Centaurs Vs Humans... A forced competition, why?

You draw against a super-computer with your six years old desktop? Well done FirebrandX. How do you describe super-computer? And how do you know, you play against a super-computer?

In the  anti ICCF group my question is are books not allowed and if so why?

Ponz, your question has been already answered.

Paper books are indeed allowed & safe as well as online articles written by humans.

Here is a suggestion to make it difficult for the engines. Change the rules so that a player may elect not to move on, say, two occasions at any time during the game.  Or maybe have the choice on every move throughout the game.  I am not at all sure whether the computer could list the best moves in order of strength if it does not know whether the opponent is going to choose not to move, and therefore, itself, making consecutive moves. The calculations for each of its candidate moves are based on opponents' responses. Even if the new position is set up afresh each time, it will still need to base its suggested move on the opponent's responses. It would ruin a whole line of calculating, would it not?  Players could still make moves and never "pass", but the computer cannot be sure, and would probably always suggest the best lines as those in which the opponent is standing still.

Perhaps I am completely wrong.

Mr.Skull   Every time a player would pass the other player would increase his advantage. In fact even one pass could lose the game.

Here is one good thing about Centaur Chess--it is as close to perfect chess as you can get.  Centaur theory has discovered such things as it is no use trying to play the Ruy Lopez [or the Ponziani] for a win in Centaur Chess because Black can play 1. e4  e5  2. Nf3  Nf6!  [the Petroff Defense] and almost 100% sure of a draw.

So no good even to play 1. e4 unless you want to try something risky such as the Kings Gambit

By the way this situation and also the situation with the Nardoff Defense vs The Sicilian point more and more that chess is a draw with correct play.

ponz111

ponz111     Yes, but a player may never actually choose to pass, while the computer cannot be sure which of the next five or six moves the player will pass, and sometimes make inappropriate "best" choices of moves based on the wrong assumption !  The aim is to make engines untrustworthy because some of their moves are unreliable.

MrSkull  your idea will not work.

MrSkull, in other words - you suggest some chess variant instead of classic chess in correspondence to avoid engine cheating. It doesn't work. It is too easy to modify existing modern engines if needed.

Firebrand  you put what I meant much better than I could