fotland@hpihoah.HP.COM (David Fotland) (06/07/90)
1990 UNITED STATES COMPUTER GO CHAMPIONSHIP The 1990 US Computer Go Championship will take place at the 6th annual US Go Congress, on August 6th and 7th at the Loretto Heights campus of Teikyo Loretto Heights University, at Denver Colorado. A plaque or trophy and title of US Computer Go Champion will be awarded to the winner. There is no cash prize. This tournament is not affiliated with the World Computer Go Congress, although the rules and format are very similar. In 1988 and 1989 Acer ran the US Preliminaries to the World Computer Go Congress at the US Go Congress. This year they have changed their procedure to have a mail in preliminary in Taiwan. The United States Computer Go Championship is being organized to ensure that there continues to be an annual computer go competition in North America. The informal discussions and contacts during the tournament help increase the strength of all the programs. ENTERING THE CONTEST: You must register for the US Go Congress to enter the Computer Go Competition. Send your name, address, telephone number, AGA number, rank, program name, preferred roommate (if double is selected), and a check to: Ulo Tamm U.S. Go Congress P.O. Box 1666 Broomfield, Colorado 80038-1666 (303) 466-2865 Congress registration must be before July 15, 1990. The U.S. Go congress runs from August 4th to 12th and is the host of the U.S. Amateur Championship. There are lectures and simultaneous games with professionals and several congress tournaments as well. You have 2 options in registering for the computer competition. There are additional options for registering for the congress - contact Ulo for details. Plan A: Full Congress - fee, 8 nights, 24 meals, Single player: $420 US open, key deposit, computer competition Double player: $360 Double nonplayer:$270 Plan E: Computer competition only: Entry fee: $30 Plan A lodging is dormitory style rooms. A $10 refundable key deposit is included. The first 200 rooms assigned contain sinks. Rooms are not air conditioned so a small fan may be useful. Off campus lodging is available at nearby hotels for $36 to $45 a night. Plan B lodging and meals at the congress is available. (Contact Ulo for details). Commuter meals are available. 13 meals and congress fee: Player: $210 Nonplayer: $115 For additional information on the Computer Go contest, contact: David Fotland 1148 White Cliff Dr San Jose Ca 95129 (408)996-1138 E-mail: fotland@hpda.hp.com RULES Contestants must provide their own computer, which must be present at the contest site. All transportation costs and risks will be borne by the contestant. At this time we can't guarantee a locked area overnight. Any Go program can participate in the contest, but only US programs whose author(s) are US residents are eligible for the title of US Computer Go Champion. The title of North American Open Computer Go Champion will be awarded to the program that finishes first, no matter where it is from. Each program can only be registered once. Programs must be registered before July 15th with the US Go Congress. Play is governed by the SST laws of Go published by the Ing Chang Chi Wei Chi Educational foundation. In summary, the score is territory plus live stones (prisoners don't count), suicide is allowed, repetition is forbidden. Black plays first and gives 8 points Komi at the end of the game. If a program makes an illegal move it loses. Mirror Go is not allowed past move number 60. Any rule disputes will be settled by the tournament referee. There will be a Go board between the computers which will have the official game position. If a move is entered incorrectly the problem may be fixed while the clock is running. If the participant is unable to correct his program to agree with the position on the Go board, the participant loses. Programs must be able to remove dead stones from the screen or demonstrate that the dead stones are recognized at the end of the game. Participants will make a game record. Each program will have one hour to make 125 moves. Games will be played until both programs pass or one program has used up its hour of playing time. If less than 125 moves have been played by the program that ran out of time it loses. Otherwise, if the program's authors do not agree on the result, the tournament referee will adjudicate. If there is time additional moves may be made. After move 250 the referee may determine the outcome of the game. If a program crashes it can be restarted, but its clock continues to run. Any number of program crashes is allowed as long as the time limit is not exceeded. No changes to the program or its parameters may take place during a round, but changes are allowed between rounds. The program may request the time left on its clock periodically and adjust itself accordingly. The operator may not adjust parameters to make the program faster if it is running out of time, but may enter a "low on time" command when there is 10 minutes left on the clock. If a game is interrupted due to power failure or hardware failures, if more than 150 moves have been played (75 each) and the outcome can be determined, the referee will adjudicate the result. Otherwise the game will be played over. This is a Swiss style tournament. First round pairings will be determined by past results of the programs or by chance. In each round programs with the same number of wins will be paired whenever possible. No program will get more than one bye. A bye counts as a win. The same opponents will not be paired twice. The tournament referee has final say on the pairings. If there is enough time and a small enough number of entries then the tournament will be round robin with each program playing each other one once. We should have time for 6 rounds, but the actual number of rounds and schedule will be determined when the contest begins. Tournament results are determined first by number of wins, then by sum of defeated opponent's scores, then by sum of opponent's scores. The tournament referee will be David Erbach, editor of "Computer Go".