Top Chess Engine Championship
Top Chess Engine Championship, formerly known as Thoresen Chess Engines Competition (TCEC or nTCEC), is a computer chess tournament that was organized, directed, and hosted by Martin Thoresen until the end of Season 6; from Season 7 onward it has been organized by Chessdom. It 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.[1][2]
The first TCEC season was held in 2010. After a short break in 2012,[3] TCEC was restarted in early 2013 (as nTCEC)[4] and is currently active (renamed as TCEC in early 2014) with all-day live broadcasts of chess matches on its website. Supported by original engine authors and based on voluntarism and donation, it caused a furor in February 2011, when the free version of Houdini defeated reigning computer chess champion Rybka in a 40-game match.[5][6]
Since season 5, TCEC has been sponsored by Chessdom Arena.[7][8] The current TCEC champion is Stockfish 180614, which defeated Komodo 12.1.1 in the TCEC Season 12 Superfinal 100-game match held in June–July 2018.
Contents
Overview[edit]
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 five qualifying stages and one Superfinal, where the top two chess engines battle it out over a series of 100 games to win the title of TCEC Grand Champion. Pondering is set to off. All engines run on mostly the same hardware[9] and use the same opening book, which is taken from recent strong human Grandmaster tournaments, truncated to the first 6 or 8 moves, and changed in every stage. Large pages are disabled but access to various endgame tablebases is permitted. Engines are allowed updates between stages; if there is a critical play-limiting bug, they are also allowed to 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 criterion for entering into the competition, other than inviting the top participants from various rating lists. The list of participants was personally chosen by Thoresen before the start of a season. His stated goal was to include "every major engine that is not a direct clone".[10] Usually chess engines that support multiprocessor mode are preferred (8-cores or higher). Both Winboard and UCI engines are supported.
Tournament results (TCEC)[edit]
Main Seasons
| Season | Date | Winner | Runner-Up | Superfinal score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TCEC Season 1 | Dec 2010 – Feb 2011 | Houdini 1.5a | Rybka 4.0 | + 12 = 23 - 5 |
| TCEC Season 2 | Feb – Apr 2011 | Houdini 1.5a | Rybka 4.1 | + 9 = 26 -5 |
| TCEC Season 3 | Apr – May 2011 | N/A (season not completed) | ||
| TCEC Season 41 | Jan – May 2013 | Houdini 3 | Stockfish 250413 | + 6 = 38 - 4 |
| TCEC Season 52 | Aug – Dec 2013 | Komodo 1142 | Stockfish 191113 | + 10 = 30 - 8 |
| TCEC Season 6 | Feb – May 2014 | Stockfish 170514 | Komodo 7x | + 13 = 45 - 6 |
| TCEC Season 73 | Sep – Dec 2014 | Komodo 1333 | Stockfish 141214 | + 7 = 53 - 4 |
| TCEC Season 8 | Aug – Nov 2015 | Komodo 9.3x | Stockfish 021115 | + 9 = 89 - 2 |
| TCEC Season 9 | May – Dec 2016 | Stockfish 8 | Houdini 5 | + 17 = 75 - 8 |
| TCEC Season 10 | Oct – Dec 2017 | Houdini 6.03 | Komodo 1970.00 | + 15 = 76 - 9 |
| TCEC Season 114 | Jan – Apr 2018 | Stockfish 260318 | Houdini 6.03 | + 20 = 78 - 2 |
| TCEC Season 124 | Apr – July 2018 | Stockfish 180614 | Komodo 12.1.1 | + 29 = 62 - 9 |
| TCEC Season 134 | Aug 2018 – ? | |||
Other TCEC tournaments
| Season | Date | Winner | Runner-Up | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TCEC Season 6 FRC5 | June – July 2014 | Stockfish 260614 | Houdini 4 | N/A (no superfinal stage) |
| TCEC Season 9 Rapid6 | September 2016 | Houdini 200716 | Komodo 1692.19 | |
| TCEC Season 10 Rapid | December 2017 | Stockfish 051117 | Houdini 6.03 | |
| TCEC Season 10 Blitz | December 2017 | Komodo 1959.00 | Stockfish 051117 |
- 1 Originally named "nTCEC Season 1".
- 2 Originally named "nTCEC Season 2".
- 3 Season 7 did not use endgame table bases. Stage two did not use opening books.
- 4 League format.
- 5 Special Chess960 quad-round-robin tournament consisting of the top 8 engines that had support for Chess960.
- 6 Double round robin tournament.
Notable games[edit]
Pre-TCEC:
- Stockfish vs Houdini, Match 3, 23.1, "Game of the Month 1", 2010-07-27, 1–0[14] In the variations past the final position, black will promote the e-pawn.
- Shredder vs Naum, Tournament 1, 1.3, "Game of the Month 2", 2010-08-01, 0–1[15]
- Houdini vs Rybka, Tournament 5, 8.3, "Game of the Month 3" 2010-11-26, 1–0[16]
Season 1-3:
- Rybka vs Houdini, TCEC S1, Elite Match, 1.1 0–1 Houdini sacrifices three pawns for piece activity and defeats the reigning computer chess champion Rybka in this game, popularly dubbed as the "Houdini Immortal".[5][17][18]
- Houdini vs Rybka, TCEC S2, Elite Match, 19.2, 1–0 Houdini exploits minor inaccuracies by Rybka with a sacrifice.[19]
Season 4:
- Shredder vs Gull, TCEC S4, Stage 2b, 14.3, ½–½ Shredder pulls off a save, at the brink of defeat.[11][12][13]
Season 5:
- Gull vs Komodo, TCEC S5, Stage 3, 2.2, 0–1<[20]
- Houdini vs Stockfish, TCEC S5, Stage 3, 17.4, 0–1 Stockfish, thanks to its heavy depth-oriented search, out-calculates Houdini, and wins the game.[21]
Season 6:
Season 9:
- Stockfish, vs Houdini TCEC Superfinal Game 15 2016 1-0 Houdini 5 sacrifices its Queen but still loses to Stockfish[23]
References[edit]
- ^ Kosteniuk, Alexandra (August 15, 2013). "TCEC Computer Chess Championship New Season starts August 26th". Chess News Blog. Archived from the original on October 25, 2013. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
- ^ Soltis, Andy (June 9, 2013). "Engine Super Bowl". New York Post. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
- ^ Thoresen, Martin (May 28, 2011). "TCEC announcement: End of project". Talkchess. Archived from the original on October 25, 2013. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
- ^ Thoresen, Martin (January 12, 2013). "Official (re)launch of TCEC - website is up!". Talkchess. Archived from the original on October 25, 2013. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
- ^ a b Video annotation by Kingscrusher on YouTube
- ^ Monokroussos, Dennis. "Houdini 1.5a defeats Rybka 4: 23.5-16.5". Retrieved 25 October 2013.
- ^ Thoresen, Martin (August 15, 2013). "TCEC and Chessdom announces partnership". TCEC. Archived from the original on October 12, 2013. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
- ^ "TCEC computer chess championship New Season starts August 26th". Chessdom. Chessdom. August 15, 2013. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
- ^ Until season 13, all engines ran on the same hardware; however in season 13 the entrance of two neural network engines caused TCEC to use different hardware for the two types of engines. "TCEC Season 13 – the advance of the NNs". Chessdom. 2 August 2018.
- ^ http://blog.chabris.com/2015/01/martin-thoresens-world-chess.html
- ^ a b The game on chessgames.com
- ^ a b "Shredder - Gull, Stage 2b: Stupendous Stalemate Swindle". Archived from the original on 25 October 2013. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
- ^ a b "A defensive brilliancy". Archived from the original on 28 October 2013. Retrieved 27 October 2013.
- ^ Annotated by FM Dennis Monokroussos at TCEC
- ^ Annotated by FM Dennis Monokroussos at TCEC
- ^ Annotated by FM Dennis Monokroussos at TCEC
- ^ The game on chessgames.com
- ^ Annotated by FM Dennis Monokroussos at TCEC
- ^ Annotated by GM Ioannis Papadopoulos at TCEC
- ^ Chen, Franklin. "The computer plays the exchange sacrifice". Retrieved 26 October 2013.
- ^ Annotated by GM Ioannis Papadopoulos at TCEC
- ^ Annotated by GM Davorin Kuljasevic at TCEC
- ^ "SPECIAL EDITION Why Houdini 5 sacrificed his Queen? Superfinal Game 15 TCEC 2016". Youtube. Retrieved 6 December 2016.
Sources[edit]
- "TCEC Season 8 – complete information". chessdom.com. August 18, 2015. Retrieved October 9, 2015.
- Perez-Franco, Roberto (January 15, 2014). "DIGITAL CHESS REVIEW: One chess champion per laptop". The Tech. 133 (62). Retrieved February 2, 2014.
