Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 18:26:21 05/15/01
Go up one level in this thread
On May 15, 2001 at 13:21:50, Larry Proffer wrote: >On May 15, 2001 at 12:53:57, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On May 15, 2001 at 11:49:56, Larry Proffer wrote: >> >>>On May 15, 2001 at 09:29:09, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>> >>>>On May 15, 2001 at 07:39:50, James Swafford wrote: >>>> >>>>>On May 15, 2001 at 06:12:51, Ed Schröder wrote: >>>>> >>>>>>1) World Micro will be in Maastricht, the Netherlands in August. Provisionally >>>>>>Aug 19-23. Exact dates to be confirmed soon. >>>>> >>>>>Unfortunate (for me)... I was hoping to go to this one. :-( >>>>> >>>>>-- >>>>>James >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>I agree. This is the kind of foolishness that is going to cause me to really >>>>consider my ICCA membership the next time it runs out. >>>> >>>> >>> >>>Can't you get someone in Europe to operate Crafty for you? >>> >>>Or even travel out here on an aeroplane. We Europeans don't bite. Maastricht is >>>a great and culturally deep city. >>> >>>Hey Bob, did you ever set foot outside the USA? >>> >>> >> >> >>Been outside the USA _many_ times. But the issue is _cost_. Why should >>someone in North America have to pay travel across the ocean, year after >>year, when the organization we founded 20+ years ago specifically addressed >>this issue in the charter by saying the tournament will _alternate_ between >>Europe and North America. >> >>At the university here, we don't do international travel except for very >>good reasons. Computer chess doesn't qualify. I'm not willing to tell my >>wife "Hey, our vacation is going to be to europe this summer, but we are >>going to be stuck at a chess tournament for the week we are over there so I >>can't travel very much. I don't think she would buy that as a "vacation". >> >>I think it a bit funny to hold the event closer to the very ones that are >>making money from the field, and basically excluding the rest, due to high >>travel costs. > >Well you say so, but in practice you (personally) don't go anyway. > >If I remember correctly you didn't go to the last non-European event which was >in Jakarta on grounds of time. Not cost. The Indonesian Govt. (Dictatorship) was >paying airfares and hotel bill and entertainment for that for all competitors >(unless they were Israeli/jewish) - still you didn't go - someone else operated >Crafty for you. > >So you don't go anyway. Actually I remember better, you said you couldn't take >the week off since there were teaching committments you had. Let's get on the same page. First, WCCC events have been held since 1977, and for the longest time, they were 5 round events with two rounds on weekends so that nobody had to take off for an entire week. The current WMCCC format is fine for professional chess programmers. But for a university where we have a 9 week term, missing one whole week is simply not a choice IMHO. At some point, even the WCCC events became "non-academically designed" when someone decided that more rounds was more important than more participation. For a 1-week event held in north america, I could probably make at least the last half of the event. If you check all the ACM events from 1976 on, you won't find me missing unless there was a WCCC the same year and I went to that event instead... I've been there many times. But there are limits in terms of (a) costs and (b) time away from the office; both of which serve as constraints on what I am willing or able to do... I was actually set to attend the last WMCCC event, but they said "you must have a programmer there the whole time" and I couldn't do that. We almost didn't go at all as it took too long for them to decide that it _would_ be ok for non-programmers to operate if necessary. Just a bunch of bone-headed decisions made with no real thought, IMHO. By the time they said we could play, it was _way_ too late to arrange international travel (we need at least 90 days here to do that). > >> >>Just look at the sites used by the WCCC events through 1992 to see the >>alternation. There it stopped completely. >> >>BTW, my passport includes visits to England, France, Scotland, former USSR, >>South America, Canada, Mexico, Australia, China and Japan, to name a few. >> >>:)
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