Hi Jim,

Let me first of all say that I respect the achievement of Vaz and others in building Rybka. I really do. His work spurred others on to do better and so whatever the true origins of Rybka, he helped take computer chess forward.

As to being the victim, Vaz had the chance to take it to court and chose not to. Some say this is because he knew he could not win the case. I guess we will never know the real reasons why.

Any “slur campaign” that occurred, actually happened on some of the public chess forums at the time, but it was hardly Vaz that was on the receiving end. Quite the opposite.

If someone dared to point out the code similarities between the engines and suggest an investigation they would be verbally abused by fan boys of Rybka. If the person suggesting an honest investigation responded in kind, the moderators would ban their account. Shortly thereafter the thread would usually be censored by being later removed from the forum. At one point it got so bad that certain public chess forums banned all discussion of Rybka and the numerous clones.

The suppression of discussion and repeated attacks on anyone that wanted to investigate the matter was truly Stalinist. It sickened me of public chess forums to such an extent I have stayed off them since. I needed some fresh air.

I noticed that you mentioned “impartial adjudication”. Did you follow the link in the article? The information comes from the Washington Times.

I draw your attention to this quote:

Rybka, the chess-playing computer program that won the past four World Computer Chess Championship titles, was summarily stripped of its silicon crown this week amid charges its programmer plagiarized the software of two rival programs.

David Levy, president of the International Computer Games Association (ICGA), announced the action against Rybka on Wednesday and imposed a lifetime ban on Czech-American programmer and Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate Vasik Rajlich. He accused Mr. Rajlich of ripping off the coding of two other software programs marketed as Crafty and Fruit. Mr. Levy also demanded the return of trophies and prize money the program won.

“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,” an ICGA letter states.

http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/30/computer-chess-champ-stripped-of-its-four-titles/

You suggested that Rybka was the strongest engine in your tests “by a landslide” I am happy that you believe Rybka 3.0 to be so good, but I would invite you to look at the test results of CCRL, CEGT or IPON. All three independent testing sites show that other engines are stronger, most notably Houdini.

If you are looking for an engine to beat Rybka 3.0 reliably I suggest looking at Stockfish (free and open source).

Best wishes.