Author: Sune Fischer
Date: 04:50:13 12/18/03
Go up one level in this thread
On December 18, 2003 at 06:47:32, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote: >On December 18, 2003 at 05:40:59, Rolf Tueschen wrote: > >>Yes, thanks for the information so far but you were an operator too. Didn't you >>know the neccessity of the operator's passivity as it was defined by Bob Hyatt? >>It is NOT a question of human chess so that the concrete strength as a human >>chessplayer is not so important as the knowledge of the naked rules in >>computerchess. It was a 3-fold perpetual and hence it should have been ended in >>a draw by definition. Psychologically I can well understand the motivation of >JZ but in computerchess he made a big mistake. But I can also understand what >>you mean as a member of the community in that tournament. It is called "mass" >>suggestion or hypnosis through the self-confidence and presentation of a good >>chessplayer. But as Bob pointed out, the rules are more important than such >>human incidents. - However the TD could have healed the Zwanzger mistake >>according to the - yes, the rules. He should have ordered the taking back of >the further moves after the perpetual. Then Z. would have his status untouched >>as a fair sportsman in chess but as a "newcomer" in computerchess. Nobody >>would have thought in a negative manner about him. Now it's a fact that he >>spoilt the outcome of the whole event with his immature [computerchess rules!] >>behaviour. >>In that regard I would have hoped that you collegues would have interferred and >>helped to correct the case. > >I think I basically disagree on everything you say. > >First of all, 'passivity of the operator' is a very vague issue in the way the >current tournaments are set up. Hyatt has been posting his views already 10000 >times here but I am sceptic whether they would undeed solve more problems than >they create. Yeah, and now you're starting the whole thing up again. >Basically, I disagree with the reasoning that lead the ICGA to the decision, >but I disagree with all people that think the decision was unreasonable. I suspect Shredder was the strongest program of the tournament, doing real well on much slower hardware than Junior and Fritz, unfortunately that is (IMO) irrelevant when it comes to technical decisions of this kind. The judges should be blindfolded or sit in a different room and not know which engine is which when they make such decisions, to avoid biased decisions. Consider the opposite case here for a minute, say Shredder was losing badly and saved a draw because of a bug in Jonny. Would Shredder have asked to play on? Absolutely not, no way! Would the TD have said Shredder couldn't claim the draw because the interface did it? Of course not, this is the way Shredder is designed! So what remains is the naked fact: one guy wants to give the win to his opponent, should the TD allow that? >The fact that the Jonny engine did not know about 3 fold repetitions, and >the draw was claimed by the interface, is IMHO sufficient reason to play on. If Jonny can play in that interface then Jonny can use everything the interface offers: the egtbs, an opening book and draw claims. In any case one shouldn't suddenly go about making up rules in the middle of the tournament: "Oh BTW you can't claim a draw because you are using an interface that does it for you...." This should have been said _before_ the tournament. >There are a lot of sideissues here like whether interface and engine should >be considered a whole, but I do not want to get into them as they are very >difficult discussions in their own. Yes the rules should be the same for everyone using the same interface. If you use winboard the engine has to claim the draw itself. If you use an interface that claims a draw and doesn't allow a way for the engine to claim a draw, then you can't demand that the engine should be able to claim a draw. We may find that such interfaces should be forbidden in the future, because they interfere with the game, but that is an entirely different discussion. >Note that I do not say I would take the same decision. I think the decision >is defensible - that's another thing. It is not defendable as I see it. >>It is called "mass" suggestion or hypnosis through the self-confidence and >>presentation of a good chessplayer > >I think this is nonsense, believe me, Mr. Zwanzger was all but confident >after the discussions started. > >It it very easy to criticise the decision on hindsight, but do not forget that >at the time of the inital decision not all the facts were known that are known >now. Yes you have a good point, it is easy to do things right in hindsight. I'm not attacking the TD, I think he made error but he is only human and that is that. What I don't understand is why some choose to keep defending the decision. >I can assure you that I would be very highly surprised if one of the >programmers, even the ones disadvtanged, think in a negative manner of Mr. >Zwanzger. I think nothing negative of Mr. Zwanzger, quite the opposite in fact, he was a real gentleman, too much of a gentleman. :) The TD should have acted on behalf of Junior, Fritz, Mr. Zwanzger and the other participants and not allowed Shredder an easy half point. >I consider Shredder to be the double world champion. If the Fritz team >disagrees, they should have appealed the decision, and the eventual outcome >would have been dependent on the committee of appeal, which did not have ICGA >staff in it, but participants. > >But they did not, so they though the ICGA decision was acceptable as well. You would never expect team Fritz or anyone else to appeal such a decision. IMO they risk losing too much prestige over that. The TD's decision wasn't right just because no one appealed, you can't use that as indicator at all, I'm quite sure some of the other teams must have frowned quite a bit over that decision. >Most of the 'problems' in that decision seem to be the people who have >a personal axe to grind with the ICGA and seem to think this was a nice >opportunity to show their know-it-all skills. Sorry, you can't undermine my arguments _that_ easily. :) >Should this issue be addressed different next time? I think certainly yes. >Does it mean the ICGA is <insert all the name calling that happened here>? >No. > >>I hope some of my thoughts could further increase the output of your coming >>report. Somehow you made a good decision in delaying the publication. Please >>bare in mind how it looks if you would defend a clear violation of the rules. > >I firmly believe rules should be flexibly interpreted by their spirit, >which was what happened here. Rules shouldn't be flexible like that, rules should be clear in advance so you avoid the sour grapes and lengthy discussions. The problem in this case is the judgement was biased but there is no way to prove it was biased or unbiased because it's not supported in a rule which applies to everyone. >As seems to be misunderstood by all people that can't or don't want to read >well, List was not banned for being a crafty clone. It was banned because the >author completely failed to follow the rules, refused to do so and gave the ICGA >no other option whatsoever than to kick him out of the tournament. I'm beginning to agree that this decision may not have been completely wrong. It should have been possible to some how assert if/if not the program is a clone but if the programmer doesn't want to cooperate _at all_, well what can you do. -S. >-- >GCP
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