Author: Omid David
Date: 06:59:59 10/12/02
Go up one level in this thread
On October 11, 2002 at 21:11:45, Ed Schröder wrote: >The Dubious Qualifier >How Fritz "earned" the right to play the Million Dollar Challenge > >As Vladimir Kramnik does battle with Fritz in the battle of Bahrain, scheduled >for an October 2002 start, many will no doubt be interested in how this match >came about, and how the participants were chosen. The Human representative, >Kramnik, was automatically invited by virtue of his holding the traditional >World Champion title, which he earned by defeating Kasparov in their 2000 match, >where I participated as arbiter. > >As soon as the BGN World Championship match between Kasparov and Kramnik had >concluded, Ray Keene asked me to begin working on the Man vs. Machine Million >Dollar Challenge (as it was then called, at my suggestion). It wasn’t until the >end of March, however, that the organization of the qualification and final >match got down to details. The qualifying event turned out to be quite a >controversial affair. I felt to withdraw as arbiter for reasons which will be >presented in Part One of this document. That did not affect my status as arbiter >of the final, and I developed a full set of rules for the match, in cooperation >with both Team Fritz and Team Kramnik. That will be covered in Part Two. >However, events of September 11, 2001 forced a postponement of the match. During >the interval, BGN sold the rights for the match to the Einstein TV group, who >hired Malcolm Pein to take on the role previously occupied by Ray Keene. I was >again invited as arbiter, but my participation was vetoed by Team Fritz, as will >be discussed in Part Three. > >Part One deals with the controversial qualifying tournament held in Cadaques, >Spain,. to choose a challenger for Kramnik. Because many questions have been >raised about this event, I am going to refrain from presenting any prejudicial >commentary, though I may do so at some time in the future. Instead, I place in >the public record a large set of internal emails. I should point out that I >never received any compensation for my work, and am under no obligation to keep >this material from the public. It is certainly in the public interest to make >this material available, and however one might judge the actions of each >individual, I think that all the correspondents behaved very well. Indeed, even >after I withdrew from the qualifier I remained an integral part of the team >working on the big final match, so obviously we felt confident that we could all >work together. It is not my intention to disparage any individuals involved. >Each has made very significant contributions to chess and our disagreements over >matters of policy and philosophy should not be taken as personal animosity. > >More at: http://www.chesscity.com/HISTORY/dubious_qualifier.htm > >A couple of hours reading, no joke. > >Ed Thanks for the post, it took almost a full hour! But why didn't they allow single processors? If Hiarcs, Tiger or Rebel on a single processor feel that they are stronger than Fritz on dual or quad, why not let them in? Aside from that, I think the only organization which has the right to declare the world computer chess champion, is ICCA (ICGA). They are the ones holding the official WCCCs and so the winner of *their* tournament is the official world computer chess champion. Moreover, since in ICCA tournaments *every* program can participate, the winner has more public legitimacy.
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