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

[Dave Mitchell]

Many thanks for your wonderful tournament, Martin.

Since my browser (Firefox), can't see the chessmen at first (only at the first time I visit, after re-starting the browser), I just click on the "Small", "Medium", or "Large" button, and then the chessmen appear. If i come back later in the same session, the chessmen are there, and stay there, until I re-start the browser again.

I have noticed in the game Hiarcs vs Shredder now underway, that Shredder never has accesses the tablebases, but Hiarcs is accessing them, hundreds of thousands of time (it's in the endgame now). Does Shredder not have it's tablebase files or what can you tell us?

In any case, it's a great tournament - congratulations on a fine job! (Houdini is living up to it's name in Div. 1)

[Odeus37]

If he installed shredderbases, shredder uses those in priority, and uses Nalimov only when 5 pieces left, to be more efficient. So you see no Tablebases Hits. You can see ShredderBases hits in Shredder GUI, but I doubt can see those in chessGUI.

[BB+]

Round 1: Houdini-Naum was pretty equal at move 30, but 10 moves later White had an edge, and converted it. Black might have had some chances to liquidate to a draw (one or even two pawns down), but in the game White rolled thru with the b-pawn. IvanHoe's 8.Qh5?! put it in a bit of trouble, but by move 20, the advantage was slightly to White. A board block ensured 50 moves of shuffling and finally a draw. Hiarcs-Stockfish was a KID, so who knows about computer evals. The liquidation from moves 21-25 seems to have given Black a cosmetic advantage, but White's connected passers were enough to hold in the double rook endgame. Critter-Stockfish had a QGD with a symmetrical pawn structure (open c- and d- files), and neither side looked ever in trouble. The final pawn endgame was probably easier for computers than for humans to be sure about.

Round 2: Houdini-Shredder was a 6. Be3 e5 Najdorf, and Black had an extra pawn after all the Knights were exchanged. White had compensation but didn't look to have much of an attack until the "coffehouse attack" of h4-h5 came about. Black had to make some precise choices from moves 25-30 but one small misstep led to White emerging with an edge after 30.. Qe8. Within 5 more moves, it was essentially over (I think move 33 is where Shredder slipped). Stockfish-Rybka was a QID. White gained a nagging edge hovering around +0.50 for awhile. Rybka offered a questionable queen trade on move 33 to try to relieve some pressure, but then the isolated a-pawn proved weak in the endgame, even after Rybka traded off a bad bishop, and stranded White with a poor one. Eventually White was going to get a central pawn wave, and Rybka was unable to hang on. IvanHoe-Critter was some sort of a Benoni with White jumping at 5. d6 after 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 c5 4. d5 e6. I can't say I think much of this idea, though by move 10 White did seem to have a decent edge. Black's queen bishop was always going to be a problem piece, and from moves 20-24 Critter decided to sac the exchange to free it via a fianchetto. However, after a queen trade the pawn structure was such that White could not generate a passed pawn, and this reduced any winning chances. After almost 20 more moves of shuffling, a draw was agreed. Hiarcs-Naum was almost a "GM draw" from a QGD, with a repetition at move 30. I think the last 15 were 0.00 scores.

Round 3 had Houdini playing the Sicilian against Hiarcs, with a Keres Attack being White's choice. Black quickly gained a slight edge from the bishop pair upon a debatable decision by White on move 10, and after trading king-side rooks both sides had their Kings in the centre. A long maneuvering stage ensued, and it seems that White went wrong somewhere between moves 30-35. Black then had all the play on the king-side, and after blocking the queen-side proceeded to dissect White apart. Again it is not clear when it became totally untenable. After some mostly useless wood-pushing from moves 40 to 70 (though Black's King did hide at a8), Houdini finally pushed the g-pawn, and was rewarded with a victory. Rybka-Naum was a Semi-Slav, and White got the advantage by aiming for the e4 push. This led to an isolated d-pawn, but Rybka's piece activity was much more important, particularly with Black's Queen temporarily displaced on a5 and his Queen's Bishop undeveloped (thus also locking in the Queen's Rook). I think it was essentially over after 19... g6, when g5 instead might have had some chances to draw, and at least would have been more interesting than the game (19... g5 20. Re8 gxh4 21. Nf5 Kh7 22. h3! Nf6 23. Rxf8 Bxf5 24. Rxf7+ Kh8 25. Qc1 Nh7 26. Qf4 Bg6 27. Rxb7 Qh5, and White could end up with as many as 5 pawns for the piece). Black ended up with his queen-side pieces totally tied up, White won two pawns, and the rest was mopping up in a knight endgame. IvanHoe-Shredder was an English Opening in which White got a very minimal edge. The queen-side was blocked (with interlaced doubled d-pawns after the Knights were exchanged!), and neither side looked to be in much trouble. The king-side also got locked, and a draw was inevitable. Stockfish-Critter transposed to a Semi-Slav, and White looked to get a good king-side attack after the e5 push. However, this allowed Black to camp his Knight on d5, and when the direct attack was blunted so that White was obliged to play on both sides of the board, the advantage dissipated. White won a pawn (doubled and isolated), and too had a B vs N edge plus a more active Rook, but really had little chance to win in my view. It is not easy to w/o a passed pawn in such situations.

[Robert Houdart]

Note that in every game 12 full book moves are played, any comments before move 13 are actually about the opening book.

[BB+]

Note that in every game 12 full book moves are played, any comments before move 13 are actually about the opening book.

OK, thanks, I was wondering about that, as in some of the games I couldn't find any precursors much beyond move 5. All opening moves are randomly fetched from a PGN file which contains 200.810 different openings. They are all fixed to 12 moves / 24 plies.

[Martin Thoresen]

If he installed shredderbases, shredder uses those in priority, and uses Nalimov only when 5 pieces left, to be more efficient. So you see no Tablebases Hits. You can see ShredderBases hits in Shredder GUI, but I doubt can see those in chessGUI.

This is correct. I can see the sbhits in ChessGUI as sbhits=xxxx but they are not parsed as tbhits=xxxx in ChessGUI.

[BB+]

Nice one in Naum-Stockfish:
5r2/4qbk1/1p5p/pN2p1pP/PbPp1rP1/3P1P2/1R2Q1BK/5R2 b - - 12 46It wasn't completely over after 46... e4! [and I think White could have aimed for a pawn-down rook and opposite-bishop ending -- maybe 47. fxe4 Rxf1+ 48. Bxf1 Qe5+ 49. Kg1!? Bxc4 50. Qh2 Qxh2+ 51. Rxh2 Bxb5 52. axb5, and hope the opponent doesn't understand these endings], but Black was able to convert the edge rather easily.

[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 = = = = =   

[MichaelIsGreat]

Hello to All,


This Division 1 tournament is excellent. However, reviewing the rules, I believe a few of them might be better changed a little bit, not now but in the future.

At the page where the rules are stated, at http://www.tcec-chess.org/info.php , it says:
1) "However, a game can also be drawn at move 30 or later if the eval from both engines are within +0.05 to -0.05 pawns for the last 5 moves, or 10 plies. If there is a pawn advance, or a capture by any kind, this special draw rule will reset and start over."
and
2) "It will adjudicate as lost or won if both engines have an eval of at least 5.25 or -5.25 pawns for 3 consecutive moves - this rule is in effect as soon as the game starts."
---The rule 2) above might be better changed with an evaluation to 10.00 or -10.00. Just to be on the safe side, as the chess engines evaluation is far from being accurate.
---The rule 1) above might be better changed to "for the last 10 moves" instead of "for the last 5 moves", just to be on the safer side I would guess.
Just suggestions to assess for the future, as a few positions might necessitate these suggestions.

In any case, the current tournament is nothing less than excellent.

Thanks for the great guy (Martin Thoresen) who set up this initiative at his great web site, the TCEC (Thoresen Chess Engines Competition), at http://www.tcec-chess.org/ .


Kind Regards to All
MichaelIsGreat

[Howard E]

Nice one in Naum-Stockfish:
5r2/4qbk1/1p5p/pN2p1pP/PbPp1rP1/3P1P2/1R2Q1BK/5R2 b - - 12 46It wasn't completely over after 46... e4! [and I think White could have aimed for a pawn-down rook and opposite-bishop ending -- maybe 47. fxe4 Rxf1+ 48. Bxf1 Qe5+ 49. Kg1!? Bxc4 50. Qh2 Qxh2+ 51. Rxh2 Bxb5 52. axb5, and hope the opponent doesn't understand these endings], but Black was able to convert the edge rather easily.

Nice position. On my computer (i7-920 2 threads) using Critter.09 and Houdini 1.5 I get this analysis.
Critter will play e4 while Houdini opts for Ra8.
At move 49 both prefer Kh1.
And on 50 Critter plays Qxh2 while Houdini plays Qf6 immediately with a rising eval.