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Subject: Re: Zappa-Isichess

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 17:55:19 08/20/05

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On August 20, 2005 at 18:38:59, Arturo Ochoa wrote:
>
>
>This is where you faile. The problem is not complaining in this Forum where you
>have an extensive influence. Your action is to address that point with the
>organization that regulates the Tournament.

I am going to type this _very_ slowly so you can grasp it this time around.
This has nothing to do with the result of this tournament.  It has nothing to do
with Zappa/Anthony.  If you ask him you will find that he and I have written a
paper together for the JICGA, we have worked on the "annealing auto-tuner"
project together, and are continuing that project.  It has nothing to do with
any single participant.

that was point 1.

Point 1 is that I _have_ raised this issue.  As has Bruce Moreland, John
Stanback, and I don't know how many others.  All you have to do is search the
archives here and you will find _many_ references.  This is not new.  You will
maybe also be surprised to learn that this has been mentioned at multiple
WMCCC/WCCC events.  So this is not a "sudden hot button".  It is a problem that
many of us have addressed repeatedly, and the ICGA rules seem to be on our side,
but no one seems to enforce them adequately...

Now is that simple enough.  It is not _just_ about this tournament.  It is not
just about Zappa's book.  I don't give a damn whether his book author could get
the book converted or not.  That isn't the issue.  The issue is the rules.  And
the rules are quite clear, and ought to be made even clearer.  Unfortunately,
commercial interests dominate the rest of us and so nothing is likely to be
done.  But rest assured, many of us will continue to bring this up, because it
is simply wrong.

>
>Now, that the Tournament is quite over. It is not relevant. By the way, I am
>explaining a situation of Zappa and Erdogan that I dont have any direct concern
>now.


That is your short-sightedness.  It was relevant years ago when it was first
brought up that book authors like Noomen and Kure had developed very high
quality books and that these books were being used by multiple programs from the
same company in the same tournament.  Bruce Moreland said it best, "When I play
Rebel and get ripped by Jeroen's book, do I have to face that book a second time
when I play Tiger?  Why?"  It was relevant when this was first raised, probably
almost 10 years ago. It was relevant prior to the WCCC.  It became relevant
during the WCCC when yet another instance of it was mentioned.  And it will be
relevant for the coming year since it will probably happen again next year...
It's not _just_ about this tournament.  I can't see for the life of me why you
can't make that connection...




>
>I know all these post-Tournament frustrations to raise complains out of date and
>time. Sorry, if the ICGA let the current engine to use an external GUI, the
>chess authors are not responsible directly.

Using an external GUI is fine, but not if the GUI actually is responsible for
playing some of the moves.  Then it is no longer a GUI, it an integral part of
the chess engine, responsible for 25-35% of the _total moves played_ when you
consider that a book line generally goes 15 moves, and most games are decided by
move 50-60.  Gives the book selection algorithm a _lot_ of influence on the
game, would you not say?

Now if you use a book where there are only single alternatives, so that there is
no "choice" anywhere, then these "pseudo-GUI programs" would be OK.  But that is
not how most of the books are made, and something has to choose between move A
and move B.  And that something is playing chess.

>
>
>I doubt that it can be done in 1 week considering the the structure of the ctg
>book. Perhaps, you have got the source to do that in 1 day. I don't know...
>
>Considering the size of the ctg books is just impossible to transfer all the
>data in 3 weeks.

That I won't argue about.  I don't know anything about anybody's book format but
mine.  With mine, I can convert PGN from enormous.pgn to a book.bin file in
about 3 minutes on the opteron.  I could write a program (I used to have one but
it is gone) that could take my binary book file and produce PGN by walking the
book file and printing things as it goes...  It would not take me a day to do
that...  If there was a reason to do so.




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