Scott,Ruben argued with Nelson,that is why Ruben told Schachmat what he told...Schachmat seems that doesnt know the history,and whas surprised by the answer of Ruben

it was a valid complaint.  although i did not appreciate the tone and the implication for a few reasons, i should have worded my question more precisely and/or made my move first.

The important word here is "fair".  Beware anyone who says "that's not fair!" because they are trying to make the rules and sometimes determine outcomes.  When a politician says "the rich must pay their fair share" what he is really doing is justifying confiscation of private wealth.  "Fair" is a word used to justify an awful lot of mischief.  Watch for it and the next time you hear it, duck and clutch your wallet.

I think number 6 crosses the line, as it becomes a match of one person against many persons, and from the beginning of the past WBCCC it was made clear that having a second person doing analysis for you, or providing analysis to help on your game was against the spirit of the tournament.

There's no difference in these two cases:

1.- Player A plays Player B. Player A has a nice advantage but can't find the winning plan. Player C, unrelated to the game, appears in it and tells Player A the winning plan. This is unfair because there's no Player D helping Player B defend. Player C just decided to help Player A arbitrarily, and now, the game result depends on the whims of Player C, while it should depend on how A and B play.

2.- As (1.-), but Player C helps Player A privately.

I can argue that case 2 is even worse than case 1, as Player B is unaware of what's going on, and doesn't hear the plan that is going to be played against him.

I can even construct a case 3:

3.- Player A plays the beginning of the game, while Player C plays once Player A is out of book, for the rest of the game.

This would seem fine, because at no point the players team up or share analysis? But it's still unfair, because Player B is misled about thinking he's playing someone else from where he's playing. This is specially bad when Player B spent a lot of time preparing against an specific opponent he's not playing.

And the same goes for playing with a different name, as in, would it be fair if ppipper hadn't signed up for this year competition, but instead, had Mark Eldrige as his proxy? (ppipper plays from the shadows) I think it would be unfair to the players unaware, that don't know they're playing ppipper, and play stuff that would work against Mark if they were playing him. The same applies to cases 1-3, where players aren't playing who they think they're playing.

Unfortunately, it can't be put in the rules as it's something that can't be enforced, if someone decides to help someone else privately nothing can be done about it, but if they're caught they can be kicked out (there's a precedent).

Now, I'll go about the other numbers:

>1. Using your own books and your own games that you have played yourself, using computers that you yourself have played and  copied.

Default fair.

>2. Making use of a good friends library which could contain millions of games played and originated by others?

Anybody can collect those games, or play private games of similar quality. Fair.

>3. Making use of a site to which you have paid dues which offers games free for download.

Anybody can pay such site to have access for the games. Fair.

>4. Making use of a friends computer which is much bigger and faster than your own, including clusters for rent or use.

This is not different from someone buying a friend a much bigger and faster computer for the tournament. Whatever "unfair" remark that can be put here, could be claimed for someone buying himself a much bigger and faster computer for the tournament, or even, someone having it already while another player is stuck playing in a dual core.

Some players are going to have hardware bigger than other players, regardless of how they got it (by themselves of from a friend is irrelevant) and that's true in all computer chess tournament, the only solution would be to force all players into the same hardware but that's ridiculous. Fair.

>5. Making use of a software specifically designed to collect games from various sites?

Heh, what's this obsession with getting games , that's only going to help you in the opening anyway, and actually could be counter-productive if your opponent happens to have a strong novelty ready for the line that you played with all these games. So I'm going to tag it as fair.

I agree with Uly the only one of those I don't like is 6.

Interesting theme.

I tend to consider everything fair play but 6, in case it was not against the rules.

However, I dont mind if my opponent is playing with human assistance, provided I know it in advance. I would consider totally unfair to think that I am playing against one person when I am playing against a team.

+1, computer-chess is not fair, never was, it is war*! :-)

Edit: *=a matter of money and other resources, the more the better...