Author: Mike Byrne
Date: 18:12:17 03/22/05
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Programs can be programmed to make and accept draw offers. Crafty does. I'm not familiar with the ICGA rules, but it is my opinion that the program should be allowed to make and accept draw offers and that the operator should not be allowed to intercede on the program's behalf. In addition, operators should not be allowed to resign on the program's behalf. Without that rule, chess computers tournaments are subject to abuse by the particpants. Case in point, in a well documented tournamnet held in the 1980's , Fidelity had two machines entered in the same touenament. Fidelity wanted the one machine, (a newer machine) to do very well. When it was playing the older machine, it ended up with a losing position. Need not to worry, the operator of the machine with the winning position (who also happened to bethe operator of the other Fidelity machine), simply resigned to the other Fidelity machine. This was at a time when Fidelity was in bed with USCF and the the USCF leadership had not one strand of moral fiber (those that were moral , simply removed themselves from the process) and was willing to do and accept whatvever Fidelity wanted (since the USCF was making so much money by selling Fidelity machines to USCF members). In addition to rating test fraud perpetuated by the USCF and Fidelity (and why ratings of units advertised back then are so overstated) they also limited the amount of advertising they accepted from other vendors (like ICD) as well as turning their back on Mephisto ( at Fidelity's request). That is why you rarely saw Mephisto advertising in Chess Life in the 1980's, although Mephisto was the premeir dedciated chess brand. The USCF (back then) was simply not an organization that had moral intergrity at the very highest levels of the organization. (Note -- I'm not speaking about individuals - they had people involved that have the best reputations for honesty and intergrity (like Larry Kaufman) - but they were lone wolves in the wilderness and were not able to carry their platform for more integrity in the computer chess rating process ). I have no opinion on today's USCF leadership except to say I think it's better than it was 20 years ago. How much better may be debatable.
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