Author: Dirk Frickenschmidt
Date: 00:26:35 04/28/98
Hi everybody on CCC, I just wrote an open e-mail letter to computer chess programmers which may be of some interest to some of you as well: Dear computer chess friend, as all or most of you may have noticed, there has been some heated debate about the ranking of Fritz5 in the SSDF. Such debates about SSDF rankings are normal, and they are acceptable as far as they are based on empirical facts and questions directly relating to such facts. Any questioning of testing methods, hash table sizes, autoplayers or whatever should be welcome, as long as these questions are put to discussion in an atmosphere of human respect and factual reasoning to the point. It may even be acceptable, if in the heat of such debates one or the other has his emotions take over rational arguing for a moment or two. In contrast to these acceptable forms of debates I sharply reject the tone and content of much of what I recently could read from Mr. Weiner. Mr. Weiner's open letter in CCC, his comments on his home page, his preference for a 'home made' ranking list seemingly especially designed for showing a program he sells at the top, his style of advertising, and finally what I can read in a quote of a letter from him below, meanwhile might be enough to raise the question, if what we see here is not just a matter of bad taste or ludicrous forms of marketing any longer, but of consciously raising more than questionable allegations against SSDF persons and others just for perhaps quite obvious reasons ... Since Mr. Weiner meanwhile seems to involve my name as well in his campaign of suspicious questions and allegations, I hardly can ignore his behavior any longer. Among others, he now wrote: >As you know four of the world's seven leading chess programmers (Chrilly >Donninger, Richard Lang, Stefan Meyer-Kahlen, Ed Schroeder) have expressed >their protest against the special treatment of the program Fritz 5 in the SSDF >rating list from 22.02.1998. They believe that their programs have a >unjustified disadvantage caused by the fact that Fritz 5 has enjoyed certain >privileges as already described in detail. It is of course completely ok for all these highly respected programmers to put critical questions, no doubt about this. But I am less sure if the kind of use Mr. Weiner made or perhaps will make of their legitimate interests in the context of his own allegations might not rather hurt their good reputation than help it. And from Ed Schroder, whom I know better than the others, I know for sure that with all his critique concerning the Fritz5 testing he is rather *no* fan of bad taste and questionable allegations at all, and for these reasons has *not* subscribed to a pre-formulated protest which has been spread by Mr. Weiner. Ed really seems to be seeking for truth and fair competition. I do not have this impression from everybody involved. >Also they all agree that using a secret autoplayer is UNFAIR >COMPETITION. I as a user also would *much* prefer a common, public autoplayer for DOS and Windows just like some programmers. But 1) I understand the reasons for keeping it out of public (mis)use: defense against new forms of outbooking. 2) I have some difficulties following the epithet "UNFAIR" a) If the autoplayer simply produces undistorted games just as any public autoplayer would do - which Ed Schroder and Enrique Irazoqui obviously tested and confirmed - the impression Mr. Weiner tries to spread about it (under the meaningful heading 'manipulation by autoplayers') seems to be *far* from reality. b) If Fritz5 does not make use of autoplayer outbooking techniques, but simply uses a big common book which can be bought and examined by anybody - including Mr. Weiner - all the raising suspicion against this book sounds quite silly in my ears, especially since nobody - including Mr. Weiner - up to now has put *any* little piece of F5 powerbook outbooking evidence to my notion so far. Have I missed something impressive??? As far as I could see the Fritz5 powerbook is just as fair and available as the excellent Jeroen Noomen Rebel opening books, to name just one other well known example. >I just hear from Mark Uniacke that he has returned from a long trip >and that >he intends to join the discussion. I wouldn't be surprised if he >shared the >same opinion. And I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Uniacke would make up *his* *own* *mind* - instead of facing the unpleasant opportunity to be misused for something which many chess computer enthusiasts meanwhile might regard as quite a dirt campaign. >This would mean that five out of the seven world's leading chess >programmers share the same opinion. Just by the way: Does Frans Morsch, the author of Fritz5 (the program now leading in the SSDF list, as I heard), not belong to "the worlds leading chess programmers"? On the other hand: does Mr. Weiner - after all we could read from him - seem to be well qualified to interpret the legitimate interests and opinions of all these programmers, other than in at least simplifying (to formulate it politely) terms of his own (perhaps quite recognizable) interests? >Can the SSDF ignore that fact? In my humble opinion the SSDF should be open to fair discussion of all kinds, but *completely* ignore questionable bad style campaigns, no matter from whom they originate. >Another question: We've heard rumours that a certain part of the rated >games >executed with the ChessBase autoplayer have been conducted by Enrique >Irazoqui, Moritz Berger and Dirk Frickenschmidt. This is one more spreading of false rumors, which annoys me of course, because it involves my name in an unqualified way. Just like Enrique I have to ask myself why Mr. Weiner has not shown the simple customary decency to ask one of the subjects of his unfounded suspicion for simple truth, before making objects of false rumors of them. All this "we've heard rumors" kind of bad style, involving other people, has to be rejected in a sharp way. Just like Enrique Irazoqui I never was an SSDF tester and never sent any test games there. Has Mr. Weiner ever asked himself why on earth I should have done any such thing, before asking a more than silly question to the SSDF? He certainly has not asked me. >Is that correct? Could you please publish a list of testers which >shows >exactly which tester has played how many games using or not using the >ChessBase autoplayer? If I were one of the SSDF officials I would probably hardly do more than smile about such a request from a person asking questions in the above style... I hope all programmers, testers and users of chess programs will find more peaceful and rational ways of debating all the very well debatable issues of autoplay ranking in the future. I for one will do my best to help to find practicable ways, which might guard the legitimate interests of programmers and producers as well as those of the users of such programs. Such ways may be hard to find, but we should at least show some useful efforts... As an interested user I also will keep as much 'peaceful pressure' as I can on Matthias Wuellenweber - hi Matthias ;-) - to find an acceptable form of making the Fritz5 autoplayer available in public. Kind regards Dr. Dirk Frickenschmidt
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