Excellent job

[Laskos]

This is really a wonderful book

You've GOT to be KIDDING !
A weaker, sillier Book I have yet to see.
Your chess knowledge may be good, Mr Tsvetkov, but you have NO idea how strong chess opening Books have become !
Why, using one of the latest Sicilian.ctg commercial books its possible to DESTROY even a strong opponent, WITHOUT even ONCE coming out of Book !
Strong Books like the Sicilian series and the l33t books have practically made Engines obsolete....I kid you NOT !
I remember going over one of the present TCEC games where Komodo lost to Stockfish ; I almost fell of my chair LAUGHING at the ridiculous Opening moves that the TCEC book was forcing the hapless Komodo to play !

Try on of the latest commercial .ctg Books for yourself, Mr Tsvetkov, and you will see how they WIPE the floor with the TCEC book !

Books can be judged in more than one way, Anil. The openings used in TCEC serve a different purpose than those found in Sicilian Avenger.

Sure, "made Engines obsolete...." is not that TCEC is about.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

Why was stage 4 so interesting in terms of openings?

Nelson, Erik, Adam and Martin will ecuse me, I would not like to interfere in any way, especially as the final is proceeding, just some bare statistics, maybe someone will find that curious:

Out of 72 games played in stage 4, in half of the games right after the opening on move 8 there were 4 central e and d pawns still available. (2 white and 2 black); in 28 games on move 8 there were still 3 central pawns left (one white and 2 black or vice-versa); and in only 8 games there were only 2 white and black central e and d pawns.

I did not draw exact statistics, however it is more than evident that the longest games were that with 4 central pawns, followed by games with 3 central pawns, and the shortest games were that with only 2 central pawns left.

I am sure similar would be true of exchanged piece material.

Fist 6 games of the final: 2 games were left out of book with 4 central e and d pawns; 2 games with 3 central pawns; and 2 games with just 2 central e and d pawns.

Total length of the 2 games with 4 central pawns - 107 moves
Total length of the 2 games with 3 central pawns - 93 moves
Total length of the 2 games with just 2 central pawns - 81 moves

Again, I apologise to anyone who might feel offended in any way, just my bare statistical observations.

We will see how the superfinal continues...

[shrapnel]

The openings used in TCEC serve a different purpose than those found in Sicilian Avenger.

I know, Mr Hair.
Master Om explained on the Rybka Forum that the idea is basically to create an "uneven" playing field and to see how the Engines cope in difficult conditions ; a concept I'm not comfortable with.
I think even Sedat Canbaz (whose Perfect 2014 .ctg is EXCELLENT, even though its only 8 moves long) is unhappy with this theory and postulates that the playing field should be LEVEL after 8 moves or so and THEN it should be observed which Engine goes on to get the advantage or words to that effect.
Seems quite logical to me.
Still, if people don't like the idea of strong Opening Books, I should think it would be much more fair to have the Engines play WITHOUT an Opening Book, right from the beginning !
This would certainly avoid situations like in the above-mentioned Komodo-Stockfish game, where I observed that BOTH strong Opening Books AND Komodo Engine were acutely unhappy about the perfectly ridiculous moves that Nelson's Book (so-called) was forcing it to play !

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

A bit more stats about piece material.

Out of 72 games in stage 4, in 60 games the opening left full set of pieces on the board; in 6 games one minor piece each side has been exchanged, and in another 6 games a mutual attack of pieces of same power could be observed. (kngith attacking kngiht, bishop attacking bishop, etc., supposing the probability of imminent exchanges)

So that, in some 85% of the games there were no pieces exchanged or mutually attacked.

Looking at the first 6 final games:

2 games show the full set of pieces
2 games show 2 pieces for each side exchanged
2 games show mutual piece attacks (Nd5 attacking Ne7 in the fust game)

Small sample so far, but oly in 33% of cases there were no exchanges and no mutual attacks.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

Looking at the first 10 opening positions, by now it is already clear there has been a major shift in openings from stage 4 to the final.

While in stage 4 predominated closed-prone and symmetric-prone openings, in the current final the shift is clearly not only to a neutral, but also to a more open play.

In almost every position, there are some piece or pawn tensions in the center, many positions are with reduced material, and almost half start with 2 central pawns missing. This supposes more open play, but also earlier climaxes and shorter games.

This is also good news to the SF team (did not they bribe the TCEC book team?) , and, seemingly, not such good news for Komodo.

And indeed, in the first 10 games SF has the advantage, and I think the trend will continue, unless later positions shift again towards more closed play, which I do not believe.

Only if I could, I would have changed my bet from clear Komodo to uncertain, or even SF favourite, but I am certain neither Kai, and even less Milos, would agree with that.

2 beers are 2 beers after all!