Part 1: The Idea, the Rules and the Draw
After the 2026-CENL (Nations League mirror) here is its big brother: the 2026 Chess Engine Champions League, a full mirror of the official UEFA Champions League 2026/27 - same 36 clubs, same draw, same calendar, same rules.
RULESThe idea
The engine ranked N on my list takes the club ranked N in the official UEFA draw (coefficient order, title holder first). Number 1, PlentyChess, wears the shirt of Paris Saint-Germain, the title holder. Every match of the official league-phase draw (Monaco, 27 August 2026) is played exactly as drawn: one game per match, the home club has White.
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League phase | 36 engines, 8 matchdays, 144 games (official UEFA draw)
Match | 1 game, home engine = White, win = 1 goal
Points | win 3, draw 1, loss 0
Openings | one opening per matchday (both colours across the 18 games)
Time control | 3m + 2s, 1 thread, Hash 256 MB, no ponder
Adjudication | resign -9.00 for 6 moves, draw at move 150,
| early draw from move 120 at 0.00, tablebases
Tie-breakers | UEFA: points, goal difference, goals, away goals, wins,
| away wins, opponents' points / GD / goals, Elo
Places 1-8 | round of 16
Places 9-24 | knockout play-off (9-16 seeded)
Knockout ties | 2 legs, leg 2 seeded engine White, opening 3 (Modern)
Extra time | 10 games, 9s + 0.1s (CENL extra-time openings)
Penalties | 10 games, 2s + 0.1s, then sudden-death pairs
Final | 8 games, 4 openings x 2 colours (+ ET / penalties)
GUI / hardware | cutechess-cli 1.4, Intel i5-8500 3.00GHz 16GB RAM
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# | Engine | Club | Elo
-----|-------------------------------|----------------------|------
1 | PlentyChess 8.0.0 | Paris Saint-Germain | 2990
2 | Reckless 0.9.0 | Bayern Munich | 2995
3 | Pawnocchio 2.0.1 | Real Madrid | 2975
4 | Integral 8.0 | Liverpool | 2970
5 | Caissa 2.0.0 | Inter | 2970
6 | Viridithas 20.0.0 | Manchester City | 2975
7 | Obsidian 16.0 | Arsenal | 2980
8 | Stormphrax 8.0.0 | Barcelona | 2953
9 | Alexandria 9.1.0 | Atletico Madrid | 2980
10 | Hobbes 3.0.0 | Borussia Dortmund | 2960
11 | Astra 7.0.0 | Roma | 2960
12 | Clover 9.1 | Sporting CP | 2980
13 | Motor 0.9.0 | Aston Villa | 2930
14 | Renegade 1.3.1 | Porto | 2951
15 | Igel 3.7.0 | Manchester United | 2856
16 | RubiChess 20240817 | Club Brugge | 2940
17 | Starzix 6.0 | Real Betis | 2941
18 | Tcheran 13.0 | PSV Eindhoven | 2876
19 | Heimdall 1.4.2 | Feyenoord | 2760
20 | Booot 7.4 | Lille | 2850
21 | Revenge 4.0 | Bodo/Glimt | 2860
22 | Velvet 8.1.1 | Napoli | 2858
23 | Rebel 16.3 | RB Leipzig | 2820
24 | Koivisto 9.0 | Villarreal | 2852
25 | RofChade 3.1 | Fenerbahce | 2810
26 | Black Marlin 9.0 | Shakhtar Donetsk | 2830
27 | Eleanor 4.1 | Galatasaray | 2716
28 | Akimbo 1.0.0 | Slavia Praha | 2800
29 | Texel 1.12 | Slovan Bratislava | 2720
30 | Equisetum 1.0 | VfB Stuttgart | 2780
31 | Pawn 4.0 | AEK Athens | 2750
32 | Minic 3.41 | LASK | 2712
33 | Oxide 3.0.0 | Como | 2714
34 | Houdini 6.03 | Lens | 2740
35 | Marvin 6.3.0 | Viking | 2710
36 | Nemorino 6.0 | Sabah | 2730
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MD1 | Owen Defense | 1.e4 b6 2.d4 Bb7 3.Nc3 d6 4.f4 Nd7 5.Nf3 e6 6.Bd3 c5
MD2 | English Opening, Great Snake | 1.c4 g6 2.h4 Bg7 3.h5 e5 4.Nc3 Nc6 5.d3 d6 6.g3 Be6
MD3 | Modern Defense | 1.d4 g6 2.Nf3 Bg7 3.e4 d6 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.Qe2 O-O 6.O-O e5
MD4 | Queen's Pawn, Modern Defense System | 1.e4 g6 2.d4 d6 3.c4 e5 4.Nc3 Nc6 5.d5 Nd4 6.Nge2 Nxe2
MD5 | King's Indian, Anti-KID System | 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.f3 Nh5 4.e4 e5 5.Be3 d6 6.Ne2 Bg7
MD6 | English Opening, Four Knights | 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e5 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.e3 d6 5.d4 Bg4 6.Be2 Be7
MD7 | 1.Nf3 b5 (Polish / O'Kelly) | 1.Nf3 b5 2.e4 a6 3.d4 e6 4.Bd3 Bb7 5.O-O c5 6.c3 Nf6
MD8 | Queen's Pawn, Modern Queen's Pawn Defense | 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 b6 3.Nc3 Bb7 4.Qc2 d6 5.e4 e5 6.d5 Be7