Author: Dave Gomboc
Date: 09:04:43 12/23/98
I received some email this morning from ICCA President Tony Marsland about the
upcoming WCCC. It is an open letter, so I've posted it here in case others are
interested and they didn't receive it themself. The message is below.
Dave Gomboc
---------------------------------
To those interested in participting in the 9th World Computer Chess
Championship, Paderborn, Germany, June 1999
The following notice appears in the December 1998 issue of the ICCA Journal (it
should be in your hands in early January).
The text material below will be on the ICCA web page in due course.
Look forward to seing you in Paderborn
Tony Marsland
ICCA President
---------------------------------
THE 9th WORLD COMPUTER-CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP
Paderborn, Germany
14-20 June 1999
B. Monien and R. Feldmann
Paderborn, Germany
The 9th World Computer-Chess Championship will take place from June 14th to June
20th 1999 at the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum (HNF) in Paderborn, Germany. It
will be organized by the HNF together with the Department of Computer Science of
the University of Paderborn. In the following we provide some information about
these organizations. Additional information on the location and available
accommodations as well as the usual summer climate can be obtained from the
organizers. A travelling plan for public transport and cars is also available.
The HNF
The HNF does not have the conventional mould of a museum. Instead, a new
building with a new idea has been created, combining the classic functions of a
historical museum and the current and future-oriented objectives of a forum: the
contents of the exhibition and the objects of research form the basis of topics
discussed in the forum. The museum and the forum complement each other.
The aim of HNF is to tell the 5000-year story of information processing in a
vivid way, up to the present time and even beyond. The exhibition is an open
exhibition, in terms of visiting times and topics. This allows HNF to pick up
new trends and technologies and show perspectives of future developments.
The object of HNF's programme of events is to encourage you to deal in a
responsible way with new technologies. Special events address issues of social
relevance, involving ethical questions or the effects of modern information
technologies on human coexistence.
Computer Science at the University of Paderborn
The University of Paderborn has been founded in 1972. At present 17 Departments
ranging from philosophy to mathematics and computer science give lectures to
more than 15,000 students. There are 14 computer-science research groups in
Paderborn covering a variety of topics such as databases, computer graphics,
operations research, knowledge-based systems, parallel algorithms and others.
Interdisciplinary research is greatly encouraged. This is documented in a large
governmental 10-years project, which provides funding for interdepartmental
research in the area of parallel computing. The members of the chess group (part
of the research group of Professor Burkhard Monien) may be well known to many
chess programmers. Their special research interest is in parallel game-tree
search algorithms. They have organized the annual event of the International
Paderborn Computer Chess Championship (IPCCC) for many years.
References
Advances in Computer Chess Conference 1999:
http://www.uni-paderborn.de/~acc99
Chess group Paderborn: http://www.uni-paderborn.de/cs/chess/chesshome
HNF: http://www.hnf.de
University of Paderborn: http://www.uni-paderborn.de
World Computer Chess Championships: http://www.uni-paderborn.de/~wccc99
TOURNAMENT RULES FOR THE 9th WORLD COMPUTER-CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP
Paderborn, Germany
14-20 June 1999
The Board of ICCA
Below the Board of ICCA provides information on the tournament rules and a
provisional tournament schedule. For convenience, the times of the Advances in
Computer Chess 9 Conference are included in the provisional schedule too.
1. Each entry is a computing system and one or more humans who programmed
it. At least one of the program developers must attend the championship to
operate the program. At least 50% of the entering developers, and all
developers attending the event, must be ICCA members in good standing. No
exceptions will be made to this rule.
2. Each program must be the original work of the entering developers.
Programs derived from, or including, chess-playing code written by others (for
example, programs based on CRAFTY), must name all other authors, or the source
of such code, in their application details. Programs which are discovered to be
close derivatives of others (e.g., by playing nearly all moves the same), may be
declared invalid by the Tournament Director, after seeking expert advice. For
this purpose, a listing of all chess-related programs running on the system must
be available on demand to the Tournament Director.
3. Participants are required to attend an organizational meeting prior to
the start of the tournament on June 14 for the purpose of officially registering
for the tournament. Operational rules will be finalized at
that meeting.
4. The tournament will be a 7-round Swiss-system event, using standard
(non-accelerated) swiss pairings. The provisional schedule is as follows:
14 June Opening Ceremony (time and venue to be announced)
14 June 10:00 - 12:00 Official registration and rules meeting
14 June 13:00 - 20:00 Round 1
15 June 09:00 - 16:00 Round 2
15 June 17:00 - 24:00 Round 3
16 June 09:00 - 13:00 ACC9 conference session 1
16 June 13:00 - 20:00 Round 4
16 June 20:00 - 22:00 ICCA Triennial Meeting & Elections
17 June 09:00 - 13:00 ACC9 conference session 2
17 June 13:00 - 20:00 Round 5
18 June 09:00 - 13:00 ACC9 conference session 3
18 June 13:00 - 20:00 Round 6
19 June 09:00 - 16:00 Round 7
19 June 16:00 - as req. Play-off if necessary
19 June 20:00 Banquet for participants and sponsors
20 June Awards ceremony and Man-Machine games (times to be agreed)
5. Trophies will be awarded to the first three finishers. The winner of the
tournament will be awarded the Shannon Trophy and the title of World Computer
Chess Champion, both until 2002, or the next World Computer Chess Championship,
whichever comes sooner. The order of finish will be determined by the total
number of points earned. Tie breaks will be resolved by rule 16. The ICCA may
decide, and announce its decision not later than 1 March 1999, that the 9th WCCC
will also incorporate the 1999 World Micro-computer Chess Championship, in which
case the highest-placed program operating on a single generally-available CPU
will receive the title of 1999 WMCC Champion and the corresponding trophy.
6. Unless otherwise specified, rules of play are identical to those of
human tournament play. If a point is in question, the Tournament Director has
the right to make the final decision.
7. Games are to be played at a rate (per player) of: the first 40 moves in
two hours, then 30 moves in one hour, followed by the rest of the game in 0.5
hour (subject to confirmation).
8. The Tournament Director has the right to adjudicate a game after six
hours of total clock time. The adjudication will be made on the premise that
perfect chess will be played by both sides from the position reached.
9. An operator may ask the Tournament Director to stop clocks at most twice
during a game because of technical problems. The operator can ask the Tournament
Director for permission to restart the program. When restarting after a failure
of any kind, the operator must reset all parameters to their values at the time
the game was interrupted. Play must resume after at most a fifteen-minute delay.
If operators using a remote computer can clearly establish that the problems are
not in their own computing system, but in the communication network, the
Tournament Director can permit additional delay.
10. An operator error made when starting a game or in the middle of a game
can be corrected only with the approval of the Tournament Director. If an
operator enters an incorrect move, the Tournament Director must be notified
immediately. Both clocks will be stopped. The game must then be backed up to
where the error occurred. Clocks will be corrected to their settings when the
error occurred, using whatever information is available. Both sides may then
adjust program parameters with the approval of the Tournament Director. The
Tournament Director may not allow certain parameters to be changed, e.g.,
contempt factors.
11. Terminals at the tournament site must communicate directly with remote
computers, i.e., there cannot be any human intermediary at the remote location.
12. All operator consoles must be positioned so that the operator's
activities are clearly visible to the opponent. An operator can only (1) enter
moves and (2) respond to requests from the computer for clock
information. This latter activity must be observed by the Tournament Director or
his designate. If an operator needs to enter other information, it must be
approved ahead of time by the Tournament Director. The operator cannot query the
system to see if it is alive without permission of the Tournament Director.
13. A team must receive the approval of the Tournament Director to change
from one computing system to another.
14. Each game is played on a chess-board and with a chess clock provided by
the Tournament Committee.
15. At the end of each game, both teams are required to hand in a game
listing to the Tournament Director, on paper, and in electronic (PGN) form.
16. Tie-breaking: (a) if precisely two participants are tied for first
place, precisely one play-off game under standard conditions is to be played.
Should that game be drawn, the tie-ranking rule in part (b)
decides the winner; (b) whenever two or more teams have an equal number of
points, a tie-ranking order is defined as follows. The dominant ranking is by
the sum of the opponents' scores. If there is still a tie, the sum of the
respective programs' cumulative scores after each round (i.e., score after
round-1 + score after round-2 + ..... + score after last-round) will be used;
(c) if three or more participants are tied for first place, then the two
participants ranked most highly are to be determined by the tie-ranking order
in (b). This pair of participants then play off as in (a).
17. In the event of any rule disputes, or changes necessitated by
circumstances at the time, the Tournament Director's decision shall be final.
ENTRY FORM FOR THE 9th WORLD COMPUTER-CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP
Paderborn, Germany
14-20 June 1999
The Board of ICCA
This is the application form for teams wishing to participate in the 9th World
Computer-Chess Championship, to take place at Paderborn, June 14-20, 1999. This
event is intended primarily for the programmers of chess systems (and hardware
designers, if chess-specific custom hardware is involved).
Programs are normally expected to be the original work of the entering
programmers. If the programs contain chess-playing code components from other
programmers, or are derived from such code, this fact must be stated on the
application, and details must be given.
Programs which are close derivatives of publicly available source code (e.g.
CRAFTY), or any other program, and play almost identically are not eligible.
Exceptionally, programs derived from publicly available source code can be
considered provided these applicants present a strong case for participation
based on extensive modifications to their personal version of the program. The
kind of case which might be acceptable is, for instance: if the project began
some years ago, with an old version of CRAFTY, and has accummulated so many
differences that it plays different
moves from any version of CRAFTY in a large proportion of positions (excluding
positions where there is only one reasonable move, and excluding book moves).
Therefore all applications must provide a statement describing the program's
history, with dates, specifying any chess-playing code not written by the
entering authors but included or used as a starting point, plus improvements or
original features added, and a statement of the development time. This statement
can be very short in simple cases, but should be more detailed for programs that
include chess-playing code from programmers who are not members of the entering
team.
The application must also give the estimated playing strength of the program and
how that figure is justified, and the program's experience (tabulate its
tournament participation).
Applications must be accompanied by an entry fee as follows:
US dollars UK pounds Dutch Guilders
German DM
Amateur: 25 16 38 35
Semi-Professional: 100 64 150 137
Professional: 500 320 750 682
Amateur: Programmers who have no commercial interest in their program, and are
not professional game programmers. Applications for amateur classification must
supply information to justify their claim. Semi-professional: Any program
submitted by an employee, or associate from a games-programming company. The
program's name must not be derived from or similar to a commercial chess
product. Professional: Program whose name is the same as or derived from a
commercial product.
Name of program: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
Entering author(s) of program: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . .
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Please list the names of the entering programmers in the order in which you wish
them to appear in any printed material about the tournament. Note that entries
may be submitted only by the author(s) of the program.)
Name and address for correspondence: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. .
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Affiliation (e.g., university, company): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . .
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Work tel: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . .Home tel: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
Fax number: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
E-mail address: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
Estimated rating: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
Basis of rating: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
(supply information on an additional sheet as necessary)
Who will come to the championship to operate your program? . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Development history of program: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . .
(Please supply information on a separate sheet as necessary. Under this heading
give the names of other programmers from which this work is derived, and/or
specify the source of any chess-playing code written by others.)
Entry fee enclosed (category, amount, and currency) . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(Applications for amateur or semi-professional must supply a statement giving
information to justify the category.)
INFORMATION ABOUT THE COMPUTER PLATFORM
(Please describe the computer system you expect to use. Please indicate if you
wish to use a loan PC provided by the sponsors.)
Manufacturer of computer and model: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. .
RAM: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Disk space for all necessary chess-related software: . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Operating system and any additional information: . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Language(s): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Nodes searched per second: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . .
Size of opening book: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
Does your program use endgame databases? (If so, please discuss them
briefly.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Description: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
(Please provide on a separate sheet a brief (100-150 word) description of your
program for use by the ICCA and the local host organization in their promotional
material.)
Submission are to be sent to David Levy, 5, Akenside Road, London NW3 5BS,
England. Email: DavidL@intrsrch.demon.co.uk, before March 1, 1999. A copy of
all electronic submissions should also go to Tony.Marsland@ualberta.ca. The
Board of ICCA will decide on which programs participate.
The entry form is also available from www.dcs.qmw.ac.uk/icca.
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