Awards, comments...a long, rambling post. Enter with fear!

[Roger Brown]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Roger Brown at 04 January 2004 23:46:37:

Hello all,
This goes out to all the WB fans out there.
In the other world there is death, pain, war famine, joy, sacrifice, love, rumours, lists of the best dressed, worst dressed, personalities of the year and so on.
In the real world there is also death – of chess engines!
In this real world are persons who provide a structure to what we call the WB universe. These are the persons who run public WB engine competitions.
The list is long and growing but I mention Gunther Simon (am I forgiven yet for the hack job I did as an annotator? I have not seen any new games!), Lyapko George, Gabor Szots and Leo Dijksman for particular mention. All that time, energy, effort, checking for effectiveness, bugs etc. then carefully examining the games, creating rating lists, publishing games and/or positions – phew, all for free.
Well, they are rewarded but not in money. Thanks for the labour of love gentlemen. I know that you do what you do regardless but you should know that what you do brings joy and excitement to all our lives.
I also congratulate you on your integrity. Authors trust you with their engines. Trust that you will keep their secrets safe. I would not wish such a responsibility.
These competitions would of course not be possible without the stars of the show, the engines themselves.
Thanks to Tim Mann who had no idea that when he created his gui for GnuChess that an entire sub-culture (WB chess is a sub-cultural aspect of Computer Chess – sub does not infer inferiority) would evolve around it. Winboard is the protocol most supported in computer chess. Don’t believe me? Check the WB FAQ (thanks Aaron, you are enhancing your unwanted but fully deserved reputation as an expert) pages.
The protocol is supported in at least two free chessplaying guis – Winboard and Arena – and at least two free database applications – Scid and Jose. There are a number of commercial guis that support WB as well, including Chessmaster and Chesspartner, to name two of the more popular ones. Over 150 engines cavort in the WB world.
I can only thank the authors for their time, attention and spirit in donating their children to us all. It cannot be easy getting bug reports when you were so sure that the insect was crushed beyond recognition. Thanks gentlemen. You are responsible for several hours of my life each week. Hours spent playing, watching them play and using them for game analysis.
A quick word to the moderators. Who? The moderators. Who? That is my point exactly. When you start noticing the referees, the game is already slipping towards a mess lacking in aesthetic pleasure.
I like this Forum. The casual rudeness, the spamming, the indecent language, the persistent off-topic excursions found elsewhere are not, as a rule, found here. That is a relief! I am not a prude but I do not like to share my space with rubbish. It is a good job that the moderators are not often called into action.
Dann Corbit gets a special mention in this piece as he spans all sorts of classes, defeating easy categorisation. He is an author of a WB engine, builds and modifies engines and runs a competition that is going to go on forever. He also has a site with all sorts of computer chess data including egtb’s, WB engines and books, collections of chess games – the list goes on. Thanks Dann, you are far too modest to respond here but thanks for all the free stuff.
Let us hope that this is the year when the code pirates will not manifest themselves and pass off the work of others as their own. Yeah, right.
The year that was…well that was a year.
Tommy’s Chess Viewer is taking the Forum by storm and judging by all the buzz in the Forum, deserves the WB innovation of the year award.
The engine of the year award is going to be shared this year. I am awarding mine to the following:
Rebel – this is simply a dream coming true!
El Chinito – this is a strong newcomer
Ktulu – this one is strong, really strong
Ruffian, Aristarch, SmarThink and Crafty (Crafty is not dead!) – so strong and so free. For Ruffian, clearly this refers to 1.05
Deep Sjeng and the King – very strong commercial engines
The award for prettiest and most frequently developed WB gui – Arena. Try it. You will like it.
Best looking WB database software – Jose. The 3-D board and pieces are smashing. In terms of raw data processing power though, Scid is still in the lead by some way. That program is still free. Imagine that.
The award for most abstruse posts in a calendar year – hands down it goes to Dieter Buerssner, Yace’s author. Thomas Mayer, Quark’s author finds him easy to understand but I am a non-techie so I guess that explains it. Honourable mention goes to Uri Blass.
Comment of the year – Mogens (?) For his definition of what Little Goliath p.o. meant. He said it meant pissed off and based on its performance, I agree!
Coolest authors of the year: take your pick but mine are Richard Pijl, Gian-Carlo Pascutto, Leen Ammeraal and Ron Murawski. Ron is terribly busy but will take up the WB engine Horizon later this year.
Dieter Buerssner is cool but in laid back, stress free kind of way.
I have my reasons for my selections but as this is a subjective prize – who cares?
Most updates in a year – Big Lion and Taktix. Speaking of that, where is Matthias now? This is funny. When he updated often I sighed but his silence is deafening. I wonder if Big Lion is on the way to becoming a sabretooth? Hmmm, that could be interpreted in a number of ways….
Leo’s pages are the winner in a number of categories. In fact I believe it is a measure of my considerable awe that I really do not think I can do his work justice. Thanks Leo.
Enough said.
Most demanding, hard to please author – Uri Blass. Movei is going to have to be able show drastic improvement before Uri lets it go. This is his right! So be it. I will wait.
Darkest moments – Pick any one:
(a) Whenever the hosts of the various WB competitions have computer problems
(b) Clones
(c) Whenever an engine we enjoy goes commercial. Look, I celebrate the commercial flights of Rebel, Ruffian and Sjeng. I would be happy if Ktulu and Movei make the transition. It just means one less BUT I have been spoilt. Thanks for the free stuff. I do not begrudge you your money. Seriously.

Well, that is more than enough from me.

ALL THE BEST FOR 2004 !!!

Later.

[Matthias Gemuh]

Geschrieben von: / Posted by: Matthias Gemuh at 05 January 2004 00:49:52:
Als Antwort auf: / In reply to: Awards, comments...a long, rambling post. Enter with fear! geschrieben von: / posted by: Roger Brown at 04 January 2004 23:46:37:

Most updates in a year – Big Lion and Taktix. Speaking of that, where is Matthias now? This is funny. When he updated often I sighed but his silence is deafening. I wonder if Big Lion is on the way to becoming a sabretooth? Hmmm, that could be interpreted in a number of ways….

Hi Roger,
not only I have been gone for quite a whhile, but also BigLion's homepage !!
And nobody noticed it, nor missed anything. The day shall come when the whole
world shall panic, if BigLion's homepage should be down for 15 minutes [smile]].
Best,
Matthias.
(P.S.: BigLion's homepage to reappear soon at new location)