Author: Rolf Tueschen
Date: 03:12:58 07/08/04
In http://www.talkchess.com/forums/1/message.html?374779
and also http://www.talkchess.com/forums/1/message.html?374785 Bob Hyatt made a
couple of true remarks on the amateurism of the internet presentation of such a
professional event by the ICGA. The ICGA already reacted in
http://www.talkchess.com/forums/1/message.html?374716 where Guy Hayworth thanked
ChessBase for their offer [!] in Maastricht etc.
All this is NOT talking about the real truth and this is not because people want
to hide something but because the truth does only become visible after a little
analysis. We have a good example for the existence of blind spots in expertdom.
So these problem can be much better analysed from the outside in a little
interddisciplinary attempt. By just applying simple logic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The real and true reason for such delays in the transmission of live data from
the tournament hall in a WCC is not lack of motivation in the local staff or
even of participants who are so motivated that they make their own presentation
to help out a lame organization staff. The real and true reason does NOT lie in
the antiquated ICGA staff at the site. Neither in a "too old" TD, an academican
BTW. Or in a wrong organization of the ICGA itself.
However this is the truth:
In chess (computerchess as well as human chess) we have a negligence for the
true value of the most important data. And such a "delay" or "passivity" or even
open "resistance" or almost "contempt" of an academic staff body is the normal
reaction.
It is interesting that I as a lay can tell computer scientists why their own
media is the reason for such human resistance and sabotage.
I'm talking about the game scores, the chess moves!
All what we in the World are waiting for is the transmitting of the moves,
nothing else. And if that would be properly done by the specific hosts and the
attending staff, question could arise why such an event must be held in real
life at all!? Because all what is needed to play such a tournament could well be
organized on the internet and its perfect technology. The seeding, the playing,
the watching, the transmitting of moves, the deciding of disputes, all, all what
you can think about could be virtually done on the net. Without a pool on a 4
star hotel in Israel. Without 500 $$ support for the costs of each amateurs. But
also without the nice evening meals for the crowning ICGA staff at the different
sites in the World. All these important, not teaching professors with that
hobby, sorry, profession, or should I say obsession, love to travel at least
once in a year to beautiful sites. And then suddenly they should present the
most precious what they have for nothing over a server into the computers of all
the freaks outside? Yes, it will be organized, but after a starting problem and
a delay and enough protest so that the importance of the organizers could be
well established...
That the chess moves _alone_ are not the most important, that is the whole
fundament for the existence of a company like ChessBase.
The marketing strategy goes like this:
Chess moves are the most important. Since they can't be protected or copyrighted
they are given for free. For internet users. But is this true? No, because what
the users need are commentaries and they are expensive. What a real addictive
user needs is not the chessmoves from a single game or from many games, no, he
needs the scores of _all_ the games. And you can watch how this can be
exploitated. There is always at least one game in such an event, sure, not from
most important games, which is still missing. Or a variation of it. The exact
move ordering is still unknown... If such things wouldn't exist they had to be
invented by such any commercially working company.
So, basically, a company must give 95% for free to be able to get enough
interests who want it in the 100% version. With correctly spelled names, headers
etc.
Back to the ICGA staff at the site.
If they would guarantee an almost invisible automatism in the tranmitting of the
necessary data that would look as if they were completely unnecessary. Hope,
this is clear by now.
Now the interesting question: is it better to have automatic tournaments and
automatic transmission of the main data or is a humanly based information in
combination with the raw data the better service?
Here is the frankly stated answer:
If you are an expert in a field (I presume that we here are all experts) you
want to have forst class information and commentary by real masters. You know,
this is the ever-lasting human ideal. You want to climb higher up on the ladder.
In chess this is self-understood.
But is it really important for that ideal, to digest in real time the actually
played moves without any comments? Yes, if I were a GM I could need that, sorry,
if it were not from a WCCC but a human tournament anywhere. But we others, we
experts, don't we need a bit of time to digest all these informations? Aren't we
sufffering from an overflooding of informations? And - here I want to politely
remember the academic background of computer sciences and also computer chess -
do we really need to treat chessmoves as if they were traces of a neutron? When
we do know that chess as such is NOT a question of blitz decisions, at least not
for us patzer-experts?!!
And the deeper you are involved in computerchess the better you know that
computers cant replace the verdicts of human chess masters.
But these chess-masters want to have a living at least. Historically we have
many chess masters who were starving at the end of their life. This is because
the best chess novelty or game from the past is the melted snow today.
Moral and outlook:
This is why I want to plea you critics, don't believe in the religion of the
optimized transmission process as if it on its own could make the world more
beautiful. Chess doesn't become better understandable if we can analyse the
moves with a computer program - in _real time_, when the games are still being
played live. Chess is something, like many human activities, like science, where
you can only enjoy, if you have a good educational base. Not speed, but
knowledge and depth is the main factor. And looking at the displayed evals of a
chess program is NOT knowledge what were sufficient to understand chess.
A system of transmitting tournaments live from all over the World will be state
of the art in future, if we like it or not. But until then we must reflect the
problems of copyright and value of the output of our chess masters minds. Do we
really want live commentary with some small talk from real masters or do we need
in depth explanations? I think we will have to establish a new teaching staff of
masters who can make a living with their commentaries and lectures. This is what
ChessBase isn't tired to support and that is good to know, but it's still not
professional enough; perhaps the adequate software for different levels of
communication is still to be invented... Hurry up, there is much to be done for
many people in the field - also to make money! You young ones out there, just
give yourself a new motivation and just do it!
Let's enjoy our nice chess sport!
copyright 2004 Rolf Tueschen
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