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Subject: Re: WMCCC - may the best man at getting the fastest hardware win

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 10:49:02 10/22/97

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On October 22, 1997 at 09:51:20, Chris Whittington wrote:

>
>On October 22, 1997 at 09:19:26, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On October 22, 1997 at 06:33:23, Chris Whittington wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>On October 22, 1997 at 05:16:45, Walter Ravenek wrote:
>>>
>>>>Since there is nothing in the tournament rules to forbid you
>>>>to use the fastest machine you can get, it is no use complaining.
>>>>
>>>>However, it definitely is a point worth considering when organizing
>>>>the next tournament. I would strongly be in favour of a uniform
>>>>platform tournament.
>>>
>>>This is very difficult to define and would exclude all kinds of people
>>>and hardware platforms that we might want to participate.
>>>
>>>I'ld like to see a generally 'fair' tournament. Like in my kids school,
>>>they do sport and games. Each year group plays children of the same age.
>>>Some children are bigger and fitter and their ages range over 0-12
>>>months difference.
>>>
>>>This isn't uniform, bit it is kind of fair, in general. What wouldn't be
>>>fair, woudl be including players that were 1 or 2 or 3 years older.
>>>
>>>One thing that troubles me this year (and no doubt all the other years),
>>>is that we only get to hear that so and so is using 100,000 TeraHertz at
>>>pretty much the last minute (or last month or whatever), certainly after
>>>applications have gone in, and also after I've paid my semi-irreversable
>>>$1000 and sorted out an operator and all the other things that make the
>>>application solid.
>>>
>>>If I knew, say 12 months before, what the top machine could be, I'ld
>>>have time and space to (a) get one myself, (b) decide whether I wanted
>>>to go at all, (c) not get pushed into some last minute desperate,
>>>expensive effort at trying to compete. We would ALL get off more
>>>cheaply, since we wouldn't be tempted to spend megabucks on some rare
>>>fast liquid notrogen cooled monster that happended to becoem available a
>>>few weeks beforehand.
>>>
>>
>>I don't see how this is an issue.  #1 was there any doubt that Dark
>>Thought
>>or Chess Guru would show up this year?  #2 I didn't know any sooner than
>>you
>>did about the 766mhz machines (which as I have already said, I doubt if
>>we
>>get one of 'em).  We started working on getting an alpha about 2 weeks
>>ago,
>>and had no problems in getting a decent machine from DEC.
>
>Dark Thought and Chess Guru. Not heard of the latter, can live with the
>former. Neither of them are crowing and shouting and competing in the
>forum of programs.
>
>Ferret and Crafty we hear a lot about. Crafty-crowing has become quite
>commonplace recently. So, programs, in with a chance anyway, on normal
>hardware; then with 100,000,000 tera-megas flops, seem IMO to be trying
>it on; and tryign to get an unfair advantage. I mean if Anance turns up
>on a Cray, I wouldn't be concerned. Get it now ?
>
>Chris

would you please define "crafty crowing"?  I don't believe I've had a
lot to shout about Crafty will win, crafty is better than "x", and so
forth.  In fact, I believe that I have come up with exactly "0" posts
that would fit the above.

Dark Thought guys have posted results of their program on r.g.c.c quite
frequently when a test position is posted.  I don't take it as
"crowing."

As far as "Ananse"... for all I know, Crafty is going to do poorly
anyway.
I have *not* done any computer-type tuning, I'm playing with the same
code
that a couple of GM's are calling "somewhat over-aggressive in trying to
win drawn positions and trying to draw lost positions."  I simply don't
understand what it is about the name "crafty" that strikes such fear
into
people.  Deep Blue I could understand.  Crafty I can't...

and as for crafty-crowing becoming commonplace, could you be more
specific??



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