TCEC Season 1 - Stage 2a lineup and start date!

[Martin Thoresen]

.
TCEC Season 1 – Stage 2a starts Friday, February 22nd at 18:00 CET.

Stage 2a is a double Round Robin consisting of 8 chess engines, with a total of 56 games.
Each pair will play both sides of the openings.

The top 4 will move on to Stage 3, while those finishing 5-8 are out of TCEC for the current season.
Stage 2b will start 2-3 days after Stage 2a is finished.

The list of participating chess engines for Stage 2a is as follows:
Houdini, Stockfish, Hiarcs, Rybka, Critter, Junior, Gaviota, Spike

The list of participants for Stage 2b:
Vitruvius, Gull, Chiron, Komodo, Shredder, Scorpio, Quazar, Hannibal

New on the website since Stage 1 are the double PV boards that have been
added to the Live page. So now you can see what kind of position the engines are expecting.

In other news, the new TCEC computer has been built, a dual CPU Intel Xeon with a total of 16 cores.
It will not be used yet since there are still single threaded engines left in the current Season.
If there are no single threaded engines left for Stage 3 this new hardware will be used from that point on.

TCEC is using 150m + 60s per move for the whole game, running on an Intel Core i7 3770k @ 4500 MHz.
Up to 3 cores can be used for engines capable of SMP.

Read the full TCEC rules here:
http://www.tcec-chess.net/info.php

The broadcast will be running 24/7 with 1 game at a time, and can be watched here, also with chat:
http://www.tcec-chess.net/live.php

Finished games from Stage 2a will be moved here:
http://www.tcec-chess.net/stage_2a.php

Read the latest TCEC news here:
https://www.facebook.com/tcec.chess (you can read without having a FB account)

Hope to see everyone there!

Best Regards,
Martin Thoresen
http://www.tcec-chess.net

[Jouni]

Funnily 4 strongest engines are in 2a group! If Komodo can't use multiple CPUs why punish others who can? Or maybe use more CPUs to permanent brain?

[Martin Thoresen]

Funnily 4 strongest engines are in 2a group! If Komodo can't use multiple CPUs why punish others who can? Or maybe use more CPUs to permanent brain?

Sorry, what? I didn't get any of that.

[Jouni]

Latest CCRL 40/40

1 Houdini 3 64-bit 4CPU 3255

2 Critter 1.6a 64-bit 4CPU 3177

3 Rybka 4 64-bit 4CPU 3168

3 Stockfish 2.2.2 64-bit 4CPU 3166

[Martin Thoresen]

That is a coincidence.

From the TCEC rules:
Stage 2a consists of 8 engines, those finishing as number 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13 and 16 in Stage 1.

Stage 2b is the same as Stage 2a except that the participants are those finishing as number 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14 and 15 in Stage 1.

So if you check the crosstable at the bottom of the Stage 1 page you will see why the groups are divided like they are.

http://www.tcec-chess.net/stage_1.php

[Adam Hair]

Yeah. Having Gaviota and those 4 engines in Stage 2a really is not fair to Spike, Hiarcs, and Junior. They are left to see who can come in 5th place behind Stockfish, Rybka, or Critter

[Don]

Funnily 4 strongest engines are in 2a group! If Komodo can't use multiple CPUs why punish others who can? Or maybe use more CPUs to permanent brain?

Are you sure about that? Vitruvius and Gull do not usually appear on the rating lists but are very strong clones and may be stronger than Most of the engines in group A. I don't really know for sure exactly where they stand in relative ordering of strength but I think they are roughly the equal of any program out there other than Houdini, especially when considering the lack of MP for Komodo.

Komodo, in group B is probably the weakest engine of all due to lack of MP.

That's why it's best to have a fixed rule like Martin does. Martin did not decide where to put these engines but published in advance which group they would fall under based on result. You comment implies that Martin is rigging the result (or being arbitrary at the least) which is not fair to him.

[Graham Banks]

Funnily 4 strongest engines are in 2a group! If Komodo can't use multiple CPUs why punish others who can? Or maybe use more CPUs to permanent brain?

Are you sure about that? Vitruvius and Gull do not usually appear on the rating lists but are very strong clones and may be stronger than Most of the engines in group A. I don't really know for sure exactly where they stand in relative ordering of strength but I think they are roughly the equal of any program out there other than Houdini, especially when considering the lack of MP for Komodo.

Komodo, in group B is probably the weakest engine of all due to lack of MP.

That's why it's best to have a fixed rule like Martin does. Martin did not decide where to put these engines but published in advance which group they would fall under based on result. You comment implies that Martin is rigging the result (or being arbitrary at the least) which is not fair to him.

Code: Select all

CCRL 40/40 Rating List - Custom engine selection
439277 games played by 1291 programs, run by 18 testers
Ponder off, General books (up to 12 moves), 3-4-5 piece EGTB
Time control: Equivalent to 40 moves in 40 minutes on Athlon 64 X2 4600+ (2.4 GHz)
Computed on February 17, 2013 with Bayeselo based on 439'277 games
Tested by CCRL team, 2005-2013, http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/

Rank                Engine                 Elo   +    -   Score  AvOp  Games
  1 Houdini 3 64-bit 4CPU                3255  +18  -18  70.4% -131.8  1044
  2 Critter 1.6a 64-bit 4CPU             3177  +15  -15  58.5%  -51.0  1299
  3 Rybka 4.1 64-bit 4CPU                3163  +13  -13  57.4%  -44.1  1719
  4 Stockfish 2.3.1 64-bit 4CPU          3161  +21  -21  53.9%  -23.3   644
5-6 Komodo 5 64-bit                      3125  +11  -11  57.8%  -49.2  2382
5-6 Vitruvius 1.11C 64-bit 4CPU          3125  +18  -18  52.5%  -14.0   850
  7 Hiarcs 14 4CPU                       3080  +21  -21  43.1%  +40.7   641
    Hannibal 1.3 64-bit 4CPU             3074  +46  -46  46.8%  +16.9   139
    Chiron 1.5 64-bit 4CPU               3064  +56  -57  43.4%  +45.4    99
    Gull II 64-bit 4CPU                  3061  +86  -84  60.5%  -77.2    43
  8 Deep Junior 13.3 64-bit 4CPU         3041  +22  -23  39.2%  +70.4   627
  9 Spike 1.4 Leiden 4CPU                3037  +14  -14  42.2%  +48.7  1664
 10 Deep Shredder 12 64-bit OA On 4CPU   3034  +12  -12  48.6%   +9.1  2389
 11 Quazar 0.4 64-bit                    2905  +20  -20  48.3%  +12.5   770
    Scorpio 2.7.5 64-bit 4CPU            2863  +48  -48  50.0%   -2.4   132
 12 Gaviota 0.86 64-bit 4CPU             2855  +39  -38  67.7% -121.6   234

[Modern Times]

In other news, the new TCEC computer has been built, a dual CPU Intel Xeon with a total of 16 cores.
It will not be used yet since there are still single threaded engines left in the current Season.
If there are no single threaded engines left for Stage 3 this new hardware will be used from that point on.

Your tournament, so your rules and your decision. But a pity not to enable the SMP engines the chance to use extra cores ASAP. The single core engines, well they are in the minority, and if they don't SMP that is an issue they should deal with if they wish to.

[Graham Banks]

In other news, the new TCEC computer has been built, a dual CPU Intel Xeon with a total of 16 cores.
It will not be used yet since there are still single threaded engines left in the current Season.
If there are no single threaded engines left for Stage 3 this new hardware will be used from that point on.

Your tournament, so your rules and your decision. But a pity not to enable the SMP engines the chance to use extra cores ASAP. The single core engines, well they are in the minority, and if they don't SMP that is an issue they should deal with if they wish to.

Well, there's also the alternative view that one shouldn't change horses midstream.