Chess.com 2018 computer chess championship

[MikeGL]

You are correct. Found the link. Thanks.

Thanks for this thread.
Looks like a very interesting tournament.
Have some kind and generous souls here created a game archive or a PGN file complete with games from this [chess. com] tournament?

At the end of page 7 in this thread, Ted alias AdminX, provided two inofficial links with the full info pgn files.
Beware though that not every GUI can load this file completely, since game 424 or 425 in that collection
(including unterminated and replayed games) has 395 moves! (LC0 vs. Komodo)

Guenther

[kranium]

You are correct. Found the link. Thanks.

Thanks for this thread.
Looks like a very interesting tournament.
Have some kind and generous souls here created a game archive or a PGN file complete with games from this [chess. com] tournament?

At the end of page 7 in this thread, Ted alias AdminX, provided two inofficial links with the full info pgn files.
Beware though that not every GUI can load this file completely, since game 424 or 425 in that collection
(including unterminated and replayed games) has 395 moves! (LC0 vs. Komodo)

Guenther

There's also a download button under the main board game moves, with FEN, and options to download current game or full tournament
To download one specific game, select if from the schedule (load it into the main board), and choose 'Download current game'

[Guenther]

You are correct. Found the link. Thanks.

Thanks for this thread.
Looks like a very interesting tournament.
Have some kind and generous souls here created a game archive or a PGN file complete with games from this [chess. com] tournament?

At the end of page 7 in this thread, Ted alias AdminX, provided two inofficial links with the full info pgn files.
Beware though that not every GUI can load this file completely, since game 424 or 425 in that collection
(including unterminated and replayed games) has 395 moves! (LC0 vs. Komodo)

Guenther

There's also a download button under the main board game moves, with FEN, and options to download current game or full tournament
To download one specific game, select if from the schedule (load it into the main board), and choose 'Download current game'

You must be joking? A bit late that feedback isn't it?
Scroll back to page 5 or so in this thread, don't you feel a deja vu?
Me and others asked for a working download with not only the naked moves.
(or working at all, because the complete pgn just threw an exceptional network error for weeks)

You said you would (try to) fix the download asap, ten days later it still was not working
and Ted offered a few working links from the html source.
(which I was too lazy to do)

Why should anyone who knows this, bother again with a long time not working link?

[chessdev]

Thank you everyone for your thoughts! We're currently looking into several options to deal with the situation at hand. There are obviously some irregularities happening and we want to produce the best possible event for fans and developers. For now, the event will continue on with what we have going (Good news is, the fans are loving it! Next, we'll try to get the developers to love it too ). Our stage 1 of CCCC1 ends in about 48 hours. We'll try to have some kind of announcement by Monday, and then start Stage 2 sometime soon after that. We may not be able to fully address this until our next event (CCCC2), though that won't start for several weeks anyway. I appreciate your patience.

[chessdev]

I wanted to share one more thing: I understand that several people raised concerns about the event settings before we started - including Norm! I’d like to explain why I continued on with the initial plan anyway. As far as I personally understood, the warnings were that using ponder would result in slightly lower strength by the engines as they would have access to fewer threads, and the potential benefit of the possibly ponder hit would not make up for the loss of available threads during the engine's turn to move. To my understanding, there were general concerns, but nothing that approximated some measure of instability or potentially impaired engine functionality. If someone had said this might produce blunders in situations where the engines wouldn’t have their share of resources, or some engines would have a measurable disadvantage, then I would have DEFINITELY reacted differently. I thought that people were only raising awareness that engines would play somewhat weaker, not that they would possibly make a depth 1 move! My apologies if I missed any message that would have made this more clear beforehand.

Also, I want to go on the record and state that we did many months worth of testing. At no point did we notice any unusual behavior by any of the engines which would have prompted a deeper investigation. And, we were a fair way through the event before it was noticed and then investigated here. It was only through a more forensic evaluation by Andrew that these issues were discovered. (Thank you!) And now that they have been, we are weighing our options.

I'd like to finish off by saying a few thanks. Thank you to everyone who has cared enough to notice this event at all. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to computer chess through ideas, engines, and other events. And, thank you to Norm. I've put Norm in an incredibly difficult position here. I've asked him to do things that have been unconventional and against his recommendations, and now he's catching heat defending positions that I put him in - and doing it while also keeping eyes on a 24/7 event. So please do me a favor and direct any criticisms you have about this event to me, and any appreciation you have for this event to the man who's fingers and brain are actually doing all of the hard work.

This first event is just the start. We are learning, growing, and improving. Every comment here, in the event chat, and from other feedback channels is a moment in the river that will polish this stone. We tossed in our first best effort and while is far from perfect, it's made a splash worth noticing!

I'll post a followup as soon as I have more clear answers.

[AndrewGrant]

I wanted to share one more thing: I understand that several people raised concerns about the event settings before we started - including Norm! I’d like to explain why I continued on with the initial plan anyway. As far as I personally understood, the warnings were that using ponder would result in slightly lower strength by the engines as they would have access to fewer threads, and the potential benefit of the possibly ponder hit would not make up for the loss of available threads during the engine's turn to move. To my understanding, there were general concerns, but nothing that approximated some measure of instability or potentially impaired engine functionality. If someone had said this might produce blunders in situations where the engines wouldn’t have their share of resources, or some engines would have a measurable disadvantage, then I would have DEFINITELY reacted differently. I thought that people were only raising awareness that engines would play somewhat weaker, not that they would possibly make a depth 1 move! My apologies if I missed any message that would have made this more clear beforehand.

Thank you for sharing this. While this forum raised concerns, I think its fair to say none of us were quite aware of how those issues would materialize. We are all, to some degree, blindsided by the issues that popped up.

I'm confident that these issues will be resolved, and that CCCC will becoming stronger in the near future.

Thanks for reaching out here, Erik.

[megamau]

Great Post Erik.

That is how I am used to work in a professional environment.
Polite, calm, acknowledging the negatives but focusing on the positives and on the improvements.

Thanks for CCCC.

[chessdev]

Hello all. Update time. After extensive discussions, we have decided to turn Ponder OFF at this time (for Stage 2). We recognize that there are some irregularities with how threads are being allocated in some engines and situations, and until we figure that out, we are going to play it safe.

That said, we believe the games have been incredibly entertaining, and the outcome is more or less expected, which leads us to believe that this was not a meaningful issue in the scheme of things. But we do want to find solutions going forward. We are looking at options for things we can do on our end to ensure that each engine gets the processing power it deserves. That may mean that Ponder will be turned back ON for Stage 3. We will see.

Additionally, we will also be providing the Arena logs for Stage 2 and beyond. Links will be provided when Stage 2 begins. As for Stage 1 logs, some have been already provided, and we may reconsider releasing all of Stage 1 in the future. Right now we need to be fully focused on the rest of the event.

Thank you all again for your insights and patience!

[CMCanavessi]

Hello all. Update time. After extensive discussions, we have decided to turn Ponder OFF at this time (for Stage 2). We recognize that there are some irregularities with how threads are being allocated in some engines and situations, and until we figure that out, we are going to play it safe.

That said, we believe the games have been incredibly entertaining, and the outcome is more or less expected, which leads us to believe that this was not a meaningful issue in the scheme of things. But we do want to find solutions going forward. We are looking at options for things we can do on our end to ensure that each engine gets the processing power it deserves. That may mean that Ponder will be turned back ON for Stage 3. We will see.

Additionally, we will also be providing the Arena logs for Stage 2 and beyond. Links will be provided when Stage 2 begins. As for Stage 1 logs, some have been already provided, and we may reconsider releasing all of Stage 1 in the future. Right now we need to be fully focused on the rest of the event.

Thank you all again for your insights and patience!

Just to clarify, ponder will be off and thread count for each engine will double, right? Otherwise it makes little sense.

[NJ_Greg]

First, Kudos to Erik (ChessDev) & co. for a very entertaining event, and to AndrewGrant for surfacing an important issue.

Now, a question. I've seen comments (in the cccc chat) alluding to a bug in Leela's pondering algorithm. I'm just curious: can anyone explain it for me?