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.
The first TCEC season was held in 2010. After a short break in 2012, TCEC was restarted in early 2013 (as nTCEC) 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.
Since season 5, TCEC has been sponsored by Chessdom Arena. The current TCEC champion is Stockfish 260318, which defeated Houdini 6.03 in the TCEC Season 11 Superfinal 100-game match held in March - April 2018.
Video Top Chess Engine Championship
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 four 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 the same hardware 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". Usually chess engines that support multiprocessor mode are preferred (8-cores or higher). Both Winboard and UCI engines are supported.
Maps Top Chess Engine Championship
Tournament results (TCEC)
- 1 Originally named "nTCEC Season 1".
- 2 Originally named "nTCEC Season 2".
- 3 Special Chess960 quad-round-robin tournament consisting of the top 8 engines from Season 6 that had support for Chess960.
- 4 Season 7 did not use endgame table bases. Stage two did not use opening books.
- 5 Double round robin tournament.
- 6 League format.
Notable games
Pre-TCEC:
- Stockfish vs Houdini, Match 3, 23.1, "Game of the Month 1", 2010-07-27, 1-0 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
- Houdini vs Rybka, Tournament 5, 8.3, "Game of the Month 3" 2010-11-26, 1-0
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".
- Houdini vs Rybka, TCEC S2, Elite Match, 19.2, 1-0 Houdini exploits minor inaccuracies by Rybka with a sacrifice.
Season 4:
- Shredder vs Gull, TCEC S4, Stage 2b, 14.3, ½-½ Shredder pulls off a save, at the brink of defeat.
Season 5:
- Gull vs Komodo, TCEC S5, Stage 3, 2.2, 0-1<
- 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.
Season 6:
- Komodo vs Stockfish, TCEC S6, Stage 3, 1, 1-0
Season 9:
- Stockfish, vs Houdini TCEC Superfinal Game 15 2016 1-0 Houdini 5 sacrifices its Queen but still loses to Stockfish
References
Sources
- "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.
External links
- TCEC Live Games Page
- Top Chess Engine Championship on Facebook
- TCEC Season Archive
- Additional information for Season 4
- Additional information for Season 5
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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