To engine programmers: next TCEC Season starting in ~ 1month

[Evert]

Evert - am I right in assuming that Jazz 721 is still the latest official version?
I see on your website that Jazz 799 is marked as a beta.

Correct. My intention was to follow it up with an "official" release once the SMP was tested a bit.
From my notes, there are quite a few changes to evaluation and search between 721 and 799, so it should be stronger in single-core mode as well. I'll need to run a test to see by how much though.

Other changes are that the split UCI/WB versions are now merged in a single program (easier for me to keep both updated), and it can be configured to use Gaviota tablebases. This is mainly for testing end game heuristics.

Anyway, I didn't find the time to update the release version as planned. I'll try to find some time in the next few days.

[Evert]

All that said, I'd think Jazz is still a bit too weak to play with the "big boys".

You never know.

Hehe.
Well, I've known Jazz to win a solid and convincing game against Hannibal in one of the OpenWar tournaments (Hannibal won, only having lost one game), and I've seen it hold its own against Crafty in my own testing a few times.

However, it doesn't do so consistently.

[FriedmannC]

Probably a beta Houdini 5 beta will participate

[Vinvin]

Probably a beta Houdini 5 beta will participate

I hope so ! If not, Stockfish will win too easily

[FriedmannC]

Not if Deep Rybka 4.2 shows up!

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Not if Deep Rybka 4.2 shows up!

Yep and Lady Gaga will operate it most probably

[gleperlier]

Hello,
What is the List of participants so far ?

[Martin Thoresen]

Hello,
What is the List of participants so far ?

Hi Gabriel,

The list of participants will be revealed soon. I do not want to reveal it until I am confident that the participating engines are stable.

PS: It will be announced here first: https://www.facebook.com/tcec.chess

[Gusev]

Will Protector play?

[lucasart]

Will Protector play?

I hope so. It would be a farce if closed source IvanHone clones are allowed to compete, while an original and open source enging like Protector is not.