TCEC LIVE - Division I, Season 1 - All the top engines!

[Martin Thoresen]

Defaults to small with chrome, so works fine for me.

Mike

Excellent, thank you!

[IGarcia]

If the website can't find or write a cookie, it will default to Small (not Medium).
Please respond so I know it is working for you.

Defaults to small with chrome, so works fine for me.

Mike

Here working fine too!
As usual, big Thanks!!

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; es-ES; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13

[Martin Thoresen]

Here working fine too!
As usual, big Thanks!!

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; es-ES; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13

Very good, glad to hear it's working!

[S.Taylor]

That is quite a sight to see. The king is dead, long live the king?

Thanks to to Martin for taking the time to organise his series of tournaments. Used to be I read ssdf/ccrl/cegt/wbec. I can't remember the last time I looked at their lists. For now I simply look to TCEC/IPON. Hopefully Martin/Ingo will continue their steling work for a long time to come.

Thanks Justin!

But remember that my tournaments are in no way a substitute for a rating list.
My focus is more on the games themselves. Since I use a long time control, people can actually follow the games and try to think a bit for themselves too.

There is so much controversy in the current state of computer chess right now that it seems many people forget the core of our hobby: the love of chess and its infinite possibilities.

I agree with this, but i always wanted to first have the chess engine that i can rely on, to indicate the very best moves. Once i have that, then i don't need to know too much about engine competitions and ratings.
But this wish i had, took many years, as there was always something not good enough about any engine. turbo king seemed strong, but failed many tests i made. even at 50 hours for a move, it didn't make the move i was hoping for. Therefore i didn't feel i could rely on it, but rather that when it beat me, it was mostly because of a silly blunder i made.
For this reason, i was interested in rating lists. But once i have my desired machine, i wanted to focus more on chess itself, and use that machine to see if i was right or wrong about an idea i had in any particular position.
I was always aware that there can always be something better, but i thought there was going to be something which is stable and reliable to let me know if a sacrifice i was thinking about, was really so great as my intuition, or, if a best move was a sacrifice or something else, or, whether or not there existed any miracle in a particular position, which i had not considered.

[Martin Thoresen]

Standings after 7 of 14 rounds:

Code: Select all

N Engine           Pts    SB    H R S I N H C S 

1 Houdini 1.5      15.0  41.50    1 = = 1 1 = 1 
2 Rybka 4.0        11.0  25.00  0   0 = 1 = 1 1 
3 Stockfish 2.0.1  10.0  34.50  = 1   0 1 = = = 
4 Ivanhoe B47cB     8.0  31.00  = = 1   0 = = = 
5 Naum 4.2          8.0  18.50  0 0 0 1   = 1 = 
6 Hiarcs 13.2       6.0  23.50  0 = = = =   = = 
7 Critter 0.9       5.0  22.00  = 0 = = 0 =   = 
8 Shredder 12.0     5.0  18.50  0 0 = = = = =   

[Martin Thoresen]

After a maintenance of almost 24 hours the tournament has now been resumed again.

[S.Taylor]

Standings after 7 of 14 rounds:

Code: Select all

N Engine           Pts    SB    H R S I N H C S 

1 Houdini 1.5      15.0  41.50    1 = = 1 1 = 1 
2 Rybka 4.0        11.0  25.00  0   0 = 1 = 1 1 
3 Stockfish 2.0.1  10.0  34.50  = 1   0 1 = = = 
4 Ivanhoe B47cB     8.0  31.00  = = 1   0 = = = 
5 Naum 4.2          8.0  18.50  0 0 0 1   = 1 = 
6 Hiarcs 13.2       6.0  23.50  0 = = = =   = = 
7 Critter 0.9       5.0  22.00  = 0 = = 0 =   = 
8 Shredder 12.0     5.0  18.50  0 0 = = = = =   

The second half was extremely much "worse" for Houdini, and it JUST ABOUT managed to pull through to first place, but, ONLY because of the headstart in the first round.
Any reason for this?
(I'm not looking for the answer that it is statistics, as this is a well known fact. But the pattern was different too, which can also be statistics, but is also open for speculation if there was something else going on. Either Houdini had a reason for its advantage in part 1, or, maybe a reason for its disadvantage in part 2, or simply neither at all).
OK, so Houdini still got first place, but it is not clear cut from this display that it is stronger, as part 2 shows Rybka was stronger.
Still, it is good about Houdini that it was unbeaten.

[beram]

Standings after 7 of 14 rounds:

The second half was extremely much "worse" for Houdini, and it JUST ABOUT managed to pull through to first place, but, ONLY because of the headstart in the first round.
Any reason for this?
(I'm not looking for the answer that it is statistics, as this is a well known fact. But the pattern was different too, which can also be statistics, but is also open for speculation if there was something else going on. Either Houdini had a reason for its advantage in part 1, or, maybe a reason for its disadvantage in part 2, or simply neither at all).
OK, so Houdini still got first place, but it is not clear cut from this display that it is stronger, as part 2 shows Rybka was stronger.
Still, it is good about Houdini that it was unbeaten.

This will be the tournamenttable after the probable draw in the last game between Hiarcs and Ivanhoe.
To me it looks quite a neat score for Houdini 1.5 in this field 47Elo above Rybka. The alternative winscore in this tournament masks the real difference of 47 ELO.
Three losses for Rybka none for Houdini and Rybka beaten by Houdini, what more did you expect?

Code: Select all

    Program                            Score     %    Av.Op.  Elo    +   -    Draws

  1 Houdini 1.5                    :   9.5/ 14  67.9   2984   3113  134  83   64.3 %
  2 Rybka 4.0                      :   8.5/ 14  60.7   2990   3066  160 155   35.7 %
  3 Stockfish 2.0.1                :   8.0/ 14  57.1   2994   3044  127 121   57.1 %
  4 Critter 0.9                    :   7.0/ 14  50.0   3000   3000  124 124   57.1 %
  5 Ivanhoe B47cB                  :   7.0/ 14  50.0   3000   3000  124 124   57.1 %
  6 Shredder 12.0                  :   5.5/ 14  39.3   3009   2934  102 119   64.3 %
  7 Hiarcs 13.2                    :   5.5/ 14  39.3   3009   2934   59 117   78.6 %
  8 Naum 4.2                       :   5.0/ 14  35.7   3013   2910  143 151   42.9 %

[Houdini]

(I'm not looking for the answer that it is statistics, as this is a well known fact.
...
OK, so Houdini still got first place, but it is not clear cut from this display that it is stronger, as part 2 shows Rybka was stronger.

You ask a question, give the correct answer, then say you don't want to hear that it's the correct answer . Random variations a.k.a. "luck" do play an important role, Houdini could easily have won 2 more games in the second half (against Ivanhoe and Stockfish), and could easily have failed to convert 2 wins in the first half of the tournament.

At the end Houdini 1.5 had a full point margin in an extremely strong 14-round tournament, ahead of Rybka 4 and the rest of the top engines. That's an excellent result for any engine.

Robert

[Martin Thoresen]

Division I has now finished, thanks to everyone following
and congratulations to Robert & Houdini for winning.

Houdini and Rybka will meet in the Elite Match which will start
after a maintenance break, while Hiarcs and Naum will play
in Division II for the next Season.

Final standings:

Code: Select all

N Engine           Pts     SB    Ho Ry St Cr Iv Sh Na Hi 

1 Houdini 1.5      24.0  147.00     1= == == == 11 1= 1=
2 Rybka 4.0        23.0  128.00  0=    0= =1 11 10 1= =1
3 Stockfish 2.0.1  20.0  128.00  == 1=    0= =0 == 11 =1
4 Ivanhoe B47cB    17.0  115.00  == =0 1=    =0 =1 01 ==
5 Critter 0.9      17.0  114.50  == 00 =1 =1    == 01 ==
6 Shredder 12.0    12.0   91.50  00 01 == =0 ==    == ==
7 Naum 4.2         12.0   80.50  0= 0= 00 10 10 ==    ==
8 Hiarcs 13.2      11.0   91.50  0= =0 =0 == == == ==