Sveshnikov tourmanent (90+30) Stockfish 091113 in the lead

[Yarget]

Hi everyone!

I have decided to run a small tournament based on the Sveshnikov-variation starting from this position (White to move):



I am a big fan of this opening. It is a very demanding and dynamic opening for both White and Black. Blacks active piece-play compensates for his damaged pawn-structure, making for an exciting battle.

I am running this tournament for several reasons:

- The obvious one: Who is winning the tournament?

- It will be fun to Watch as a lot of drama is to be expected.

- I have an assumption: if I ran this tournament Years ago White would have the edge but with the current strong topengines combined with long TC and a modern Hardware I believe that Black will score higher than White (because the dynamic potential of Blacks position Means more than a weak pawn-structure for modern engines). I may be wrong but we'll see.

Participants:

Houdini 3 x64
Stockfish 4 091113 64 SSE4.2
Gull 2.3 x64
Bouquet 1.8 x64
Critter 1.6a 64-bit
Hannibal 1.4b x64

Conditions:

i7 2670 QM Quad-core, 2.2 Ghz
Windows 7
Fritz 13 GUI
TC: 90+30 (90 minutes for the Whole game plus 30 seconds per move)
No openingbooks (all games start from the position above)
No learning
No Tablebases
No Ponder (each engine using 4 cores)
512 MB Hashtables for each engine
Double Round-robin (each engine will play White and Black)

The tournament began with a small surprise: Critter defeated Houdini with the Black pieces! The current stand after 3 rounds:

1. Stockfish 3 points
2. Critter 2 points
3. Houdini 1½ points
4-5. Gull & Bouquet 1 point each
6. Hannibal ½ point

Openingstatistics so far:

White wins: 1 (Stockfish managed to do this)
Draws: 4
Black Wins: 4

So far Black seeems to have an edge but it's still very early. I have been following as many games as possible and the majority of the games are dramatic and entertaining to Watch.

Best regards
Per

[Yarget]

Hi Again!

6 rounds are now completed and Stockfish still seems to feel comfortable in this demanding opening. Hannibal has also advanced since the first update.

The current stand after round 6:

1. Stockfish 5 points
2. Houdini 3½ points
3. Hannibal 3 points
4. Critter 2½ points
5-6. Bouquet & Gull 2 points each

And here the current openingstatistics:

White wins: 4
Draws: 8
Black wins: 6

Black is still leading but White is not far behind.

Best regards
Per

[Yarget]

Hi again!

My small tournament based on the tricky Sveshnikov opening is now completed (10 rounds):

1. Stockfish 7 Points (4 6 0)
2. Houdini 6 Points (4 4 2)
3. Hannibal 5 Points (2 6 2)
4-5. Bouquet & Critter 4½ Points each (1 7 2) for Bouquet and (2 5 3) for Critter
6. Gull 3 Points (0 6 4)

Stockfish was leading from the start till the end and finished as the only engine without defeats. Hannibal also made a strong performance while Gull was facing a hard time.

Regarding the statistics of the opening it ended like this:

White wins: 6
Draws: 17
Black wins: 7

This result means that I was wrong in my assumption that Black would dominate the tournament. Still I think that it has been an exciting tournament with several spectacular games.

Best regards
Per