Author: Mike Byrne
Date: 05:31:55 10/25/97
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> >>On October 24, 1997 at 03:49:27, Chris Whittington wrote: >> >>>> Mr. Whittington: These are the rules...what's your point? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The 15th World Microcomputer Chess Championship Paris, France October 26 - November 3, 1997 Tournament Rules 1.Each entry is a computing system and one or more human operators. At least one full-time operator is required for each entry. A listing of all chess-related programs running on the system must be available on demand to the Tournament Director. 2.The chess-playing code of a participating program must execute on a single, generally available microprocessor. The Tournament Director has the right to demand that a computer be opened for inspection in order to verify that this is the case. 3.Participants are required to attend an organizational meeting in the tournament hall at 14.00 h on Sunday, 26 October in the tournament hall for the purpose of officially registering for the tournament. Any questions about the rules will be resolved at that meeting. 4.The tournament will be an 11-round Swiss-system event. 5.The following titles will be awarded at the tournament: [a] 1997 Absolute World Microcomputer Chess Champion for the overall winner of the tournament. [b] either 1997 World Microcomputer Amateur Chess Champion for the highest placed entry by a team made up entirely from amateur programmers, or 1997 World Microcomputer Professional Chess Champion for the highest placed Professional program. [c] 1997 World Microcomputer Speed Chess Champion for the winner of the speed-chess tournament. [d] 1997 World Microcomputer Team Chess Champion. This title will only be awarded if there is popular support for a team event. An outright winner of this title will be selected based on an agreed tie-breaking rule, based on the games played as part of the main event. A team will consist of the highest scoring 3 or 4 programs from the same country. The order of finish will be determined by the total number of points earned. In the event of a tie for any individual title, a one-game play-off will be organized between the tied programs. If more than 2 programs are involved in the tie the play-off game will be between the two programs which have the best tie-break scores (see below). The rate of play for a play-off game will be decided by the Tournament Director, bearing in mind the time available to play the game. If the play-off game is drawn then the tie-breaking method will be used to determine the winner of the title. The first tie-break will be by sum of opponents' scores. If there is still a tie it will be broken on the basis of the sum of the respective programs' cumulative scores after each round (i.e., score after round 1 + score after round 2 + ..... + score after round 11). 6.Unless otherwise specified, rules of play are identical to those of "human" tournament play. If a point is in question the Tournament Director has the right to make the final decision. 7.The rate of play will be 30 moves in the first hour and 40 moves in each subsequent hour. After 6 hours elapsed time the Tournament Director has the right to adjudicate a game using the presumption of perfect play. 8.An operator may ask the Tournament Director to stop clocks at most twice during a game because of technical problems. The operator can ask the Tournament Director for permission to restart the program. When restarting after a failure of any kind, the operator must reset all parameters to their values at the time the game was interrupted. Clocks must resume after at most a fifteen-minute delay. 9.An operator error made when starting a game or in the middle of a game can be corrected only with the appro val of the Tournament Director. If an operator enters an incorrect move, the Tournament Director must be notified immediately. Both clocks will be stopped. The game must then be backed up to where the error occurred. Clocks will be backed up to their settings when the error occurred using whatever information is available. Both sides may then adjust program parameters with the approval of the Tournament Director. The Tournament Director may not allow certain parameters to be changed, e.g., the contempt factor. 10.Terminals at the tournament site must communicate directly with the locally resident computer. 11.Each team must position their computer monitor in such a way that the opponent has a good view of the screen. An operator can only (1) type in moves and (2) synchronize the internal computer clock with the official clock. This latter activity must be observed by the Tournament Director or his designate. If an operator must enter other information it must be approved ahead of time by the Tournament Director. The operator cannot query the system to see if it is working properly without the permission and observation of the Tournament Director. 12.A team must receive the approval of the Tournament Director to change from one computing system to another. 13.Each game is played on a chess-board and with a chess clock both provided by the Tournament Committee. 14.At the end of each game, each team is required to hand in a game listing to the Tournament Director. This should be as a floppy diskette containing the games in PGN format. 15.At least half the designated members of the programming team must be ICCA members for the 1997 year. If necessary, an ICCA official will collect these dues at the players meeting prior to the start of the first round. 16.Operators must be fully conversant with the rules of chess and knowledgeable about the internal workings of the program, to the extent that they can retract an arbitrary sequence of moves, restart the program from some earlier position in the game and can generate the required game-score on a floppy disk at the end of each round. Familiarity with Tony Marsland's (1996) article Experience is a Hard Teacher, ICCA Journal December 1996, pp. 263-267 is required.
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