31 December 2014

Guardian of the WCCC

Earlier this year, in a post on the World Chess Championship : Computer Chess (WCCC), titled WCCC Ain't What It Used to Be (February 2014), I wrote,
The three most recent events -- 2010, 2011, & 2013 -- have seen two separate competitions, hardware and software, where the software event is not considered as important as the equivalent TCEC competitions. It's time to acknowledge that the ICGA tournaments are not real World Championships.

The ICGA is the International Computer Games Association, a group more inclined to awarding titles through procedural decisions than through competitions. I was reminded of this in a recent blog post, The New Chess World Champion (with extensive comments) by IM Kenneth Regan, best known in the chess world for his work on computer cheating and last seen in this blog in The 'No Cheating' Jigsaw Puzzle. Dr. Regan wrote,

Today we salute Komodo for winning the 7th Thoresen Chess Engines Competition (TCEC), which some regard as the de-facto world computer chess championship.

The phrase 'De-facto World Computer Chess Championship' bears repeating and echoes the Wikipedia page on the Thoresen Chess Engines Competition.

TCEC is often regarded as the Unofficial World Computer Chess Championship because of its strong participant line-up and long time control matches on high-end hardware, giving rise to very high-class chess. [along with a couple of links to support the argument]

What does the ICGA [link redirects] have to say?

ICGA Events July 2015 • Posted on December 25, 2014 by Aske Plaat • We are expecting to organize the ICGA Events in early July of 2015. • The Events will consist of
- The ACG2015 Advances in Computer Games Conference
- The World Computer Chess Championship
- The World Computer Software Championship
- The Speed Computer Chess Championship
- The Computer Olympiad

We expect to be able to provide more details in January of 2015

The post previous to this is titled 'Complaints against the Chess programs LOOP and THINKER' by 'David Levy : ICGA President'.

The ICGA has received formal complaints against the Chess programs LOOP and THINKER, both of which have participated in the World Computer Chess Championship.

The computer chess world appears to pay little attention to these procedural disputes. Who appointed the ICGA guardian of the WCCC?

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