TCEC Stage 3 (Season 2) has started with Houdini dev version

[Martin Thoresen]

Stage 2 finished last night and 10 engines qualified for Stage 3. The total number of games will be 90 and the top 6 qualifies for Stage 4. The opening book themes are Candidates 2013, Sinquefield Cup 2013 and King's Tournament 2012.

List of participants, double round robin:
3118 - Houdini 9601 (dev)*
3104 - Komodo 1121.05 (dev)*
3104 - Stockfish 151013 (dev)*
3079 - Rybka 4.1
3069 - Bouquet 1.8b (dev)*
3063 - Critter 1.6a
3058 - Gull 2.3*
3002 - Hiarcs 14
2980 - Naum 4.6 (dev)*
2915 - Junior 13.3

*Indicates update since Stage 2.

All information and rules:
http://www.tcec-chess.net/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=20

Live games + schedule and results:
http://tcec.chessdom.com/live.php

Finished games in Stage 3 will appear here:
http://tcec.chessdom.com/stage_3.php

Hope to see you all there.

Thanks,
Martin

[TimoK]

Hi Martin,

I think you often heard that before, but let me repeat it again: Thank you very much for this great computer chess event! In my opinion it's the most interesting tournament in 2013! Everything is in top condition: Many participants, excellent hardware, long time controls, different stages, many games to play and last but not least a superb presentation on the website!

And many thanks to the engine authors as well for providing the latest dev versions! It's great to see them play here so the character of the event is even more like a WCCC because we see the strongest chess entities play against each other!

I took a long break from computer chess since my son was born late 2012, but the TCEC awoke my enthusiasm for CC again!

Best regards
Timo

[mcostalba]

Thanks Martin for running this tournament !

I think (but you already know it ) that allowing engines to upgrade between stages is really a plus for TCEC, considering also that is a very long one and so is not easy to keep people interested without throwing new stuff at them.

I'd just want to inform that current Stockfish that will play in Stage 3 is the syzygy (yes!) version, kindly compiled by Lucas Braesch. Sources are from:

https://github.com/syzygy1/Stockfish

Thanks to Ronald de Man for the TB code and for keeping his syzygy branch in sync with SF master.

[Modern Times]

This is going to be an amazing tournament - latest version of Stockfish with syzygy bases, latest Komodo, and latest Houdini. It will be a tough fight.

[Don]

Komodo, which just won stage 2 has been significantly upgraded. The version that played in stage 2 was noticeably weaker than Komodo 6 and the version that is playing now in stage 3 is a significant upgrade to Komodo 6. So I think this stage is going to be very interesting indeed! To me there is no clear favorite here.

[Yarget]

Yeahh, tournament of the Year. It's as simple as that.

Thanks a lot for making this possible Martin

[gordonr]

Yeahh, tournament of the Year. It's as simple as that.

Thanks a lot for making this possible Martin

+1

[Modern Times]

Thanks Martin for running this tournament !

I think (but you already know it ) that allowing engines to upgrade between stages is really a plus for TCEC, considering also that is a very long one and so is not easy to keep people interested without throwing new stuff at them.

I'd just want to inform that current Stockfish that will play in Stage 3 is the syzygy (yes!) version, kindly compiled by Lucas Braesch. Sources are from:

https://github.com/syzygy1/Stockfish

Thanks to Ronald de Man for the TB code and for keeping his syzygy branch in sync with SF master.

With the default Emergency Base Time parameter of 60, Stockfish with syzygy bases was losing on time for me in some games. I increased it to 200, and the problem went away. I hope Martin has done something similar.

[Martin Thoresen]

With the default Emergency Base Time parameter of 60, Stockfish with syzygy bases was losing on time for me in some games. I increased it to 200, and the problem went away. I hope Martin has done something similar.

It is set at 1000. In earlier Stages/Seasons I've used 2000.

[Modern Times]

I'm very happy to hear that