Author: Don Dailey
Date: 11:29:48 06/06/98
Go up one level in this thread
On June 06, 1998 at 13:20:00, Marc Plum wrote: >On June 04, 1998 at 18:29:13, Bruce Moreland wrote: > >>I wish folks would use the titles they win, without embellishing them, >>and I wish they would state they year that they win them, unless they >>won them this year. >(considerable snippage) > >And now I annoy everyone with newbie questions. > >I generally ignore the "championship" and "our computer beat grandmaster >X" claims in adds for programs, unless I have some other source of >information on where these claims come from. Still, this does make me >curious. I have noticed the different championship titles used in adds; >I've seen at least three. >1 World Microcomputer Chess Champion. >2 Absolute World Microcomputer Chess Champion >3 World Professional Microcomputer Chess Champion >I may have seen others. > >I have seen tournament reports on the WMCCs and played over some of >games from them, so these claims are possible to evaluate. Another >message in this thread seems to be saying that the "professional" title >is awarded to the highest professional finisher in this tournament, >although that is not entirely clear. >I have no idea what the "Absolute" title is supposed to mean, can >someone tell me? MChess Pro 7.1 uses this one in the phrase "Update to >the 1995 Absolute World Microcomputer Chess Champion", and it is a top >program. > >Are there other titles of any significance? > >Marc I'm not sure which ones of these are "significant." But that's exactly the problem. I don't think anyone else does either! The winner of each of these events probably thinks his event is significant. I wish there were a title that pepole take seriously and has more prestige. Even Kasparov lost prestige when there are now two world champions and the meaning is diluted. With computer chess things change so fast we cannot have long cycles. Here is my own idea of how things might be arranged, I realize there are practical considerations that might make this difficult to manage, but consider this my own wish list for a more prestigious title: I have thought about the idea of having a world champion and then each year (or two) having a challenger who plays a 24 game, well advertised and public match. I think this would bring a LOT of prestige and visibility to computer chess. The only difficulty is that the current champion may make significant changes, both software and hardware such that the champion is a now a significantly different entity! I'm not sure how well this would work. This also implies the champion cannot compete in tournaments to select the challenger. Or if it did, it's results not counted. This seems a little hard to manage, the champion still influencing the resutls. Pehaps better is simply a new selection process altogther. I like the idea of having it culminate in something more valid than a tiny 5 or 6 round Swiss event. I would like to see perhaps 4 top programs competing in a serious, highly publicized double or quadruple round robin to select the champion. If there are two after this tied for first, they play games in pairs until a clear winner is established. How are the top 4 to be determined? I like the idea of having a large Swiss, and let performance ratings determine the top 4 finishers. Performance ratings are much more accurate than any tie breaking system I know of (although often returning similar results.) Also they make individual placement seem to have more meaning. "Tied for 2nd through 5th" is hard on the ears in my opinion, and makes 2nd place not seem very impressive. But having the 2nd highest performance rating has some bite. The Dutch championship has a wonderful format consisting of 11 rounds, it's hard to survive to the end on a fluke. The winner during the last 2 events had a score of 10 out of 11, Nimzo being the current champion. It is my feeling that with about 11 or 12 rounds the top player will finish in the top 4 with a high degree of probability. It's not perfect, but there is no perfect system. This is a good attempt to give the top participant a really good chance of getting this title and would add significant prestige in my opinion without having tremendously cumbersome process. Also it gives finishing in the top 4 a wonderful goal to achieve, because it is backed up with rights to play in the world championship which itself indicates a level of excellence your program has achieved and gives you "bragging rights" if you are a commercial entrant. Right now, who remembers or cares about the guy who finished 4th? I am in favor of having a standard computer chess time control for these events too, something faster than 40/2 used in human events. We do not have to blindly follow the traditional human time controls, computers are quite happy with faster ones. On the other hand we want to keep the playing standard high and make the conditions favorable to the operators and observers. I would like to see something about twice as fast, perhaps even faster. The Dutch championship was game in 90 and this was quite relaxed without being exhausting to the operators and observers. It's certainly better to get in some extra rounds than to play 5 gruelling 6 hour or more games at 40/2. Probably, something like I'm proposing will never happen, because I'm not even sure the ICCA has been able to get a sponsor for the world championship yet, let alone being able to manage a two stage format like I'm suggesting. By the way, they are always looking for sponsors, does anyone have any connections? - Don
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.