Re: A Crime by a Board of Old Imposters

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 14:46:13 +0000 (UTC), Robert Hyatt
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>darrz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> I have another idea, which may not be popular, but here goes:
>
>> In an open tournament, any program competes. Bring your open source
>> program, modified or not. You're in like a porch climber!
>
>> Open source authors, like Dr. Hyatt, would just need to keep their
>> strongest version under wraps until after that year's championship.
>
>> It seem's odd that someone would make bikes, give them away freely,
>> and then say "but you can't race with this bike, against me".
>
>the problem with that logic is that the next event will have 1000+
>participants, and a Swiss big enough to find the best "program"
>will take a long while.  I don't see the use in allowing 100 modified
>versions of a single program to participate.  How would you host an
>event with 1000 programs?  Where do you find 1000 computers to run it
>on?  Where do you put 'em?
>
>just having 40 is a big enough problem.

It may need refinement, but I'd love to see a large participation
especially in a North American chess computer tournament.

As you've mentioned, the tournament could be run on a local net, with
a tournament match software. TD is a human of course, but all the
rules are in the match software, and it runs all matches,
automatically, hopefully with few hiccups.

I don't know about thousands willing to pay some entrance fee,
especially if they have added nothing to the program they're entering.
Seems like the entrance fee covers some expenses, and also serves to
deter the less-than-serious entrants.

Another scenario is to have the preliminary matches on a chess server
on the net (ICC, FICS, whatever). The top 50 (pick a suitable number),
qualify for the championships.

>
>What about pure copies?  No changes?  What would the point be in
>that participating?

Say we had such a tournament next year. You had version 20 of Crafty
under wraps. But others wanted to enter "pure" Crafty ver. 19.7. So we
would see some versions of 19.7, and your new ver. 20, competing
against some altered Crafty ver. 18.3, (whatever), along with other
programs, both altered or pure.

A broader base of interest than we currently have in North America
would be the goal, surely. 

Holding a championship tournament in a cave may work in Europe, but we
need all the interest and participation we can muster in the U.S. -
and in a location like Chicago, not the wilds of Canada.

Perhaps the whole tournament needs a different name to let one and all
know that not every entrant is a top chess programmer, and that would
be great to differentiate this type of tournament, from the norm.

If John Doe, a non-programmer from Moscow, Idaho, should win with a
pure copy some year - well, wasn't that lucky AND interesting?!
Odds would be slim, of course.

I don't believe I'd want this to be the ONLY type of tournament, but I
know I don't want a North American tournament run anything _like_ the
WCCC in Graz, (especially with the claim of cheating), and a broader
base of interest would be very helpful.


Darrz