Author: Mike S.
Date: 22:14:17 12/22/03
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On December 22, 2003 at 21:02:05, Rolf Tueschen wrote: >On December 22, 2003 at 20:50:32, Axel Schumacher wrote: > >>And again you did not mention (intentionally, of course) that Johnny DID NOT >>claimed the draw. The GUI, (which is independent of the engine) announced a >>draw. (...) >(...) But let's see what you said about the innocence of the Jonny operator. You claim >that the GUI did NOT claim the draw properly. I disagree. > >The pop-up of the window says: [Levy quote] "info!" To whom? To the operator! >Then "3-fold-repetition!" But not "I claim draw..." >At that moment Zwanzger was forced to stop the clocks and call the arbiter etx >pp. He then had shown the situation, the intended move etc. Jaap would have >agreed to the draw. With his crime Zwanzger cause a little confusion in Jaap who >then agreed to play on which was wriong etc pp. Zwanzger did not want to claim the draw, he wanted to ask if it's ok to *continue* in the given situation. He has explained that en detail in the CSS Forum. This is firsthand information: http://f23.parsimony.net/forum50826/messages/84889.htm >>First of all the Jonny program behaved properly according to the rules of FIDE >>that allegedly [see Billings] were used in Graz. Jonny didn't announce his >>move!!!! Because that would have forced the operator to make that move!!! Jonny >>instead announced that he saw a 3-fold rep. Then the operator had to close the >>window with the message. He then had to stop the clocks and then he should have >>told the TD that he now had a move that led to the 3-fold rep. He wanted to continue the game, not claim the draw. So all of that was *not* necessary. >>But Jonny operator Zwanzger did something very dishonest. He ignored the 3-fold >>repetition [FIDE version!!! as apllied in Graz] and he moved the displayed move! A pop-up info pointing to the repetition, is not a clear draw claim. It could be called ambigous. Btw. it came from the GUI (ChessBase GUI! :-)), not from the real competitor the Jonny engine itself AFAIK. The GUI can be seen as a communication tool, not as a part of the competitor - in this case even more, being used to run a non-chessbase engine. A different thing would have been, if a clear unambigous message from the engine itself would have appeared. The Fritz GUI offers an option to display a window for engine output (in addition to the normal engine window), which could have displayed this theoretically. I don't know if Jonny could have supported that. I think this additional window is only seldomly used, and virtually unknown. - Or maybe some engine devolopers use it, and only the users never do or don't mention it, I don't know. But it exists (I used it once to display additional Nimzo 8 infos). >>But at that moment the draw was destoyed according to the FIDE rules and >>Zwanzger knew it 100% as a tournament player in FIDE tournament chess!!!! >>There is absolutely no doubt. This is no crime :-) IMO in computerchess, the programs (and/or their operators respectively) should have *the same freedom to claim or not to claim* a repetition draw, just like the FIDE rules allow it, too. The Jonny engine said nothing (couldn't I guess), Zwanzger didn't want the draw and didn't claim the draw. >>Zwanzger simply violated the rules. He moved against the will of the machine and >>so destroyed the machines little triumph of a draw in a completely lost >>position. No, because "the machine" didn't express a clear unambigous will to claim the draw. I think, chess programs should handle that more clearly in the future, to avoid such misunderstandings. (What the "real" behaviour of the Fritz GUI is in such a case, should be checked in the so called serious rating game mode rather than in the normal mode, but I guess it would not be very easy to create a comparable situation by gameplay only, to test that :-)) Shredder had virtually won the game before, reaching a won position. Then occured the repetion bug (IIRC, even during an announced mate sequenence!). I would have claimed it though, and Fritz would be Champion (for a change), but OTOH it would have been "somewhat brutal" to draw like that when the opponent already had announced mate before the bug occured. It's really better when these things are handled by the engines themselves, so the operators and programmers don't have to meet difficult decisions against each other in such extreme situations. Either Shredder or Fritz would have got a somewhat unfair 0.5 point disadvantage from their subjective viewpoint, no matter what Zwanzger would have done. You could have interpreted as a scandal as well, when a ChessBase GUI used by an amateur, would have decided that Fritz would be Champion by forcing a draw claim that the programmer didn't even want! :-)) >>According to the computerchess traditions he should have ordered to take back >>the played moves after the message in the pop-up window. Then the game would >>have been a draw (part two). Traditions are not rules, only rules are rule. (Often, rules are easier to adapt than traditions, but only when competent people are in power to do so.) But when engines can decide and handle that autonomous (which I think would be preferable), like it's in the usual engine matches too, this game would have ended in a draw due to that bug, not reflecting the true engine performances before. Before that situation, Zwanzger had asked the TD to be allowed to resign (I didn't know that this is required, I guess due to a specific ICGA rule), but was told to continue a bit, to make the position more clear. So, your conclusions are really wrong, no cheat, no crime :-)) The real scandal was the other thing (and I guess we mostly, or partially agree about that much more serious incident), which among other things brings me to the question, if the ICGA officials are put into power by elections among the ICGA members, or what kind of democracy exists within that organisation at all. It was disgusting, and I say shame on everybody who caused that or supported that. Thank god I could see in the message boards, that there are a number of people who share this view, including some big calibres. I just wonder how that affects ICGA standards and personnel. I don't think they read computerchess message boards. If they would do regularly, than they could probably judge much better which suspicion is founded, and which is just an unscrupulous attempt to misuse incompetence (it worked perfectly). Regards, Mike Scheidl
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