legal right to have their intellectual property protected from misuse under the terms of the chosen license. And yes, some licenses are generally preferable from the perspective of someone wishing to reuse code without too many strings attached (e.g., GPL isn't one of them).'

[ricard60]

rybka has more than 4 years in this type of tournament. Why it took so long to come up with this decision?

[Harvey Williamson]

rybka has more than 4 years in this type of tournament. Why it took so long to come up with this decision?

because Fabien raised the issue this year - the rest is all in the evidence if you want to read it.

[ricard60]

Had somebody ask Fabian why now and not 3 or 4 years ago?.

[Harvey Williamson]

Had somebody ask Fabian why now and not 3 or 4 years ago?.

He was totally out of computer Chess for several years. He then looked at Strelka and saw it was fruit. vas had claimed Strelka was Rybka and so the investigation began.

[Harvey Williamson]

Computer chess reels from 'biggest sporting scandal since Ben Johnson'

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/867998-comp ... z1QnyGUQLt

[ricard60]

So if Fabian did not raise the issue, rybka would still be the world champion and who knows for how many more years?. Come on a world chess championship can not work like that.

[Harvey Williamson]

So if Fabian did not raise the issue, rybka would still be the world champion and who knows for how many more years?. Come on a world chess championship can not work like that.

Of course it can and it should. Nobody is above the rules.

[ricard60]

No i mean that the world chess championship can not only depend on if somebody else raise or not an issue. Suppose Fabian did not raised the issue, there must be another rules that had discovered rybka or any other program from cheating.