Stars Only and Infinite Loop Regulations (12th edition)

			Goal and Principles

			The main goal of the Infinite Loop is to rate all free chess engines at 
			three fixed time controls on the same hardware.
			Note: each new version of the engine considered as a new entry and plays
			along with the previous ones.

                        The basic principle behind the Infinite Loop: Engines plays vs their close 
			neighbours according to the current rating list.

			1. General

                        1.1. Winboard 4.2.6, Galis WBTM, Arena and Polyglot (for UCI engines) are 
                             used to arrange events.
			1.2. EloStat 1.2 is used for Elo calculations.
			1.3. Settings for engines: hashtables are set to 38MB (in total) for each
			     engine, bigger books if available, 3-man, 4-man, and few 5-men Nalimov
                             TBs. All learning functions are on. Pondering is off.
			1.4. Hardware for New IL:
                             Celeron 1GHz 256Mb (two identical computers, one of them is used 
                             at nights only).
			1.5. Hardware for Stars Only event:
                             Celeron 2.6GHZ 256Mb
			     And there would be different ratings for different hardware.
			1.6. Time control used for New IL is 80 min + 3 sec, for Stars only is used 
                             the classical 7-hour time control: 40/7200:20/3600:1800.
			1.7. The participants of the New IL are are all free winboard and UCI-compatable 
                             chess engines found on the net (or sent by their authors) that go through 
                             qualification.
			1.8. The participants of Stars Only event are top engines.

			2. IL Qualifiers for new engines
                        2.1. The preliminary Qualifiers are arranged
                             a. For new engines
                             b. For new versions of engines that not played in New IL.
                        2.2. First Qualification stage:
                             Time control is 15 min + 3 sec.
                             Engines will be promoted to the second qualification stage if they score
                             equal or better than La Dame Blanche 2.0c.
                             Updates are possible on any stage of the qualifiers.
                             Engines with 0.5 through 2.0 scores below La Dame Blanche are included 
                             into the "Second Chance" 15-minute qualifier.
                        2.3. Second Qualification stage:
                             Time control is 30 min + 3 sec.
                             The number of games for each engine is 18 at least.
                             Engines will be promoted to New IL if they perform better than La Dame
                             Blanche 2.0c.
                             All participants of the final qualifier that failed promotion will be
                             included directly into the final qualifier of the next loop.

			3. Qualifiers for new versions

			3.1. The new versions are seeded on the rating list next to the best previous.
			3.2. Each run of the loop is arranged from bottom to top.
			3.3. A cycle is over when all new versions/engines obtain 30 games at least.
			3.4. The series of tournaments are looped for ever (or for some time:-).

			4. Runs

			Each loop with a lot of new entries consists of 4 runs (each starts from
			down to up): 
			* the first (named a) is for the new etries with no games yet played.
			* the second (named b) is for the new entries with 9 games played.
			* the third (named c) is for the new entries with 18 games played.
			* the fourth (named d) is for the new entries with 27 games played.
			A whole loop is over after all new entries gain 30 games at least.
			
			Igor Gorelikov
			
			2004.07.09