Author: Duncan Stanley
Date: 11:29:42 04/19/01
Go up one level in this thread
On April 19, 2001 at 14:05:14, Christophe Theron wrote: >On April 19, 2001 at 13:54:30, Duncan Stanley wrote: > >>On April 19, 2001 at 13:01:53, Christophe Theron wrote: >> >>>On April 19, 2001 at 12:55:47, Duncan Stanley wrote: >>> >>>>On April 19, 2001 at 12:50:12, Christophe Theron wrote: >>>> >>>>>On April 19, 2001 at 12:46:45, Duncan Stanley wrote: >>>>> >>>>>>On April 19, 2001 at 12:43:05, Christophe Theron wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>>On April 19, 2001 at 12:37:12, Dan Andersson wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>>It would do to have a settings file or somesuch. And Switch it to the optimum at >>>>>>>>once close to the match date. Or A gradual normalisation till the match takes >>>>>>>>place. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>Regards Dan Andersson >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>Of course. And can it be forbidden in the contract? >>>>>>> >>>>>>>Of course not! >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>Oh dear. Even the idealists accept it to be "sneaky and underhand" :-( >>>>>> >>>>>>Can't you stay idealist just a little longer? >>>>>> >>>>>>You don't have to be like "them", you know. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>Do you feel like you need to behave in a ideal way when you are faced with a >>>>>dishonest condition? >>>>> >>>>>I don't. >>>>> >>>> >>>>Nail, head, hit. >>>> >>>>Nor did I. Nor did any young programmer who saw what was going on. >>>> >>>>But, if you then "behave in a (less than) ideal way" you join the corrupt >>>>establishment. And the younger ones see you, and they copy that too, and so it >>>>continues. >>> >>> >>> >>>Amateur programmers did not have to wait for me to find ways to kill the big >>>ones with cooked lines in the official tournaments. >>> >>>Not that I have anything against amateur programmers. I was one of them not so >>>long ago... >>> >>>That's life. That's the way it is. >>> >>>If you want to succed, sneaky tricks will never do it for you. But if you don't >>>know the sneaky tricks, you might well never succeed. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>>Hence the mess you see now. All the 'players' were idealists once. Now they are >>>>merely corrupt. Don't join them. >>> >>> >>> >>>I think that some people need to learn that chess computers and chess computers >>>programmers are not little puppets. >>> >>>Well... At least some of them are not. ;) >>> >>> >>> >> >>I didn't explain myself properly. >> >>Ok, try again. >> >>"Do you feel like you need to behave in a ideal way when you are faced with a >>dishonest condition? I don't." >> >>The statement is a universal one. Almost everybody thinks it. And acts on it. >> >>But it has a snowball effect. >> >>If one thinks the consensus behaviour is 'dishonest', then it's ok to be a >>little 'dishonest'. More than ok, one has no choice. >> >>Then the consensus behaviour becomes more dishonest, and so on. Whether this is >>in actual chess game play, off the board play, newsgroup behaviour, commercial >>behaviour, whatever. >> >>Why I said nail, hit, head, was because I believe this is what happened in >>computer chess. Maybe the snowball now reached the bottom of the hill. > > > > >The purpose of the thread I have started is not to promote unethical behaviour. > Clear. >The purpose is to show that the condition "Kramnik must have the program 3 >months before the event" is not a show stopper. > >It is a stupid condition that can at best only backfire against the organizers >and Kramnik, and thus should be removed as soon as possible. > >I think it is now clear that: > >1) it is interpreted as an attempt to cheat > >2) it will FAIL and not help Kramnik at all > >It is a DOUBLY STUPID requirement. I don't agree. It was obviously an attempt to get round the earlier objection raised by Kasparov and others that he needed to have some prior knowledge of the play style he would be facing at the time of the DB match. That is not an unreasonable requirement - after all, in high level human chess, players study each others games, work on opening preparation and so on. The concept of 'playing the opponent' may not be one recognised in computer chess, but it is of vital importance at GM level. Where the so-called organisers failed was in demanding an unchangeable program copy - because of deterministic factors this gives the human player an unreasonable advantage, almost equivalent to a brain-scan and carbon life-form disassembley, if that were possible. Kramnik could reasonably ask for a large selection of games played by a single copy of the program, preferably against humans, for study beforehand, and also insist that the program executable was not modified in any way from that point on. Such a condition simply places the match on a normal strong human-strong human level of preparation. The opposition program is of course also able to have prepared on Kramnik's game history. > >If it is not removed, then who cares? It is not a valid reason for a chess >programmer to withdraw. > Which brings me to the second point; namely that your initial post throws up how easy it is to prepare a random-style cyber opponent - one that a human cannot make normal preparation against. In the spirit of how chess games are played, I believe that the computer chess community, if it wishes to be above-board in its behaviour would make a rule that outlawed such a beast. If it doesn't it can probably forget matches against strong humans. Proposal for rule 1 of computer-human chess matches: "no play style changes". Interesting to know which programmers would 'sign-up' to such a charter. Chris Whittington > > > > Christophe
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