Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 06:47:25 04/21/01
Go up one level in this thread
On April 20, 2001 at 15:10:29, Amir Ban wrote: > >Well, shame on you for a dreadful title. > >To the point: Shredder is as far as I am concerned still comp world champion, >whether or not he plays the qualifiers, and if he plays, whether or not he wins. >That being said, and at the risk of appearing dense, what does it have to do >with it ? > >It's not even clear why he's not playing. The news that his objections are being >addressed were ignored, if not by him then certainly by this forum. > >This newsgroup is crazy. > >Amir I think "greed" _is_ the issue. Otherwise I can't imagine why program authors would not simply say "Hey, Shredder holds both the WMCCC and WCCC titles. It certainly has earned the right to challenge/play Kramnik." Instead we have the present debacle where everyone (well, almost everyone) that sells a program is lining up or wanting to line up to qualify for a chance to play Kramnik. I'd love to play him. I could certainly put together a hardware system that would give me really good odds vs any microprogram that currently exists. But as a charter member of the ICCA, I also respect the titles they award. We _all_ used to respect these titles. When we challenged Levy in 1984, we did so as the current WCCC champion. When Hsu beat him in the late 80's, they did so holding both ACM titles. This nonsense of "the title is nearly a year old" doesn't cut it. Until the next event, Shredder should be the choice. And since he has been the choice for at least two years running, that should hold some weight. It does for some. But apparently not for everybody. If we continue down this childish course, then one month after a WMCCC or WCCC event, someone could begin to dispute the title with "but my program is now improved since that event and it is no longer clear that the current champion could beat me..." Heck, this could be done one week (or one day) after the tournament ends. I guess the title means nothing today. Which is a real shame for those of us that _started_ the ICCA to head off this kind of stuff and put a serious organization in place to handle such things... If it isn't about "greed" (as in publicity wanted for a specific program) then why aren't all the amateur programs lining up and demanding a shot? As I said, given the right hardware I would be quite happy to play a match with _anybody_ and would be pretty sure I would win. Yet _I_ think Shredder is the right program to play Kramnik. Because he won the two tournaments I think are most important. I think that ignoring that is just a form of "sour grapes"... However, in looking back over the history of microcomputer chess tournaments, this _has_ been a pretty common theme. I suppose that is why the older ACM events were more fun. No commercial programs. No odd stuff...
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