Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 10:29:50 10/28/03
Go up one level in this thread
On October 28, 2003 at 12:18:45, Sune Fischer wrote: >On October 28, 2003 at 11:57:02, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On October 28, 2003 at 11:27:30, Sune Fischer wrote: >> >>>On October 28, 2003 at 10:55:53, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>>> >>>>I don't think it has a thing to do with honesty. I'd never question >>>>Jeroen's honesty at all. >>>> >>>>It does have a lot to do with fairness. Bruce Moreland summed it up >>>>best: "why do I have to face the _same_ outstanding book twice in the >>>>same tournament when I don't ever face the same _program_ twice?" >>>> >>>>That's a good point. A good book can be a significant advantage. There >>>>are complaints if an amateur tries to use a commercial program's opening >>>>book. Why not if two different commercial entries try to use the same >>>>book? >>> >>>It's a grey zone, just like with Eugene's endgame tables. >>> >> >>Not quite the same. Everybody uses them. The info is identical for all >>users. Commercial books are not used by everybody... > >But what is fairness? > >Some programs run on dog slow machines and others on top end multiprocessor >systems, some "have an arrangement" with a book author to use his books, some >get paid to develop whilst others do it in their spare time. That is just a part of the deal. But if you go back to early WMCCC events, commercial vendors were allowed to enter _four_ copies of the same program. And play in a _swiss_ event. you talk about foul-play? look at some of the old WMCCC reports about thrown games, etc. :) I am willing to compete with a commercial programmer. I don't have a problem with that and never have. What I don't particularly like is to have one person working on three different teams. And yes, Virginia, the book is a major part of a chess engine and it is important to have a good one. Letting one person work on the book for three engines is no different than one person working on three different engines directly. It isn't allowed by the rules... > >Who's to say what is fair and what is not? >More importantly, is the question really interesting? The book part is. IE suppose _everybody_ in an event gets to use a high- quality book, except for _you_. You get thrashed game after game, before you even leave the opening book. Does that show anything interesting? Do you like the result? I don't mind getting killed by a bad book line of mine, or a prepared book line of my opponent. I just don't particularly want to see one person work full-time on a book that will kill me, and then have it used by three _different_ programs in three different rounds of the same event. That's the problem I see... and that others see also... > >I don't mind if Lokasoft or Chessbase is teaming up their engines, it makes the >performance of the individual engine a little bit less impressive and it makes >it all the more fun to beat them in a competition (beat one you beat them all, >or if you lost you weren't beat by a single individual but by a team! :). > >-S.
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