Palestine Chess Programmers Prize
by Ingo AlthoferMotivation
People who compete in intellectual affairs like computer chess will
probably less likely think of fighting violently. To contribute to the
general development in the field of computer chess competition and
to motivate Palestinian programmers to take part, I set up a
Prize (with three levels)
(1) 1,000 Euro for the first Palestinian chess programmer whose program gets more than 2,200 rating points (equivalent to SSDF level or to the level of Leo Dijksman's lists).
(2) 1,000 Euro for the first Palestinian chess programmer whose program achieves 30 percent or more of the points in an ICGA world championship.
(3) 1,000 Euro for the first Palestinian chess programmer whose program gets 50 percent or more of the points in an ICGA world championship.
Time limits:
End of the year 2007 for level (1),
For this prize level, no applications arrived
until 02 January, 2008. So, the deadline expired.
End of the year 2009 for level (2),
For this prize level, no applications arrived
until 02 January, 2010. So, the deadline expired.
End of the year 2011 for level (3).
For this prize level, no applications arrived
until 02 January, 2012. So, the deadline expired.
It is a pity that there was not a single application
for any of the
three levels. The competition is officially
closed now. However:
When some Palestine person is willing to enter
the chess programming scene with an own program,
I am willing to give support, both morally and - to
an appropriate extent - also financially.
Persons interested should contact me via email.
Admittance
I feel that proper definition of "Palestinian chess programmer" is not easy. Therefore, in the prize I make the following artificial definition:
"Applicants have to be Arabs, and they need to have permanent residence within 34° and 36° East, and within 28° and 34 ° North."
This includes Palestinians, who live in areas controlled by PLO. It also includes Israeli Arabs. And it includes Palestinians who have UNRWA refugee status in neighbor Arab countries (Jordan, Syria, Lebanon).
Palestinian emigrants or asyl-seekers (in Europe or elsewhere) are not admitted. Intelligent Palestinians who leave the near-east, mean a brain-drain for the region. Also not admitted are Jewish chess programmers - there are already several strong chess programs like Junior, Falcon, and Movei.
When applicants have doubts whether they can apply or not they may ask per Email in beforehand.
No Clones!
Program clones, either Crafty ones or others, are not invited. I hope that people in the computer chess community are honest enough not to cheat for this prize. And if people really were successful with such a cheat: paying the 1,000 Euro would not ruin me; however, the names of detected cheaters would be on the/my websites for decades...
In case of doubts a programming author will have to show his or her source code to an independent expert.
More Details on request.
Legal measures are excluded. (In German: "Der Rechtsweg ist ausgeschlossen.")
Ingo Althofer
Schubertstr. 16
D - 32791 Lage
Germany
Email: 3-hirn-verlag "at" gmx.de
*********************** Comments ***********************
In the field of classical music Barenboim does something similar with his mixed arab-israeli-german youth orchestras.
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Latest update on 03 January, 2012.