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Subject: Re: WCCC9 and WMCCC Paderborn June 1999

Author: Peter McKenzie

Date: 18:31:57 02/24/99

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On February 24, 1999 at 07:57:48, Don Beal wrote:

>The 9th World Computer Chess Championship takes place in Paderborn
>June 14-20 1999.
>
>This event incoporates the 1999 World Microcomputer Chess Championship - the
>highest placed program running on a single generally-available
>microprocessor wins the WMCCC title.

I think this is less than ideal for the reasons outlined below.  Not sure what
can be done about it, probably nothing :-)  Perhaps some discussion will throw
up some ideas.  Anyway, the reasons:

1) The swiss tournament system is specifically designed to find a fair
tournament winner.  Once you start looking at the minor places it becomes less
clear who really 'deserves' second place etc.  For a given field size, there is
a recommended number of rounds to find a fair tournament winner.  If you want to
fairly hand out Nth (where N > 1) prize, that recommended number of rounds will
typically increase.  This stuff is well documented somewhere, probably the FIDE
rules.  Perhaps someone could post the relevant numbers for a 32 player
tournament?

The whole thing for WCCC/WMCCC is complicated by the fact that we don't even
know what N will be!  Maybe the best micro will win it, in which case there
won't be a problem.  But maybe the best micro will place 5th, in which case
there is decent chance that it will have actually performed worse than whatever
placed 6th.

2) There is a dilemma for people who can run on SMP machines (I'm picking that
at least 4 strong micro programs will face this dilemma).  Do they run SMP,
thereby having a better chance for the WCCC title, but rule out their WMCCC
chances completely?


Actually both of the above points actually favour my program (if it is
accepted).  Point (1) effectively adds some randomness to the result of WMCCC
which helps my program as it won't be a favourite.  And point (2) will surely
weaken the competition for WMCCC.

>
>This a reminder to anyone who was intending to enter, or contemplating
>entering, that the deadline for making an application is very near (1 March).
>
>More information about the event, and the application form, are on the ICCA
>web pages: http://www.dcs.qmw.ac.uk/~icca/
>
>We expect an exciting tournament, and hope to see as many of you as
>possible there.

Yes, should be good.  Thanks for organising it!

>
>Don Beal.



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