OpenChess

I'm hoping that Fabien Letouzey don't accept any money that chessbase, chessok can offered for his silence

Conspiracy theory again at work?

Do people really think ChessBase and ChessOK have enough cash to throw around to bribe forum posters and programmers? As it is, anyone that would know to frequent these forums would already be aware of engines like Stockfish and Critter, so regardless of the status of Ivanhoe and Houdini they would have viable free alternatives to Rybka. The chess software market is very small, even Chessmaster is only marketed as having sold "over 5 million copies" and that is over the last 15 years. The money just isn't there for them to be able to bribe posters in two or three obscure internet forums, even if they cared. Honestly, ChessBase sells more copies of Fritz than Rybka and makes a larger profit margin from Fritz. Fritz hasn't been the strongest engine in sometime, so I doubt things said about Rybka bothers ChessBase in any significant way. Why is it so hard to believe the occasional poster likes to use paid for computer software?

bhandelman wrote:Do people really think ChessBase and ChessOK have enough cash to throw around to bribe forum posters and programmers? As it is, anyone that would know to frequent these forums would already be aware of engines like Stockfish and Critter, so regardless of the status of Ivanhoe and Houdini they would have viable free alternatives to Rybka. The chess software market is very small, even Chessmaster is only marketed as having sold "over 5 million copies" and that is over the last 15 years. The money just isn't there for them to be able to bribe posters in two or three obscure internet forums, even if they cared. Honestly, ChessBase sells more copies of Fritz than Rybka and makes a larger profit margin from Fritz. Fritz hasn't been the strongest engine in sometime, so I doubt things said about Rybka bothers ChessBase in any significant way. Why is it so hard to believe the occasional poster likes to use paid for computer software?

Actually, you would be surprised how little it takes to bribe some people. A few free Rybka engines, a personal email form the programing god himself. The next thing you know, you are in the fanboy club.

Kevin Frayer wrote:Actually, you would be surprised how little it takes to bribe some people. A few free Rybka engines, a personal email form the programing god himself. The next thing you know, you are in the fanboy club.

Perhaps you didn't intend to come across as quite the expert on the subject, but I have never before heard even anecdotal evidence for this.

orgfert wrote:

Kevin Frayer wrote:Actually, you would be surprised how little it takes to bribe some people. A few free Rybka engines, a personal email form the programing god himself. The next thing you know, you are in the fanboy club.

Perhaps you didn't intend to come across as quite the expert on the subject, but I have never before heard even anecdotal evidence for this.

I am very surprised that you did not know this. The coin of of the realm in the fanboy club is access to the god of programing himself. His private email address alone, give one tremendous status.

Engines, GUIs and commercial opening books are often times made available gratis, in hopes of receiving favorable reviews. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis

I do not consider myself an expert, but you do not need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.

Kevin Frayer wrote:

orgfert wrote:

Kevin Frayer wrote:Actually, you would be surprised how little it takes to bribe some people. A few free Rybka engines, a personal email form the programing god himself. The next thing you know, you are in the fanboy club.

Perhaps you didn't intend to come across as quite the expert on the subject, but I have never before heard even anecdotal evidence for this.

I am very surprised that you did not know this. The coin of of the realm in the fanboy club is access to the god of programing himself. His private email address alone, give one tremendous status.

Engines, GUIs and commercial opening books are often times made available gratis, in hopes of receiving favorable reviews. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis

I do not consider myself an expert, but you do not need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.

Do you have proof, or even a hint of any of this? It sounds like a lot of wild speculation to me, which helps feed these crazy rumors, kind of like what has come out of the Rybka and CCRL camp about Houdini.

Some of us pay for software and do not need to be bribed to say positive things about it. End of story. Assuming because someone likes and uses ChessBase they must be bribed is a bit wild, considering how many chess players all over the world use and enjoy it. It would be like an Apple or Linux fan saying anyone who says positive things about Windows is being paid by Microsoft, more than a billion people use Windows, they can't all be bribed.

While I do not own or like Rybka because of baseless accusations made by the programmer without evidence (kind of what you guys are doing here), I still don't think anyone is being paid by ChessBase to say positive things about Rybka. I accept the fact that people can have differing opinions about issues when they are allowed to make up their own minds.

Wild speculation, lol. I think not. At the supermarket down the street, store managers get tickets to Broadway plays from soda distributors in order to get prime display space for their product. (These are very big name soda companies, how do you think they got so big and stay that way?)

Your naivety is quaint, but I am not going to do the research for you. At this very moment many posters on other chess forums are discussing engine rating lists skewed by the men producing them, receiving gratuities. If you would read the link provided above, you may come to understand this is just the dark side of capitalism. In the business world these are not called bribes they are called incentives and are part of a marketing strategy.

Kevin Frayer wrote:Wild speculation, lol. I think not. At the supermarket down the street, store managers get tickets to Broadway plays from soda distributors in order to get prime display space for their product. (These are very big name soda companies, how do you think they got so big and stay that way?)

Your naivety is quaint, but I am not going to do the research for you. At this very moment many posters on other chess forums are discussing engine rating lists skewed by the men producing them, receiving gratuities. If you would read the link provided above, you may come to understand this is just the dark side of capitalism. In the business world these are not called bribes they are called incentives and are part of a marketing strategy.

I don't know what link you are talking about, but I have been following the threads and I don't see ChessBase being involved in this anywhere. Just because your local supermarket does things like that doesn't mean ChessBase and ChessOK are paying off forum members of tiny internet forums to say positive things. They don't have to, they would rather give free copies of their software to people that actually matter or have sway in the chess world, like Anand or Carlsen or Kasparov. If you want to say those people are bribed to say good things about ChessBase, or to influence them to say good things, you would be dead right. But my point wasn't that businesses don't give incentives to influential buyers, it was that they don't give incentives to people on these boards. There would be nothing in it for them. Do you understand the difference?

Kevin Frayer wrote:Wild speculation, lol. I think not...Your naivety is quaint...many posters ... are discussing engine rating lists skewed by the men ... receiving gratuities.

mon Dieu, this evidence is crushing.