Author: Uri Blass
Date: 06:34:33 02/02/04
Go up one level in this thread
On February 02, 2004 at 09:15:18, Kolss wrote: >Hi, > >I cannot say anything about Chompster, but Ikarus had to withdraw due to >technical problems. Here are some details: > >We (i.e. my brother Muntsin and I) had planned that my brother play the >tournament on his computer (which is somewhat competitive - A XP 2800+), since I >did not have time to attend the program nor do I have proper hardware. > >Unfortunately, during the first round his internet hardware completely broke >down (router failure and something more - had never happened before in years...) >- after being able to reconnect for short periods for a few times, he was off >for good (until today...). So there was no way to continue on his computer. > >That way we lost the first game (which I continued on my four-year-old computer; >the end position was a dead draw) due to multiple disconnects, which is fair. > >Now I only have a P3-450MHz, which is absolutely ridiculous compared to >everything else turning up at the tournament. I asked Volker Richey (TD) whether >we should immediately withdraw, because >a) playing while knowing that you have no chance to compete properly is no fun, >and >b) I know that my internet connection is not stable (I usually have to reboot >two or three times to get in in the first place), and I would have to leave the >house soon and thus leave the program unattended. >Volker told me we should continue, so I did (on the P3-450MHz). > >Ikarus drew a game against Movei, won against Tinker, and drew Alarm (rounds >2-4). During or before game 5 (should have been against Bringer), it >disconnected, and as I was away, the game was forfeited (I was actually >surprised that it played that long...). > >I discovered that the next day and decided to set Ikarus up on my work office >computer, where the program would have to run unattended as well, but I knew (or >at least hoped!) the internet connection to be more stable. > >Now there I made the mistake to start the program too early (about 1.5h before >the start of round 6 - but I had to leave again) and not let it play some >opponent to keep it busy. Apparently the internet connection gets interrupted >after about one hour without anything happening. That was of course exactly what >happened, so the program got disconnected before the next round, and that was it >(I only discovered it after the end of the tournament). > >So I guess there are a few things to learn from this: > >1.) Shit happens. Besides real material damage for my brother, it was absolutely >no fun to have to deal with such problems during a tournament or even during a >game. We did not enjoy at all what little we had from this event. :-( > >2.) Never let your program play unattended in a tournament (and, by the way, >never let your program play in a "real" tournament without being present >yourself - you can bet on trouble!). There is very high chance that something >goes wrong. I should have insisted on withdrawing immediately after it was clear >that my brother could not continue. I only thought that people would rather play >a program on crappy hardware than have a bye, but this way we only distorted the >whole thing, playing a few games, forfeiting others, and finally dropping out >completely, apart from playing the games on different hardware. > >So I apologize to all of you who were in any way affected by this mess. We hope >to be luckier next time around. > >Best regards - Munjong. I think that it is not clear if withdrawing immediately was better. I went to the tournament to play and getting a technical win for movei is not something that I like. It was clear for me that it is wrong to give movei technical win after most of the game was played in a drawn position. You could choose to give movei technical win by not playing but it has also negative results. Uri
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