On-line engine blitz tourney March

[Joost Buijs]

The monthly on-line engine blitz tournament for March will take place on:

Saturday, March 21, 3:00 PM EST (Boston time) 20:00 CET (Amsterdam time)

To connect, use the following command:

winboard -zp -ics -icshost nightmare-chess.nl -icshelper timeseal -fcp ENGINE.exe -fd ENGINEFOLDER -autoKibitz -keepAlive 30
(For UCI engines, add -fUCI)

If you don’t have an account, please submit a request to admin@nightmare-chess.nl.

Our tournament manager will be Eendje (Lisebeth @ ICC).

The format will be 9 rounds, Swiss system, 5/1 time control. (or 11 rounds 4/1, see below)

Lisebeth prefers to start the tournament on the hour, so please log in 15 minutes early. Late entries are not supported.

PS.

Following the server crashes from the past two tournaments, I fixed a number of bugs and adjusted things that looked suspicious.
Several in-house tournaments of 11 and 12 rounds with a maximum of 16 participants then ran flawlessly, so hopefully the crashes are now a thing of the past.

This Saturday, we want to play a test tournament of 11 rounds with a time control of 4/1 (provided there are enough participants).
If the server does crash again, it will be very difficult to determine which combination of factors is causing the problem, let's hope that this doesn't happen again.

[Joost Buijs]

After all the fixes the server seems to be stable again, however there are many things that still could be improved.

Belfish, PlentyChess and Viper ended on top with 7.5 points, well done!

Code: Select all

:Tourney Players: Round 11 of 11 
:
:     Name              Rating Score Perfrm Upset  Results 
:     ----------------- ------ ----- ------ ------ ------- 
:  1 +BelFish           [2965]   7.5  [2895] [   0] +15w =12w =13b =04b +06w =02b +05w =03w =11b +14w =07b 
:  2 +PlentyChessRB     [2906]   7.5  [2896] [  29] +09w +13w =12b +05b =04w =01w =03b +06w =14b =07w =11b 
:  3 +Viper             [2662]   7.5  [2819] [ 688] +20w =04b =06w +18b =11b =14w =02w =01b =05w +09b +13w 
:  4 +NightmareX        [2854]   6.5  [2814] [  98] +17w =03w +08b =01w =02b =05b =11w =13b =06b =12w =14b 
:  5 +WaspX             [2830]   6.5  [2793] [  41] +10w +14w +07b -02w +09b =04w -01b =11w =03b =13w =06b 
:  6 +Marvin            [2781]   6.5  [2735] [ 113] +18w +08w =03b =11w -01b =09w +15b -02b =04w +16b =05w 
:  7 +atomNightmare     [2703]   6.5  [2622] [ 357] +22w =11b -05w -16b +19w =12b +20w =15w +17b =02b =01w 
:  8 +atomGoldbar       [2580]   6.5  [2477] [ 154] +23w -06b -04w -14b +21b +10w +24b =09w =15b =11w +18w
:  9 +WaDuuttie         [2422]   6.5  [2516] [ 432] -02b +21w +19b +17w -05w =06b =12w =08b +24b -03w +23b 
: 10 +Caligula          [2359]   6.5  [2402] [ 249] -05b +24w +20b =12w -14w -08b +16b -17w +19b +23w +22w 
: 11 +ArasanX           [2888]   6.0  [2747] [  47] +16w =07w =14b =06b =03w =15w =04b =05b =01w =08b =02w 
: 12 +Goldbar           [2770]   6.0  [2647] [ 207] +19w =01b =02w =10b =16w =07w =09b =14w =13b =04b =15w 
: 13 +Lunar             [2725]   6.0  [2678] [ 258] +21w -02b =01w =15b +17b +16w =14b =04w =12w =05b -03b 
: 14 +Cheng             [2659]   6.0  [2712] [ 423] +24w -05b =11w +08w +10b =03b =13w =12b =02w -01b =04w 
: 15 +EveAnn            [2477]   6.0  [2556] [ 639] -01b =19w +23b =13w +18w =11b -06w =07b =08w +22b =12b 
: 16 +Arminius          [2403]   5.5  [2430] [ 483] -11b +22w =21b +07w =12b -13b -10w +18b =20w -06w +24b
: 17 +Dirty             [2395]   5.5  [2327] [   0] -04b +20w +22b -09b -13w =18b +23w +10b -07w =21b =19w 
: 18 +TestEuwe          [2298]   5.5  [2289] [  48] -06b +23w +24b -03w -15b =17w +21b -16w +22b +20w -08b 
: 19 +Knightx           [2245]   5.0  [2237] [ 191] -12b =15b -09w +21w -07b -20b +22w +23b -10w +24w =17b 
: 20 +rpiArminius       [2082]   5.0  [2224] [ 362] -03b -17b -10w +23w +24b +19w -07b +22w =16b -18b =21w 
: 21 +atomFloyd         [2145]   3.5  [2110] [ 254] -13b -09b =16w -19b -08w -22b -18w +24w +23b =17w =20b 
: 22 +Barbarossa        [2090]   2.5  [2025] [  55] -07b -16b -17w +24w =23b +21w -19b -20b -18w -15w -10b 
: 23 +MicroMaxXb        [1674]   1.0  [1944] [ 320] -08b -18b -15w -20b =22w =24w -17b -19w -21w -10b -09w 
: 24 +Gyatso            [1898]   0.5  [1905] [   0] -14b -10b -18w -22b -20w =23b -08w -21b -09w -19b -16w
:
:     Average Rating    2492.1

Euwe and Gyatso were running single thread, with SMP they would probably do somewhat better.
Micromax managed to get two draws, amazing!

I hope to see you all next time.

[Modern Times]

PlentyChess was looking good for outright victory, but then the last 2 rounds were short 3-fold rep draws - 21 moves against ArasanX for example. In these tournaments, anything can happen !

[Andres Valverde]

Thx for the tourney, I'm glad all ran just OK

However, I missed kibitzes from some opponents ....

[Modern Times]

Yep, some don't kibitz.

Hopefully the problems have been sorted, however unless we know what the exact cause was there are unfortunately no guarantees.

[Joost Buijs]

Hopefully the problems have been sorted, however unless we know what the exact cause was there are unfortunately no guarantees.

My guess is that we'll never know.

Mamer and chessd are separate processes, both went down, so it looks like the OS (Linux Mint 22.3) crashed, in the mean time there were many updates, and I replaced the custom Linux Mint kernel with the latest main-line kernel, it all looks stable now.

Mamer and chessd are both very buggy, I fixed the most obvious things, but I'm sure that there are still many 'hidden' bugs that will crop up now and then.

Fixing that old messy software completely is undoable, the best option would be to rewrite it from scratch in C++ or Rust, if I were younger I would have probably done this.

[Joost Buijs]

PlentyChess was looking good for outright victory, but then the last 2 rounds were short 3-fold rep draws - 21 moves against ArasanX for example. In these tournaments, anything can happen !

PlentyChess has a 1 point higher performance rating, so in my view it won this tournament.

When the number of points is equal Mamer sorts the list depending upon Elo-rating, maybe it's better to use the performance-rating or Sonneborn-Berger (SB-score) to determine ranking.

I don't know what Mamer means with 'Upset', I have to look at the source to see what it means, maybe I will remove this column and add something more meaningful like 'SB'.