On-line engine blitz tourney September

[Joost Buijs]

The monthly on-line engine blitz tourney for September will take place on:

Saturday September 24, 2:00 PM EST (Boston time), 20:00 CET (Amsterdam time)

To connect:

winboard -zp -ics -icshost nightmare-chess.nl -icshelper timeseal -fcp ENGINE.exe -fd ENGINEFOLDER -autoKibitz -keepAlive 30

(for UCI engines, add -fUCI)

People without account can submit a request for an account to admin@nightmare-chess.nl

Our tournament manager will be: Eendje (Lisebeth at ICC)

The format will be: 9 rounds Swiss 5/1

Lisebeth likes to start the tournament on top of the hour, please try to be on-line 15 minutes prior to tournament start, late joins are not supported.

[Joost Buijs]

The tourney ran this time without problems, no crashing engines, no disconnects.

As usual Belfish won the tournament with 7 out of 9, even on small hardware it is still very strong.
Nightmare and Wasp managed to score the same number of points as Belfish, which is not bad at all.
Goldbar and Marvin both scored 6.5 points and Amoeba managed to get 5.5

Ray Banks noted that it would be better not to let POS join because it is so weak that all engines playing it get a point for free, he is right, next time we won't let it join.

Code: Select all

:Tourney Players: Round 9 of 9 
:
:     Name              Rating Score Perfrm Upset  Results 
:     ----------------- ------ ----- ------ ------ ------- 
:  1 +BelFish           [3003]  7.0  [2915] [   0] +09b +06w =03w =04b =05b +07w =02b +13w +12b 
:  2 +NightmareX        [2912]  7.0  [2889] [  45] +14b +07w =05w =03b +13w +08b =01w =04b +09w 
:  3 +WaspX             [2840]  7.0  [2830] [ 117] +15w +13w =01b =02w =06b +09w =05b +07w +14b 
:  4 +Goldbar           [2844]  6.5  [2784] [ 113] +10w =12w +06b =01w =07b =05w +13b =02w +15b 
:  5 -Marvin            [2753]  6.5  [2856] [ 292] +11b +08w =02b =07b =01w =04b =03w +06w +13b 
:  6 +Amoeba            [2626]  5.5  [2602] [ 107] +16w -01b -04w +09b =03w +10b +08w -05b +18b 
:  7 +atomNightmare     [2602]  5.0  [2549] [ 196] +17w -02b +12b =05w =04w -01b +15w -03b +20w 
:  8 +WaDuuttie         [2559]  5.0  [2420] [  23] +20w -05b +11w +12w +14b -02w -06b -09w +16b
:  9 +ZappaRB           [2511]  5.0  [2567] [ 119] -01w +16b +17w -06w +15b -03b +12w +08b -02b 
: 10 +atomFloyd         [2237]  5.0  [2148] [   0] -04b +18w -14b +16w +19b -06w -11w +20b +17w 
: 11 +feligres          [2153]  5.0  [2227] [  84] -05w +20b -08b +17w +18b -13w +10b -12w +19w 
: 12 +atomGoldbar       [2582]  4.5  [2429] [ 131] +18w =04b -07w -08b +16b +14w -09b +11b -01w 
: 13 +TheBaron          [2569]  4.0  [2476] [   0] +19w -03b +15w +14w -02b +11b -04w -01b -05w 
: 14 +Myrddin           [2323]  4.0  [2269] [   0] -02w +17b +10w -13b -08w -12b +20w +19b -03w 
: 15 +CTdccc            [2176]  4.0  [2275] [   0] -03b +19w -13b +18w -09w +17b -07b +16w -04w 
: 16 +Abbess            [2048]  3.0  [2052] [   0] -06b -09w +19b -10b -12w +20b +18w -15b -08w
: 17 +Skiull            [1962]  3.0  [1976] [   0] -07b -14w -09b -11b +20w -15w +19b +18w -10b 
: 18 +atomSargon        [1824]  1.5  [1838] [   0] -12b -10b +20w -15b -11w =19w -16b -17b -06w 
: 19 -Skipper           [1683]  1.5  [1818] [  70] -13b -15b -16w +20b -10w =18b -17w -14w -11b 
: 20 +POS               [1477]  0.0  [1754] [   0] -08b -11w -18b -19w -17b -16w -14b -10w -07b 
:
:     Average Rating    2384.2

[Ras]

next time we won't let it join.

So what will be the solution in case of an odd number of participants?

[Modern Times]

next time we won't let it join.

So what will be the solution in case of an odd number of participants?

There have been instances before with an odd number of participants.

[Joost Buijs]

next time we won't let it join.

So what will be the solution in case of an odd number of participants?

Probably removing Sargon as the next weakest engine. In the past there were a lot more engines in the middle of the pack, e.g. the engines of HGM to name a few, and there were others.

[Modern Times]

Well, if an odd number of participants was a problem I'd have withdrawn Zappa.

[Joost Buijs]

Well, if an odd number of participants was a problem I'd have withdrawn Zappa.

Well, it was no problem at all, we shouldn't have added POS and Sargon. The point is that we need more engines in the middle of the pack to make the tournament interesting for everyone. At the moment the gap between the top and the weaker engines is too big.

[JVMerlino]

Well, it was no problem at all, we shouldn't have added POS and Sargon. The point is that we need more engines in the middle of the pack to make the tournament interesting for everyone. At the moment the gap between the top and the weaker engines is too big.

Indeed. In the final round, Myrddin played Wasp, who is about 750 elo stronger and had 2 more points going into that game. Pretty tough matchup in the last round of a Swiss tournament.

[Joost Buijs]

Well, it was no problem at all, we shouldn't have added POS and Sargon. The point is that we need more engines in the middle of the pack to make the tournament interesting for everyone. At the moment the gap between the top and the weaker engines is too big.

Indeed. In the final round, Myrddin played Wasp, who is about 750 elo stronger and had 2 more points going into that game. Pretty tough matchup in the last round of a Swiss tournament.

This is a well known problem with a Swiss tournament when the number of participants is low. The only "honest" tournament is a double round robin, but that would take ages.

There are many new engines with a rating in the vicinity of 2500, it would be nice if we could add some of them. FICS and ICC are a thing of the past, my guess is that most "new" engine authors don't even know that something like this exists, nowadays it is all about TCEC, CCC, LiChess and Chess.com.

[Modern Times]

The unpredictability and surprises of the swiss pairings actually adds to the enjoyment, I'm happy with that. But in this tournament I was very unhappy at 9 engines being given a free point for being lucky enough to be matched against POS. And ZappaRB was not one of them