Top Chess Engine Championship: Difference between revisions

Thoresen Chess Engines Competition or TCEC or nTCEC is a private computer chess tournament and rating list organized, directed and hosted by Martin Thoresen. It was started in 2010. After a short break in 2012, TCEC was restarted in early 2013 (as nTCEC) and is currently active with all-day live broadcasts of chess matches on its website. TCEC is often regarded as the Unofficial World Computer Chess Championship because of its strong participant line-up and long time control matches on high-end hardware, giving rise to very high-class chess.Supported by original engine authors and based on voluntariness and donation, TCEC does not enforce ICGA rules and sanctions concerning engine originality. It caused a furor in February 2011, when the free version of Houdini defeated reigning computer chess champion Rybka in a 40-game match. The current season of nTCEC is sponsored by Chessdom Arena.

Overview

The TCEC competition is divided into Seasons, where each Season happens over a course of a few months, with matches played round-the-clock and broadcast live over the internet. Each season is divided into 4 qualifying stages and 1 Superfinal, where the top two chess engines battle it out over a series of 48 games to win the title of nTCEC Grand Champion. As soon as the Superfinal is complete, the season ends, and the next season starts immediately.

The time control in all events is 120+30 (120 minutes + 30 seconds added per move for the whole game) and pondering is set to off. The Opening Book is taken from recent strong human Grandmaster tournaments and is changed in every Stage. Engines are allowed updates between stages, unless there is a critical play-limiting bug, in which case the engine can be updated once during the stage. TCEC generates its own elo rating list from the matches played during the tournament. An initial rating is given to any new participant based on its rating in other chess engine rating lists.

There is no definite criteria for entering into the competition. The list of participants is personally chosen by Martin himself before the start of any new season, sometimes with a little input from the community. Usually chess engines that support multiprocessor mode are preferred (8-cores or higher). Both Winboard and UCI engines are supported. Large pages are disabled but access to various endgame tablebases is permitted.

Stage	General Information
Stage 1	Each season starts off with Stage 1, which is a 7 round Swiss event that consists of 36 engines. The seeding is done by ELO ratings: the highest rated engine meets engine 19, engine 2 meets engine 20 and so on. The top 19 move on to Stage 2, while the rest is out of nTCEC for the current Season. The openings in Stage 1 are chosen randomly per game. The games are shown from board 18 first, up to board 1 for each round. 126 games are played in Stage 1.
Stage 2	Stage 2 consists of the 19 engines that qualified from Stage 1. It is a single round robin where the openings are chosen randomly. The top 10 move on to Stage 3 while the rest is out of nTCEC for the current Season. 171 games are played in Stage 2.
Stage 3	Stage 3 consists of the 10 engines that qualified from Stage 2. The format for Stage 3 is a double round robin and the openings are chosen randomly per pair so that each engine plays both sides of the same opening against each other. The top 6 move on to Stage 4 while the rest is out of nTCEC for the current Season. 90 games are played in Stage 3.
Stage 4	Stage 4 consists of the 6 engines that qualified from Stage 3. It is a hexa round robin and uses the same book rules as in Stage 3, meaning that the openings are chosen randomly per pair so that each engine plays both sides of the same opening against each other. The top 2 qualify to play the Superfinal, while the other 4 engines are out of nTCEC for the current Season. 90 games are played in Stage 4.
Superfinal	After Stage 4 has finished, the top 2 engines meet in a Superfinal of 48 games. This match is played with 24 different openings so that each engine plays both black and white of the same position. The match is presented with opening 1 used in games 1 and 2, then opening 2 used in games 3 and 4 etc. If the match is theoretically won for one side before game 48, the match will still continues until all 48 games have been played. In the case of a drawn match there is a Rapid match of 12 games with a time control of 25' + 10". In case it is still tied, there is a Blitz match of 6 games with a time control of 3" + 2'. When the Superfinal is over, the current Season ends.

GUI adjunction rule

A game can be drawn by the normal 3-fold repetition rule or the 50-move rule. However, a game can also be drawn at move 40 or later if the eval from both playing engines are within +0.05 to -0.05 pawns for the last 5 moves, or 10 plies. If there is a pawn advance, or a capture by any kind, this special draw rule resets and starts over. On the Live page (website) this rule shows as "Distance in plies to nTCEC draw rule". It adjudicates as won for one side if both playing engines have an eval of at least 6.50 pawns (or -6.50 in case of a black win) for 4 consecutive moves, or 8 plies - this rule is in effect as soon as the game starts. On the Live page this rule shows as "Distance in plies to nTCEC win rule". The GUI also adjudicates tablebase endgame positions automatically.

Technical Specifications

 The nTCEC Computer:
 CPUs: 2 x 8 core Intel Xeon E5-2689 @ 3300 MHz
 CPU Coolers: 2 x Corsair H80i
 Motherboard: Asus Z9PE-D8 WS
 RAM: 32 GB Samsung MV-3V4G3D/US @ 8-8-8-24
 PSU: Corsair AX 760
 SSDs: 2 x Samsung 840 Pro 128 GB @ Raid 0
 Case: Silverstone Raven RV03B-WA

 Configuration:
 Graphical User Interface (GUI): ChessGUI
 Protocol: Winboard, UCI
 Large Pages: OFF
 Number of Cores/Threads (per engine): 8 or 16
 Split Depth: DEFAULT
 Main Hash Size: 8192 MB (Maximum)
 Minor Hash Size: 1 GB
 Engine Opening Book: OFF
 Endgame Tablebases: 6-men Syzygy, 5-men Nalimov, 5-men Gaviota (cp2), 
   5-men Shredderbases and 5-men Robbobases (Totalbases + Triplebases) supported
 Tablebase Cache: 1024 MB (Maximum)
 Ponder/Permanent Brain: OFF
 Contempt/Draw Score: DEFAULT

Tournament results

Season	Winner	Runner-Up
Old TCEC Season 1	Houdini	Rybka
Old TCEC Season 2	Houdini	Rybka
Old TCEC Season 3	- (Season not completed)	- (Season not completed)
nTCEC Season 1	Houdini	Stockfish
nTCEC Season 2	-	-

Notable games

Houdini vs Rybka, TCEC, 2011

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Houdini plays the deep pawn sacrifice 43. c6!! which really surprises everybody on the live chat.

A magnificent zugzwang!

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

55...Rg4 And that's a zugzwang! What could Black (Protector) play if it was its turn?

A stupendous stalemate!

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Shredder (White) is on the brink of checkmate, but finds the remarkable defensive resource 46. Bb3!! Nxb3 47. Qf4+!! gxf4 48. Rb7+!! Kc8 49. Rc7+! Kd8 and so on... If Black captures the white rook, it is stalemate!

Old TCEC:

• Rybka vs Houdini, TCEC S1, Elite Match, 1.1 0-1 The first game in this first final was an extraordinary masterpiece. To everybody's surprise, Houdini sacrifices 2 pawns for piece activity and defeats the reigning computer chess champion Rybka in this extraordinary game, popularly dubbed as the "Houdini Immortal".
• Houdini vs Rybka, TCEC S1, Elite Match, 37.1, 1-0 Houdini plays an incredibly deep pawn sacrifice on move 43.

nTCEC Season 1:

• Equinox vs Protector, nTCEC S2, Stage 1, 3.7, 0-1 A magnificent zugzwang position is reached with still almost all pawns and four rooks on the board.
• Gaviota vs Spike, nTCEC S1, Stage 2a, 7.1, 1-0 Gaviota shows that you don't have to be rated over 3000 ELO to produce a masterpiece.
• Houdini vs Junior, nTCEC S1, Stage 2a, 7.2, 1-0 Houdini punishes Junior for a dubious pawn sacrifice.
• Komodo vs Hannibal, nTCEC S1, Stage 2b, 4.1, 1-0 Komodo sacrifices a rook for positional gain.
• Shredder vs Gull, nTCEC S1, Stage 2b, 14.3, 1/2-1/2 Shredder pulls off a brilliant save, at the brink of defeat. The final combination is a one for history books!
• Stockfish vs Houdini, nTCEC S1, Superfinal 48.1, 0-1 Stockfish needs one win to tie the match, but Houdini wins this last game in decisive fashion, putting an end to all hopes for Stockfish fans.

nTCEC Season 2:

• Exchess vs The Baron, nTCEC S2, Stage 1, 2.9, 1-0 A great win by Exchess.
• The Baron vs Equinox, nTCEC S2, Stage 1, 5.9, 0-1 Equinox plays a brilliant attacking Sicillian game.
• Equinox vs Spike, nTCEC S2, Stage 1, 6.5, 1-0 Yet another great sacrificial attacking game from Equinox, first sacrificing the exchange, and then a whole bishop.
• Stockfish vs Shredder, nTCEC S2, Stage 1, 7.3, 1-0 Stockfish thrashes Shredder in merely 25 moves.
• Bouquet vs Stockfish, nTCEC S2, Stage 2, 2.1, 0-1 After a long waiting game, Stockfish sacs a pawn and the exchange to open the game up, and wins in dramatic fashion.
• Tornado vs Critter, nTCEC S2, Stage 2, 3.7, 0-1 Critter sacs two pawns and the exchange to build up a fearsome attack.
• Toga vs Critter, nTCEC S2, Stage 2, 4.6, 0-1 Yet another attacking demonstration from Critter.
• Jonny vs Naum, nTCEC S2 Stage 2, 5.6 0-1 Naum shows everyone its still relevant.
• Stockfish vs Toga, nTCEC S2, Stage 2, 10.7, 1-0 A brilliant game from Stockfish.
• Junior vs Stockfish, nTCEC S2, Stage 2 15.7 1-0 Junior pulls of a masterpiece, abundant with countless sacrifices.
• Gull vs Komodo, nTCEC S2, Stage 3, 2.2, 0-1 Komodo wins a dead drawn middle-game position with subtle positional maneuvers, a token example of Komodo's deep positional understanding of the game.

References

• Thoresen, Martin (March 1, 2013). "nTCEC Complete Rules + FAQ". TCEC. Retrieved October 25, 2013.

External links

• Chessdom
• TCEC Live Games Page
• TCEC Season Archive
• TCEC Annotated Games
• TCEC Detailed Crosstable and Results