Author: Tord Romstad
Date: 16:07:01 02/08/06
When reading this forum, it sometimes amuses me how many people are surprised at the appearance of the numerous new programs which have appeared near the top of the rating lists over the last year, and by the tremendous improvements in playing strength. For those who have followed the amateur computer chess scene since a long time, it is no surprise at all. The very rapid improvement in the general level of strength isn't a recent development; it has been going on for several years. The gap between the new and improving programs and the established professionals has been constantly diminishing, and it has long been clear that it was only a matter of time before some of the new engines would surpass the old giants. Because most CCC readers only follow the top programs, they are not aware of what is going on among the slightly weaker programs, which leads to the widespread belief that programs like Rybka, Fruit and Spike appear out of nowhere. The programmers of the old and new top programs deserve credit and admiration for their efforts, but this post is not about them. I want to bring your attention to the fact that the rapid advances in computer chess is above all the result of a immense community effort. An important factor is the numerous programmers who have generously shared their tricks and techniques with their competitors (and I think it is fair to say that even many of those who are quiet about the internals of their engines have profited greatly from the discussions), but no less important is the interaction between programmers and testers, and those who run tournaments between amateur chess engines. For me - and, I am sure, to many other amateur chess programmers - the enthusiastic community found in the Winboard Forum is one of the biggest attractions of this weird hobby. I still remember my joy when I discovered the Winboard Forum about three years ago, and found that even pathetically weak engines like my own (remember that this was three years and approximately 500 Elo points ago) got a warm and friendly welcome. I thought hardly anybody would be interested in such a weak and buggy engine, but I couldn't have been more wrong. Several people started playing tournaments with my little program against other engines of similar strength, and my mailbox exploded with games, tournament results, debug logs and suggestions for improvements. I have been part of the community ever since, watching my program crawl painfully slowly from the lower half of the tournament tables towards the top. Without the testers, I would have found myself a better hobby long ago, and my program would be hundreds of rating points weaker than it currently is. I am fairly sure my story is not unique. Testers like Leo Dijksman, Heinz van Kempen, Olivier Deville, Patrick Buchmann and Günther Simon (and others) are among the greatest heroes of computer chess, and deserve just as much praise as Vasik Rajlich and Fabien Letouzey. Without their efforts, we wouldn't be where we are today. Some of the current top programs wouldn't exist at all, and some of them would have been much weaker. It is fundamentally important that engines of *all* levels are tested, and not just the best ones. Even for a talented programmer, developing a top program takes a lot of time and hard work. There are certainly some people who are patient enough to do all this hard work on their own and only release their work when it is close to the best (Ruffian springs to mind), but most of us would shy away from the efforts if we were denied the pleasure of watching our programs be used even in the early phases of development. Chess programming, like other hobbies, has a social dimension, and it would be very unfortunate if it were necessary to write a 2600+ engine before enjoying it. I hope I am wrong, but recently I have often had the impression that the general interest in weak chess engines is waning, and that the top engines get all the attention. If this observation is correct, it is a very worrying development, and there is a big risk that it will ultimately result in stagnation. I understand the excitement about the top programs, but I feel a bit sad every time Toga or the countless Chessmaster personalities are mentioned while hundreds of much weaker, but completely original engines remain forgotten and invisible. I therefore have the following plea to you all: Before you buy your next version of a commercial chess program, please give some of the weaker amateur engines a try. Go to Leo's excellent WBEC site (don't forget to click on some of the ads, in order to keep WBEC alive), look at the lower divisions in the tournament, and pick a few engines which still appear to be actively developed (the "News page" at WBEC is useful for this). Download them, play a few games (against yourself or against engines of similar strength) and send some games and feedback to the authors. If you find some engine you really like, try to keep contact with the author and help him/her with the development. You don't just help the author (and, by extension, the community), you can also have great fun while doing so. Playing with the weaker engines can be just as fun as playing with Fritz or Shredder. Weak engines with their numerous imperfections often have more character and personality than their stronger and more polished cousins, and with some luck you can also enjoy the pleasure of occasionally winning against the computer. If you are really lucky, one of the engines you decide to help can end up as the next Fruit or Rybka. It is much more likely, of course, that the engines you pick will always remain far behind the top. But even if they do, your effort helps to maintain the environment in which the Fruits and Rybkas of tomorrow will grow, which is what really matters. Tord
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Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
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