FIDE computer registration
Steven J. Edwards
players for participation in FIDE rated events. The regulations were
published as a "news flash" item in the _ICCA Journal_ and it all
appeared as a bit of a surprise; I don't think any of the ICCA
leadership were informed, or even consulted, beforehand. The program
registration fee was in the thousands of dollars. I don't recall the
exact figure as I was laughing too much.
Now that the FIDE computer rules have been in effect for a couple of
years, I was wondering:
1) Who was responsible for the establishment of the rules?
2) Who was responsible for setting the outrageous registration fee?
3) Why is the FIDE registration fee incredibly high? (Note: in
comparison, the program registration fee established by the USCF is
US$40 per year and includes a subscription to _Chess Life_. There are
about ten active programs registered. I am the author and owner of
one of them. In the early days, I believe program membership was free
and I think that Richard Greenblatt's program MacHack played as an
"honorary" member.)
4) Is any of the money generated by FIDE program registrations fed
back into the support of computer chess development?
5) Finally, have there been any program authors or vendors that have
purchased FIDE registration?
While it is nice that FIDE allows registered programs in FIDE rated
events, the enormity of the fee leaves one wondering about its
motivation. Is it just a case of monopolistic money grubbing? Or
perhaps it is a way for FIDE to "recognize" the legitimacy of program
players while simultaneously ensuring that there won't be any in FIDE
events.
I recall some years ago (early 1980s) that FIDE sold the use of its
name for a certain brand of commercial computer chessplayers and this
allowed the manufacturer to use the FIDE name and symbol in
advertising and on the unit itself (I have one of these). Was this a
foreshadowing of the current FIDE registration fee? Was it done on an
exclusive basis? Was any of the money received used to support
computer chess research?
The USCF charges a considerable fee for rating of commercial programs.
A large portion of the fee is paid as reward prizes to motivate human
opponents, so it appears that it is justified. However, even with
this system there have been abuses; one of them occurred when a now
defunct manufacturer switched models in the middle of a tournament. I
think that this rating program (at least for standard 40/120 time
controls) has fallen into the doldrums as many now use the Swedish
_Ply_ rating list to measure program strength. Still, the USCF rating
system for programs is probably currently the best way to establish
strength against human opposition.
The ICCA has a program for accepting funds from commercial sponsors,
and I think that this is justified. The money is used to further
computer chess reserch by supporting a research publication system and
by assisting with computer chess events. ICCA commercial sponsors are
identified in the _ICCA Journal_ and some have gone further to sponsor
certain research efforts administered under the supervision of the
ICCA. To my knowledge, there are no exclusive arrangements and there
are no prohibitive fees charged to commercial entries in ICCA events.
(There may have been some ICCA events where there was a slightly
different entry fee for commercial programs compared to amateur
programs. The fairness of this practice is under discussion, as it is
not always easy to classify an entrant to the satisfaction of all
participants.) There is no ICCA program registration fee; however,
authors of programs in ICCA events themselves have to be ICCA members
(US$40 per year; includes journal subscription).
My suggestion is that FIDE, and perhaps the national level members of
FIDE like the USCF, let the matter of computer chessplayer
registration be handled by the ICCA. This would allow the researchers
themselves to establish a sound and fair methodology for program
registration and participation. No exorbitant fees would be charged,
no exclusive arrangements would be allowed, and any money collected
would go towards supporting the advancement of research.
-- Steven (s...@mv.mv.com)
Robert Hyatt
-->About three years ago, FIDE established rules for registering computer
-->players for participation in FIDE rated events. The regulations were
-->published as a "news flash" item in the _ICCA Journal_ and it all
-->appeared as a bit of a surprise; I don't think any of the ICCA
-->leadership were informed, or even consulted, beforehand. The program
-->registration fee was in the thousands of dollars. I don't recall the
-->exact figure as I was laughing too much.
-->
-->Now that the FIDE computer rules have been in effect for a couple of
-->years, I was wondering:
-->
-->1) Who was responsible for the establishment of the rules?
-->
-->2) Who was responsible for setting the outrageous registration fee?
-->
-->3) Why is the FIDE registration fee incredibly high? (Note: in
-->comparison, the program registration fee established by the USCF is
-->US$40 per year and includes a subscription to _Chess Life_. There are
-->about ten active programs registered. I am the author and owner of
-->one of them. In the early days, I believe program membership was free
-->and I think that Richard Greenblatt's program MacHack played as an
-->"honorary" member.)
First, I've been playing in USCF events since 1974 or so, and it has
never been free. We had to join and pay the normal USCF fee, with the
only restriction being that it was a "non-voting" member. Always seemed
fair, with the exception of the "computer can't claim a prize" stipulation,
as we often had to pay regular tournament entry fees, but could not win a
prize. Some tournaments would let us enter for just the rating fee, which
was nominal.
Second, I think the high fee was done for two reasons: (1) discourage
computers; (2) gouge the commercial vendors for a huge penalty hoping that
they would still join and thereby improve FIDE's cash situation, which would
be used to partially offset the "anti-computer" feeling the majority of
people seem to have (relative to computers playing in human events, for
a general "feeling" look thru Chess Life and count (NC)'s". I, too, thought
it was a joke, and have not heard of anyone taking 'em up on it.
-->
-->4) Is any of the money generated by FIDE program registrations fed
-->back into the support of computer chess development?
har har....
-->
-->5) Finally, have there been any program authors or vendors that have
-->purchased FIDE registration?
-->
-->While it is nice that FIDE allows registered programs in FIDE rated
-->events, the enormity of the fee leaves one wondering about its
-->motivation. Is it just a case of monopolistic money grubbing? Or
-->perhaps it is a way for FIDE to "recognize" the legitimacy of program
-->players while simultaneously ensuring that there won't be any in FIDE
-->events.
or perhaps both of the above...
-->
-->I recall some years ago (early 1980s) that FIDE sold the use of its
-->name for a certain brand of commercial computer chessplayers and this
-->allowed the manufacturer to use the FIDE name and symbol in
-->advertising and on the unit itself (I have one of these). Was this a
-->foreshadowing of the current FIDE registration fee? Was it done on an
-->exclusive basis? Was any of the money received used to support
-->computer chess research?
har har again...
-->
-->The USCF charges a considerable fee for rating of commercial programs.
-->A large portion of the fee is paid as reward prizes to motivate human
-->opponents, so it appears that it is justified. However, even with
-->this system there have been abuses; one of them occurred when a now
-->defunct manufacturer switched models in the middle of a tournament. I
-->think that this rating program (at least for standard 40/120 time
-->controls) has fallen into the doldrums as many now use the Swedish
-->_Ply_ rating list to measure program strength. Still, the USCF rating
-->system for programs is probably currently the best way to establish
-->strength against human opposition.
-->
-->The ICCA has a program for accepting funds from commercial sponsors,
-->and I think that this is justified. The money is used to further
-->computer chess reserch by supporting a research publication system and
-->by assisting with computer chess events. ICCA commercial sponsors are
-->identified in the _ICCA Journal_ and some have gone further to sponsor
-->certain research efforts administered under the supervision of the
-->ICCA. To my knowledge, there are no exclusive arrangements and there
-->are no prohibitive fees charged to commercial entries in ICCA events.
-->(There may have been some ICCA events where there was a slightly
-->different entry fee for commercial programs compared to amateur
-->programs. The fairness of this practice is under discussion, as it is
-->not always easy to classify an entrant to the satisfaction of all
-->participants.) There is no ICCA program registration fee; however,
-->authors of programs in ICCA events themselves have to be ICCA members
-->(US$40 per year; includes journal subscription).
-->
-->My suggestion is that FIDE, and perhaps the national level members of
-->FIDE like the USCF, let the matter of computer chessplayer
-->registration be handled by the ICCA. This would allow the researchers
-->themselves to establish a sound and fair methodology for program
-->registration and participation. No exorbitant fees would be charged,
-->no exclusive arrangements would be allowed, and any money collected
-->would go towards supporting the advancement of research.
-->
-->-- Steven (s...@mv.mv.com)
Never happen. David's tried for years. FIDE is too political, too
capitalistic, too close-minded.
--
Robert Hyatt Computer and Information Sciences
hy...@cis.uab.edu University of Alabama at Birmingham
(205) 934-2213 115A Campbell Hall, UAB Station
(205) 934-5473 FAX Birmingham, AL 35294-1170
Thomas Kerrigan
via anti-discrimination laws?
Cheers,
Tom
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When you make your mark in the world, watch out for guys with erasers.
-- The Wall Street Journal
Steven J. Edwards
>In article <DHKIH...@mv.mv.com>, Steven J. Edwards <s...@mv.mv.com> wrote:
>-->3) Why is the FIDE registration fee incredibly high? (Note: in
>-->comparison, the program registration fee established by the USCF is
>-->US$40 per year and includes a subscription to _Chess Life_. There are
>-->about ten active programs registered. I am the author and owner of
>-->one of them. In the early days, I believe program membership was free
>-->and I think that Richard Greenblatt's program MacHack played as an
>-->"honorary" member.)
>First, I've been playing in USCF events since 1974 or so, and it has
>never been free. We had to join and pay the normal USCF fee, with the
>only restriction being that it was a "non-voting" member. Always seemed
>fair, with the exception of the "computer can't claim a prize" stipulation,
>as we often had to pay regular tournament entry fees, but could not win a
>prize. Some tournaments would let us enter for just the rating fee, which
>was nominal.
I recall that MacHack was the first program ever to play in USCF
events and its tournament career was restricted to about 1967 through
1969. (Richard, if you're listening, please feel free to correct me
on this.) At that time the current USCF registration rules were not
yet in effect. MacHack was allowed to be a member of the
Massachusetts Chess Association and I know some of the players who
were paired with it.
Spector has played in a number of Massachusetts events dating back to
1988 and interestingly enough, the MACA membership requirement has
been waived while the USCF membership requirement is enforced. I have
always been charged the full entry fee, and in the past few years I
have offered modest prize money out of my own pocket to those who can
win or draw against the program. (I will add here that MACA membership
is easily justified for human players as its bimonthly _Chess
Horizons_ is a good magazine. For this reason I became a MACA Life
Member.)
One of the more recent USCF rules is that while human vs. program
games can be rated, program vs. program games cannot. Perhaps this is
why the 1994 ACM event was not rated, although some earlier ones
apparently were. (And they were also advertised in _Chess Life_
Tournament Life announcements with the "NH" No Humans allowed
prohibition.) I've wondered about the motivation for this rule, and I
can only conclude that it was made to prevent an unscrupulous
manufacturer from staging phoney tournaments where its preferred
products "just happen" to get high USCF ratings.
>Second, I think the high fee was done for two reasons: (1) discourage
>computers; (2) gouge the commercial vendors for a huge penalty hoping that
>they would still join and thereby improve FIDE's cash situation, which would
>be used to partially offset the "anti-computer" feeling the majority of
>people seem to have (relative to computers playing in human events, for
>a general "feeling" look thru Chess Life and count (NC)'s". I, too, thought
>it was a joke, and have not heard of anyone taking 'em up on it.
It turns out, fortunately, that there are a lot of events not
advertised in _Chess Life_ but are described in regional publications
like _Chess Horizons_ and these are not all NC tournaments. I have
found that there are several tournament organizers who are willing to
change from "NC" to "C" (before an event is advertised) once they are
assured that machines won't cause direction difficulties. Also, they
may be further motivated by being able to collect one more entry fee
without having to risk any prize money for the entrant. If there are
fixed prizes, the fee is just that much more money in the organizer's
pocket. If the prizes are based on entrant count, it's that much
better for the human players as the fund is increased and total money
paid to humans increases as programs can't win any human prize money.
>-->4) Is any of the money generated by FIDE program registrations fed
>-->back into the support of computer chess development?
>har har....
I wonder if the PCA policy is different from the FIDE policy.
>-->My suggestion is that FIDE, and perhaps the national level members of
>-->FIDE like the USCF, let the matter of computer chessplayer
>-->registration be handled by the ICCA. This would allow the researchers
>-->themselves to establish a sound and fair methodology for program
>-->registration and participation. No exorbitant fees would be charged,
>-->no exclusive arrangements would be allowed, and any money collected
>-->would go towards supporting the advancement of research.
>Never happen. David's tried for years. FIDE is too political, too
>capitalistic, too close-minded.
Perhaps this is sufficient justification for severing all ties between
the ICCA and FIDE. Anyway, I appreciate David's efforts.
I think it's more than a bit unfair that programs are systematically
given a poor second class status by the USCF and FIDE. The biggest
reason for this feeling is that the availability of commercial
chessplaying programs has greatly increased interest in chess over the
past twenty years, probably more so than any promotional efforts by
the human chess organizations. This has helped the USCF (and by
extension, FIDE) a great deal, but when it comes to helping support
research either by encouraging programs in events or by funding,
little payback is ever seen.
-- Steven (s...@mv.mv.com)
Sebastien.Konieczny
Could someone tell me where i can find a chess program in C.
I would like to know how it works.
thank's
bye.
M D. Grimminck
[]
>Could someone tell me where i can find a chess program in C.
>I would like to know how it works.
try crafty on ftp://willis.cis.uab.edu/pub/hyatt
it is well documented.
--
Michel Grimminck, Computational Physics, University of Amsterdam
draughts/checker page: http://carol.fwi.uva.nl/~grimmink/draughts.html
Urban Koistinen
: To my knowledge, there are no exclusive arrangements and there
: are no prohibitive fees charged to commercial entries in ICCA events.
: (There may have been some ICCA events where there was a slightly
: different entry fee for commercial programs compared to amateur
: programs. The fairness of this practice is under discussion, as it is
: not always easy to classify an entrant to the satisfaction of all
: participants.)
One way would be to classify those entrants who submit and allow free
redistribution of source and binaries under the GPL as amateurs.
What program would then qualify that should not?
I say none.
What program would then not qualify that should?
I think none, but others may disagree.
Maybe it should be enough to submit and allow nonprofit redistribution
of the source without allowing changes or derived work to be
redistributable. That way it could at least be available by ftp at
chess.onenet.net.
--
Urban Koistinen - e...@algonet.se
Steven J. Edwards
>: To my knowledge, there are no exclusive arrangements and there
>: are no prohibitive fees charged to commercial entries in ICCA events.
>: (There may have been some ICCA events where there was a slightly
>: different entry fee for commercial programs compared to amateur
>: programs. The fairness of this practice is under discussion, as it is
>: not always easy to classify an entrant to the satisfaction of all
>: participants.)
>One way would be to classify those entrants who submit and allow free
>redistribution of source and binaries under the GPL as amateurs.
>What program would then qualify that should not?
>I say none.
You are probably right on this point.
>What program would then not qualify that should?
>I think none, but others may disagree.
You are wrong on this point. A number of chessplaying programs are
non-commercial, but have source code that is still private. Spector
is one, as is Evaluator by MacLaughlin. I believe that Innovation by
Mallett is also in the above category. And these are all from the
United States and so there's probably more from Europe.
Also, if a program has been freely distributed, then who is eligible
to enter it? Gnuchess has appeared in a number of events, but has
only been allowed one instance per event. But many people have worked
on it, so who is to decide which person is allowed to enter it?
>Maybe it should be enough to submit and allow nonprofit redistribution
>of the source without allowing changes or derived work to be
>redistributable. That way it could at least be available by ftp at
>chess.onenet.net.
This is unenforcible.
I would grant amateur status to any program that has not been
commercially distributed. This may be hard to enforce also. Perhaps
amateur status should be granted to any program by an author that has
not realized program related income in the twelve months prior to the
event.
The USCF grants amateur status to any program whose author signs an
agreement which includes a promise of no commercial exploitation of
results achieved in USCF events.
-- Steven (s...@mv.mv.com)
Steven J. Edwards
>Steven J. Edwards (s...@mv.mv.com) wrote:
>: The USCF grants amateur status to any program whose author signs an
>: agreement which includes a promise of no commercial exploitation of
>: results achieved in USCF events.
>What does this mean in practice?
>Does it mean that a programmer would not be allowed to sell a
>chess program ever cause he got famous by winning a tournament?
No.
>Or is it the name of the program that has to be changed before
>selling it?
Yes.
>Or is it that the result may not be used in an ad to sell?
Yes, but there may be some flexibility here in that the commercial
version of the program being sold could have in its advertisements a
reference to the USCF version of the program as being by the same
author.
The USCF has further restrictions on advertisements that appear in its
_Chess Life_. These have become somewhat irrelevant as the CL cost of
advertising has apparently become so high that nearly all
advertisements for programs are for those sold by the USCF. Few, if
any, of these programs have an established regular rating, but this
doesn't stop the USCF from making extensive claims for performance --
at least for those programs that make money for the USCF merchandise
department.
This is a real sore point for a lot of _Chess Life_ readers. For many
years, the Swedish _Ply_ rating list has been the best indicator of
commercial program performance. It is published in every issue of the
_ICCA Journal_ and has recently become available on the Internet. The
information it contains is an excellent, non-biased source for
assisting purchasers. Yet in spite of this, the USCF refuses to
publish the list even though such publication has been long requested.
The only possible reason for this refusal is that the USCF merchandise
department might lose sales if readers purchase programs that are on
the _Ply_ list but not in the USCF catalog.
On another point, as of the time of this writing, I still haven't
heard of any program ever being FIDE registered.
-- Steven (s...@mv.mv.com)
Nikhil Nair
> hello,
>
> Could someone tell me where i can find a chess program in C.
> I would like to know how it works.
>
> thank's
Apologies to anyone whbo thinks I'm being repetitive - I said this to
someone only yesterday in this group - but you could try Gnuchess, which
is freely available in source form. The original is at
ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/, but I've had a quick look and found a mirror
nearer you: ftp://ftp.ibp.fr/pub/gnu/. The file is
gnuchess-4.0.pl75.tar.gz. I think queries should be directed at
g...@prep.ai.mit.edu, but any reply from there is quite likely to be
automated ...
Hope this helps,
Nikhil.
Dietrich J. Kappe
nn...@cam.ac.uk wrote:
Even more can be found at ftp://caissa.onenet.net/pub/chess/Unix/, such as
zzzzzz, SCP (Stanback chess program, on which gnuchess was based),
Unixchess, and a few others. THere are a few README files, so check those.
My biggest peeve about caissa is that there are no index or description
files. Sigh.
--
Dietrich J. Kappe | Web Publishing: http://www.redweb.com
Red Planet, L.L.C. | Chess Space: http://www.redweb.com/chess
1-800-RED 0 WEB | MS Access: http://www.redweb.com/cobre
RedP...@redweb.com | Comics: http://www.redweb.com/wraithspace
Michael L Wilson
Dietrich J. Kappe <goe...@redweb.com> wrote:
>In article <Pine.SOL.3.91.95111...@ursa.cus.cam.ac.uk>,
>nn...@cam.ac.uk wrote:
>
>> On 6 Nov 1995, Sebastien.Konieczny wrote:
>>
>> > hello,
>> >
>> > Could someone tell me where i can find a chess program in C.
>> > I would like to know how it works.
>> >
>> > thank's
>>
Great, now can you help me find one in lisp, preferably akcl?
(Seriously - I'm not being a wiseass.) I was going to try and modify
one into Chaturanga, etc, other variants....
Mike Wilson.