Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 10:13:43 01/21/03
Go up one level in this thread
On January 20, 2003 at 21:11:03, Mike Byrne wrote: >On January 20, 2003 at 15:38:00, Peter Skinner wrote: > >>With the lack of commercial products participating in the CCT, does it lose some >>of the luster in winning it? >> >>Of course there are always going to be "what ifs" when all participants do not >>play. Ferret was allowed to play without kibitzing any information. What would >>have happened if Fritz joined and did the same? Would the result have been the >>same? >> >>It seems that there was allowances made for some, and not others. Why was this >>the case? >> >>I am sure if the rule had not been in place, the likes of Shredder, Fritz, and >>possibly Junior would have participated. Chess Tiger already has the ability to >>kibitz the pv from the program, so that was not Christophe's reasoning for not >>joining. >> >>I think that if a program is automated is enough to play in the next CCT. If not >>then we might have the same result. > >I think the decison was not to partipate was simply business. First, you did >not have any commercials , so who was going to break the ice and why? If more >than half of them elected to play perhaps things would have been different. But >with no one playing - a commercial engine had very little upside and tremendous >downside. In addition with a number of the stronger non commercial engines >playing, the odds were in favor that a single commercial engine would not win >1st place ( the only suitable result for a commercial engine this tournamnet) >against the field. > >Did Fritz have anything to gain by playing as the sole commercial engine? > >Did Tiger have anything to gain by playing as the sole commercial engine? > >Did Junior have anything to gain by playing as the sole commercial engine? > >Put yourself in their shoes and the answer is obvious. > >They had almost zilch to gain and a MUCH to lose. > >Look at the results - Ruffian is viewed as one of the stongest engines available > - commercial or otherwise - yet, it TIED for first in the standard time control >games. If Crafty, Ruffian, Yace and Ferret ALL finished ahead of a commercial >engine - the "commercial" part of that engine would be short lived. > >It doesn't take a rocket scientist or a lot of business savvy here to figure >out what is going on. > >It's called "survival' in the "dog eat dog' world of private enterprise. > >Michael Byrne If people are that shallow the world is doomed. The problem is, some of them are probably that shallow. I encountered two weirdos during the tournament. One of them was an account that runs Fritz, talking about how "he" would win if he entered. The other one was an account that runs Ruffian, talking about how I was "going down". This wasn't even during the game with Ruffian, this happened on the first day. People like this are perverts. One reason that I am less than completely obsessed with computer chess these days is that people like this are one of the target markets. There is something sick about this. I mean, great, play chess and have an ego, or write a program and have an ego, but *buy* a program and have an ego? Be serious. There have been numerous occasions where amateurs have finished above professionals, and there have been cases were professionals have finished incredibly badly in tournaments. If someone is so concerned that a bad result at a tournament is going to hurt their commercial chances, they've sold their soul for something, I'm not quite sure what. I feel a particular need to defend Frans Morsch, who played in *many* tournaments after winning the 1995 WCCC, and who generally has been in every ICCA tournament that I can think of, as well as Aegon and at least one CCT. bruce
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