ChessBase: A Gross Miscarriage of Justice in Computer Chess

[hyatt]

There are "trolls" and "subtle trolls." He is the latter.

[lmader]

There are "trolls" and "subtle trolls." He is the latter.

Good call. I was phished.

[hyatt]

Me too, but I learn.

[mjlef]

I have been questioning Vas on the Rybka forum for the last few days, and I often get very fatigued answering the same silly arguments over there. It is exhausting. But when I come back here and see wonderfully written, accurate, scientific postings by you guys (well some of you might be gals!), it gives me energy to continue. Thanks for your great writing and thoughtful comments. That is what is missing over there. "Thoughtful"!

[hyatt]

"thoughtful" requires at LEAST part of a brain. Not much in evidence over there?

[Prima]

I have been questioning Vas on the Rybka forum for the last few days, and I often get very fatigued answering the same silly arguments over there. It is exhausting. But when I come back here and see wonderfully written, accurate, scientific postings by you guys (well some of you might be gals!), it gives me energy to continue. Thanks for your great writing and thoughtful comments. That is what is missing over there. "Thoughtful"!

Good to have you, Bob, Zach, et. al ask questions over there, though Vas keep procrastinating relevant questions that would otherwise quench these mess created by him, proving his innocence or guilt. However, his [habit of] vagueness, evasiveness, and procrastination of 5+ years spells G-U-I-L-T-Y.

By the way, I understand you are having health issues and CT scan(s). I bid you a speedy, healthy recovery. All the best.

http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... 3957;pg=13

mjlef wrote:
I am having some health issues and just returned from a CT scan, so my time to read and respond to this stuff is very limited. If anyone has something significant to report, let me know directly, but I just do not have time right now to respond to these endless feeble attempts to defend Vas, when Vas himself refuses to offer a defense

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[mjlef]

I have been questioning Vas on the Rybka forum for the last few days, and I often get very fatigued answering the same silly arguments over there. It is exhausting. But when I come back here and see wonderfully written, accurate, scientific postings by you guys (well some of you might be gals!), it gives me energy to continue. Thanks for your great writing and thoughtful comments. That is what is missing over there. "Thoughtful"!

Good to have you, Bob, Zach, et. al ask questions over there, though Vas keep procrastinating relevant questions that would otherwise quench these mess created by him, proving his innocence or guilt. However, his [habit of] vagueness, evasiveness, and procrastination of 5+ years spells G-U-I-L-T-Y.

By the way, I understand you are having health issues and CT scan(s). I bid you a speedy, healthy recovery. All the best.

http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... 3957;pg=13

mjlef wrote:
I am having some health issues and just returned from a CT scan, so my time to read and respond to this stuff is very limited. If anyone has something significant to report, let me know directly, but I just do not have time right now to respond to these endless feeble attempts to defend Vas, when Vas himself refuses to offer a defense

.



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This is strange, but I cannot seem to find that posting. Perhaps talking about CT scans is not permitted now? Well anyway, the scan was interesting, if drinking 2 liters of stuff that tastes like dish washing soap is interesting!

[Ted Summers]

"It's a long read, but many of the letters we received in reaction to the defence of the Rybka program by Dr Søren Riis are quite passionate and well thought out in their content. We start with the summary of a long rebuttal of the Riis paper that was sent to us by the ICGA and circulated on the Internet – with links to the full version and ancillary documents. Take a deep breath."

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7836

[Ted Summers]

"It's a long read, but many of the letters we received in reaction to the defence of the Rybka program by Dr Søren Riis are quite passionate and well thought out in their content. We start with the summary of a long rebuttal of the Riis paper that was sent to us by the ICGA and circulated on the Internet – with links to the full version and ancillary documents. Take a deep breath."

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7836

I felt most comments posted were pro Vas/Rybka which I expected. However there were a few that were not and these were some of my favorites.

Jans F., Somerville, MA
"This article makes a couple of interesting points. Vas Rajlich took code from Fruit, improved it, and that's good. The developers of Ippolit took code from Rybka, improved it, and that's bad. So, the point is made that when your friend does something, it's good, and when your enemy does the same thing, it's bad. In fact, let's write a long, complicated explanation about how it's not the same thing at all. The other interesting point is that the availability of free open source programs has advanced computer chess rapidly. Closed-source, paid programs have advanced computer chess more slowly. The point here is that profit motivation impedes progress. It also gets in the way of intellectual honesty by causing personal preference bias, which is obvious to the reader, but perhaps invisible to the author."

Andrei Olsen, Norway
"Unless it was intended, there is just no way any programmer (not even a beginner) would ever write "if(movetime >= 0.)" or "if(movetime >= 0.0)", it just doesn't happen by accident. And it couldn't be a typo either, the "." (dot) is located at a completely different place on the keyboard (be it a US, Czech, Polish, Dvorak, etc. layout)."

John Hornibrook, Sydney, Australia
"I very much enjoy the chessbase news site, but I feel I must comment about the horridly one-sided articles on the ICGA decision regarding Rybka. Yes, of course you are entitled to post a piece from someone on the Rybka side, but the articles do not address a majority of the evidence presented against Rybka and misrepresent some of the claims. This seems intentionally misleading for readers not in programming circles, and chessbase should weigh some responsibility against its financial interests. The section on Bob Hyatt in the final piece is, of course, unnecessary. However abrasive his manner, he is certainly generous with his time and assistance to the computer chess community."

Rick Fadden, Barre, Vermont, USA
"In looking inside the Rybka 1.0 beta binary I found that Vas Rajlich was lying about how deep Rybka was searching, how many nodes it searched, and the Nodes per second reporting. In the code I point out that Vas includes a lot of code to "obfuscate" and to hide the fact that Rybka was a "fast, deep searcher", not a "slow searcher with max chess knowledge.""

Chris Kantack
"I think the "gross miscarriage" here is that ChessBase is only printing one side of the story. Why don't we see the rebuttals from David Levy and Tom Watkins. I'm disappointed that you show extreme bias here. My opinion of ChessBase has greatly diminished."

[Rebel]

There's more breaking news to discuss: http://www.top-5000.nl/resignation.htm

Email to ICGA chairman David Levy

Date : January 5, 2012
Subject : Resignation
CC : Mark Lefler

Dear David,

After seeing the reactions of my former colleagues on the ChessBase article it's now crystal clear to me nothing is going to change.

As I see it the real power is in the hands of the programmers, when they go on strike there is no tournament, the CSVN felt the power of the programmers a couple of months ago, they destroyed two tournaments.

And unfortunately I can not say you are blameless in the latter. You attacked the CSVN in a total unnecessary way in your notorious Attack of the Clones article on ChessVibes later echoed back in the programmers letter to the CSVN. Your motives for that are a mystery to me.

Looking back at the last 6 months and all the bad things that happened I do not want to be associated any longer with the ICGA in any way. Please be so kind to remove all my tournament results including my 2 world titles.

Please inform me where to send the Shannon trophy, it's not longer welcome in my house.

Regards,

Ed Schroder

Perhaps Ed has seen Rybka's source code...

The same Hex-rays Rybka source code as you

But lemme elaborate a bit about this (rather) dramatic move, basically the all familiar last drop. Already 5-6 weeks earlier I noticed that this was a kind of inevitable endpoint. But then after the WCCC in Tilburg someone informed me that at the players meeting the wish was expressed for a wider interpretation of rule #2 and I got some hope again. Finally an admission that the internet has changed the landscape once and for all and new rules are needed to withstand the pressure of clones. And so I subscribed as a member to the ICGA commission who was going to brainstorm about that. I even praised MarkL for this excellent initiative while I was already pretty ICGA allergic.

While time passed and nothing did happen I asked MarkL about the progress and he told me there hardly was any interest and he was planning to mail all ICGA members a second time to ensure a reasonable inhabited committee. It was when I realized that the programmers who like to play in ICGA tournaments had no real interest in the subject and actually felt fine to keep things as they are. Or they must have realized that a change in rule #2 could become problematic (topic bad timing) to the verdict they just had spoken against Vas.

Whatever the motives I realized nothing was going to change and then enough was simply enough.

This whole Rybka case can be forgiven, what not can be forgiven is that (IMO) the ICGA since day one was the organization that unites the chess programmers and is their voice acting in harmony and keep them together.

Instead by their actions they have divided the chess programmers and its users into 2 camps and until this day they have shown no single interest to restore the damage.

I blame David Levy for bad leadership. He should stand up, raise his voice and set out new rules that can stand the pressure of the trouble open sources have brought upon this community. And unite the chess programmers again in so far that is possible.

Instead I think David is only interested in his own tournament and doesn't give a rats about computer chess, nor its community (programmers and users).