Rybka case "greatest injustice perpetrated in computer chess history"

Sparks

An interesting counterpoint to the cheating theme in chess at the moment, highlighting the need for a calm measured approach that determines guilt or innocence accurately before announcing sanctions and calling for heads on platters...

From Chess.com's website:

Rybka case "greatest injustice perpetrated in computer chess history" (Part 1)



On June 28, 2011 the International Computer Games Association (ICGA) announced that IM Vasik Rajlich, the author of then-leading chess program Rybka, had been stripped of four consecutive computer chess world championship titles he had won in 2007-2010. Rajlich was found guilty of plagiarizing, and banned for life from ICGA events.

A group of chess programming experts feel that this is "the greatest injustice perpetrated in computer chess history", writes Ed Schröder. As we were also the ones who broke the news on the Rybka case in 2011, we deem it prudent to publish this counter-article as well, and in full. Due to its length, we'll put it online in two parts — today the first.

On June 28, 2011 the International Computer Games Association (ICGA) stunned the chess world by announcing that IM Vasik Rajlich, the author of then-leading chess program Rybka, had been stripped of four consecutive computer chess world championship titles he had won in 2007-2010. Rajlich was found guilty of having plagiarized the work of Fabien Letouzey, author of chess program Fruit. In addition to the titles being vacated Rajlich was given a lifetime ban from ICGA events. Adding insult to injury, the ICGA's press release announcing these decisions was picked up by international media outlets and in some cases sensationalized in the incomparable British tabloid style.

Over time, however, the ICGA's extensive evidence supporting its decision was systematically deconstructed by several chess programming experts who concluded that some of the evidence was inconclusive, some was fabricated, some was muddled and all of it was tendentious. Taken as a whole there was no preponderance of evidence supporting the actions taken against Rajlich.

Statements of dissenting (critical) chess programmers

• Chris Whittington, games programmer and entrepreneur.

There may be some anecdotal evidence for your model, but, as far as I can tell there is no good proof, just a groupthink belief. Basically I think your argument is: Vas started with Fruit because he is a thief. Vas is a thief because he started with Fruit. Or, in other words, your argument is circular: the conclusion is the premise and the premise is the conclusion.

• Marcel van Kervinck, a Dutch software engineer and author of the chess program Rookie.

Second, I would also like to inform you that with the knowledge I have today, I would have voted differently in the investigation process.

• Ed Schröder, producer of the REBEL series and 2-times world champion

After 15 months of intensive research it's my final conclusion the accusers who investigated the Rybka chess program researched an original program. Strength is one aspect of originality and the way Rybka ruled (on equal hardware) was unprecedented in computer chess history. The ICGA verdict and ban are uncalled for.

• Sven Schüle, a German computer scientist and author of the chess program Surprise.

This kind of statement has now been repeated by Bob [Hyatt member of ICGA secretariat] approximately some thousands of times. So frequently that most people seem to have accepted this as a matter of fact, even many programmers who had doubts about it before. I also believe that Zach has done a great work by no doubt. I just do not share his final result, which is most important here.

There's far more, and it's well worth the read...

RQ_ennis_chess

Well those who claimed that Rajilich had plagiarized code said that some redundant code from Fruit was found in Rybka. That claim should be fairly easy to substantiate and if true would be strong indication that the program was plagiarized otherwise what would it be doing there? I'm not a programmer though maybe someone with more technical knowledge has an opinion?

Sparks

They list 23 seperate implementation differences between Rybka and Fruit that would indicate that there wasn't a case of plagarising code though - and most of them are so basic that you couldn't just cut-n-paste in code from one to the other and have things work, it'd be like transplanting gills into a human surgically and trying to use them to breathe. There'd just be too much supporting infrastructure missing and too much systemic incompatibility for it to work. I'd want to sit down and look at the code directly myself to be sure, but they make a compelling argument.

Sparks

Part two has now been posted.