The 2006 First Annual ACCA Americas' Computer Chess Championships

Current date will be the weekend of October 28 & 29 2006. It will utilize long time controls. This is an OTB tournament where author presence is requested but not required. It will also take place over the internet for those that can not travel. The physical location will be at High Point University in High Point, North Carolina. I am working on getting some standby operators from the local chess clubs.

Travel Info:

RULES:

1. Standard rules of chess apply: Three fold repetition, 50 move rule .....
2. Only the program author or an approved operator may enter.
3. Changing/modifying versions between rounds is allowed.
4. All programs must be authored by a citizen or current resident(non-citizen) of the Americas.
5. Programs must be logged in 5 minutes before each rounds start time.
6. Programs must run in an automated fashion. You can start them but they must run by themselves and make all decisions themselves (including resign/draw).
7. Programs must kibitz their PV and (if possible) a message that the move is a book move. If possible, kibitz only on your turn not during pondering. You may kibitz a few plies before the final ply, but keep it to a minimum as too many will block all that chatter amongst the participants which most of us want to participate in.
8. Programs with Authors controlling them and physcially present at the tournament site are exempt from the kibitz rule.
   However, kibitzing is requested if you can.
9. Special rule modification for an onsite tournament:Participants are allowed 3 disconnects due to accidents. On the fourth disconnect the match is forfeit. A 10 minute allowance is granted for each disconnect. The fourth disconnect must be reported to the TD and the TD will make the ruling. However, there will be no forfeits due to network issues at the tournament's physical site which affect multiple onsite participants.
10. Programs must be able to resume a match after a disconnect. This is part of the Winboard protocol so it should be already handled.
11. Initial seedings will be based on ICC (standard time), RWBC and WBEC ratings.
12. In the event of a odd number of entrants, an alternate program may be entered to avoid byes.
13. In the event of a dispute, the TD decision is final and the spirit of this tournament will be considered in all disputes.
14. Each program must be the work of the author. Entrants may not copy the work of others.
    • (A) The exception to this is any work that uses the alpha version of Prophet as its base, but it may not use other code from other sources.
    • (B) Clone accusations will be handled privately so as not to unduly harm reputations.
    • (C) The entrant accused of cloning is considered innocent until proven guilty.
    • (D) The reuse of concepts/ideas is allowed. The reuse of code/parameters/frameworks is not allowed.
    • (E) If an entrant is accused of cloning, the accusation and data will be reviewed first.
    • (F) The entrant accused of cloning may be required to submit compilable source code, log files from matches played thus far and the executable being run in the tournament for review.
      • If multiple versions have been used the executables and possibly source for each version may be required.
    • (G) The accused entrant will be able to defend his/her work.
    • (H) If the accused entrant is found to be a clone, it will be dropped from this tournament.
    • (I) The TDs and a knowledgable review committee will be created to review the case.
15. If an entrant makes several unsubtantiated claims of others being clones, that entrant will be dropped from this tournament.

Technical Rules/Specifications

Thanks and Credits

Thanks go to the ICGA and the sponsors of the CCT's. I reviewed their rules as guidelines for our rules.
Special thanks go to ICC for online hosting.
Special thanks go to the Computer Science Dept. at High Point University for hosting the physical site.