By David Levy

The International Computer Games Association (ICGA) has received a formal complaint from Fabien Letouzey, the programmer of FRUIT, regarding the program LOOP. In addition the ICGA has received sufficient prima facie evidence to warrant an investigation. The allegation is that LOOP, which has participated in the World Computer Chess Championship, uses code derived from FRUIT. FRUIT placed second at the 2005 World Computer Chess Championship in Reykjavik.

LOOP was developed by Dr Fritz Reul. The ICGA has attempted to contact Dr Reul in order to give him the opportunity of commenting on the allegation prior to the ICGA conducting a technical investigation into LOOP, but it appears to us that Dr Reul does not wish to be found. The email address that had previously been used by Dr Reul is no longer active, so on behalf of the ICGA I have sent him two emails via a friend of his who indicated that he would pass email on to Dr Reul, who did not respond to either of my emails.

The ICGA is now commencing an “in absentia” investigation into LOOP in order to examine the allegation about the use of code derived from FRUIT. If Dr Reul wishes to defend himself against these allegations the ICGA would be pleased to hear from him. He will then be invited to comment on any evidence that the ICGA might consider during the investigation process.

Allegations have also been made concerning the program THINKER, which will also be the subject of an ICGA investigation.

This week Dr Soren Riis posted a four part article on Chessbase.com in a somewhat belated attempt to defend Vasik Rajlich. Regular readers will recall that Rajlich’s actions led the International Computer GamesAssociation (ICGA) to find him guilty of breaking a crucial tournament rule, as a result of which the chess program Rybka was stripped of its WorldComputer Chess Champion titles and Rajlich was banned for life from ICGA events.

Dr Riis gave his article a title to suggest that a miscarriage of justice has taken place. The ICGA now responds with two rebuttal articles, one by myself (as President of the ICGA) concerning some of the legalistic points raised by Riis’s article, and a robust detailed and thorough technical rebuttal by Mark Watkins.

Everyone interested in the Rybka scandal should read both of these rebuttals and then decide for themselves who and what they believe – Dr Riisor the ICGA’s investigation report.

Dr David Levy President – ICGA

The four parts of the Riis article: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7791, http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7807, http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7811, http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7813

David Levy’s Rebuttal: DL_Rebuttal_to_Riis_article.January7th2012

Mark Watkins Technical Rebuttal: Riis3_Mark.Watkins.for.ICGA

The registration form for the 19th World Computer-Chess Championship, the 3rd World Computer Software Championship, the 16th Computer Olympiad, and the 13th Advances in Computer Games Conference can be found here.

Link

The International Computer Games Association (ICGA) has been conducting an investigation into allegations that, in the chess program Rybka, the programmer Vasik Rajlich plagiarized two other programs: Crafty and Fruit. The ICGA has considered and evaluated the evidence presented to the investigation panel and the report prepared by the panel’s Secretariat. (The report and evidence files are attached.) We would like to thank those members of the panel who contributed to this investigation and the Secretariat for the enormous amount of conscientious work they have put in to this matter.

By a unanimous 5-0 decision of executive members of the ICGA we find ourselves in agreement with the verdict of the Secretariat’s report. We are convinced that the evidence against Vasik Rajlich is both overwhelming in its volume and beyond reasonable question in its nature. Vasik Rajlich is guilty of plagiarizing the programs Crafty and Fruit, and has violated the ICGA’s tournament rules with respect to the World Computer Chess Championships in the years 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. Specifically, Vasik Rajlich, on all five occasions, violated Tournament Rule 2 which requires that:

Each program must be the original work of the entering developers. Programming teams whose code is derived from or including game-playing code written by others must name all other authors, or the source of such code, in their submission details. Programs which are discovered to be close derivatives of others (e.g., by playing nearly all moves the same), may be declared invalid by the Tournament Director after seeking expert advice. For this purpose a listing of all game-related code running on the system must be available on demand to the Tournament Director.

By claiming other programmers’ work as his own, and failing to comply with the abovementioned rule, Vasik Rajlich has unfairly been awarded one shared 2nd-3rd place (in 2006) and four World Computer Chess Championship titles (in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010). Furthermore, it seems to the ICGA that Vasik Rajlich clearly knew that he was in the wrong in doing so, since he has repeatedly denied plagiarizing the work of other programmers.

The ICGA regards Vasik Rajlich’s violation of the abovementioned rule as the most serious offence that a chess programmer and ICGA member can commit with respect to his peers and to the ICGA. During the course of the investigation and upon presentation of the Secretariat’s report Vasik Rajlich did not offer, despite repeated invitations from the ICGA to do so, any kind of defence to the allegations, or to the evidence, or to the Secretariat’s report, other than to claim in an e-mail to myself on May 13th 2011 that:

Rybkahas does not “include game-playing code written by others”, aside from standard exceptions which wouldn’t count as ‘game-playing’.

The vague phrase “derived from game-playing code written by others” also does not in my view apply to Rybka.

The ICGA is of the view that such a serious offence deserves to be met with correspondingly serious sanctions against the perpetrator. In deciding on appropriate sanctions the ICGA has borne in mind the approach of the International Olympic Committee for dealing with the most serious cases of the violations of its rules.

The ICGA has therefore decided as follows:

[1] Vasik Rajlich is hereby disqualified from the World Computer Chess Championships (WCCC) of 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

[2] The 2nd-3rd place awarded to the program called “Rajlich” in the 2006 WCCC is hereby annulled, sole 2nd place is awarded to the program Shredder, and 3rd place in that event is awarded to the program Zappa.

[3] The 1st places and World Computer Chess Champion titles awarded to the program Rybka in the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 WCCCs are hereby annulled, and all the other programs that competed in those events are moved up in the final tournament standings by one place. Thus the revised tournament standings and titles for those events will now be as follows.

2007

1st Zappa (World Champion)
2nd Loop
=3rd GridChess
=3rd Shredder

2008

1st Hiarcs (World Champion)
2nd Junior
3rd Cluster Toga

2009

=1st Junior (Joint World Champion)
=1st Shredder (Joint World Champion)
=1st Deep Sjeng (Joint World Champion)

2010

=1st Rondo (Joint World Champion)
=1st Thinker (Joint World Champion)
3rd Shredder

[4] In due course those programmers whose programs have been elevated to World Champion (or joint World Champion) status will receive from the ICGA replicas of the Shannon trophy for the appropriate years.

[5] The plaques on the Shannon trophy that currently bear the name Rybka (for the years 2007-2010) will be removed from the trophy and new plaques will be engraved with the names of the revised winners of the title.

[6] Similarly, the titles of World Computer Speed (Blitz) Chess Champion that were awarded to Rybka in 2009 and 2010 are hereby annulled. The revised winners of the speed chess title for those years are therefore:

2009 Shredder

2010 Jonny and Shredder (joint champions)

[7] Vasik Rajlich is banned for life from competing in the World Computer Chess Championship or any other event organized by or sanctioned by the ICGA.

[8] The ICGA demands that Vasik Rajlich return to the ICGA the four replicas of the Shannon Trophy presented at the World Computer Chess Championships in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, and to return to the ICGA all prize money awarded for Rybka’s performances in those events.

David Levy [President - ICGA]
June 28th 2011

investigation files