On-line engine blitz tourney August

[Joost Buijs]

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

Saturday August 27, 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]

There were not so many participants this time, there used to be twice as much in the past, I assume some people are still on vacation.

Belfish won the tournament with 6.5 points out of 9.
NightmareX, CSTalX, ArasanX and WaspX managed to get 6 points, with a performance rating also very close to each other.
Goldbar, Marvin, Rebel and WaDuuttie managed to get 5.5 points.

It is possible that Rebel lost a game because he was observing other games with the same account that he used to play in the tournament.

Code: Select all

:Tourney Players: Round 9 of 9 
:
:     Name              Rating Score Perfrm Upset  Results 
:     ----------------- ------ ----- ------ ------ ------- 
:  1 +BelFish           [3004]  6.5  [2982] [   0] +11b +06w =02w =04b =03w =05b +07w +10b =08w 
:  2 +NightmareX        [2914]  6.0  [2883] [  45] +13w =05w =01b +07b =04w =06b -03b +11w +12w 
:  3 +ChessSystemTalX   [2906]  6.0  [2843] [  57] =09b =11w =08b +12w =01b +13b +02w =04w =05b 
:  4 +ArasanX           [2860]  6.0  [2842] [ 122] +12w =07b =05w =01w =02b +15b =06w =03b +13w 
:  5 +WaspX             [2831]  6.0  [2892] [ 209] +15w =02b =04b =10w +11b =01w =08b +06b =03w 
:  6 +Goldbar           [2850]  5.5  [2667] [  37] +16b -01b +14w =13w +09b =02w =04b -05w +17b 
:  7 +Marvin            [2753]  5.5  [2681] [ 104] +17b =04w =10b -02w =08w +09b -01b +16w +14b 
:  8 +Rebel             [2678]  5.5  [2650] [ 479] +18w =10b =03w -11w =07b +14b =05w +15w =01b
:  9 +WaDuuttie         [2560]  5.5  [2467] [ 173] =03w -13b +16w +14b -06w -07w +18b +17w +15b 
: 10 +rpiRofChade       [2856]  5.0  [2588] [   0] +14b =08w =07w =05b =13w -11w +17b -01w +16b 
: 11 +atomNightmare     [2596]  5.0  [2692] [ 497] -01w =03b +12w +08b -05w +10b =13w -02b +18b 
: 12 +Nalwald           [2375]  5.0  [2444] [   0] -04b +17w -11b -03b +16w +18w +15b +14w -02b 
: 13 +atomGoldbar       [2577]  4.5  [2600] [ 284] -02b +09w +15w =06b =10b -03w =11b +18w -04b 
: 14 +Prophet           [2243]  3.0  [2308] [   0] -10w +18b -06b -09w +17b -08w +16w -12b -07w 
: 15 +CTdccc            [2172]  3.0  [2287] [  70] -05b +16w -13b +17w +18b -04w -12w -08b -09w 
: 16 +atomFloyd         [2242]  2.0  [2163] [   0] -06w -15b -09b +18w -12b +17w -14b -07b -10w
: 17 +Skiull            [1975]  1.0  [2104] [   0] -07w -12b +18w -15b -14w -16b -10w -09b -06w 
: 18 -Skipper           [1689]  0.0  [1979] [   0] -08b -14w -17b -16b -15w -12b -09w -13b -11w 
:
:     Average Rating    2560.1 

[Rebel]

It is possible that Rebel lost a game because he was observing other games with the same account that he used to play in the tournament.

Indeed.

In a previous tournament I did not participate but watched the games of Chris. I wasn't aware you have to turn that off when playing yourself, quite an expensive lesson.

BTW, should you have own engine on "OFF" or "ON" wirh "follow"?

[Joost Buijs]

It is possible that Rebel lost a game because he was observing other games with the same account that he used to play in the tournament.

Indeed.

In a previous tournament I did not participate but watched the games of Chris. I wasn't aware you have to turn that off when playing yourself, quite an expensive lesson.

BTW, should you have own engine on "OFF" or "ON" wirh "follow"?

It doesn't matter, I never experienced any problem when using "follow" or "observe" with my engine "ON", only when the engine starts playing it messes things up. Of course this is a software problem, either a problem in the server or in the GUI. The server source is 20 years old, written in such a way that it is almost impossible to maintain, I don't want to spend time on it.

[hgm]

It is a client problem. The server just sends all new positions of all games you are playing or observing, labeling them with the game number. But WinBoard normally feeds all such board and preceding moves to the engine, in zippy mode. You can prevent that by setting WinBoard to 'background observe' mode. Then it just stores observed boards in the background, and only shows them when you press the right mouse button. Or you can also switch to 'dual board' mode, to see the played and observed game side by side.

These features were added mainly for the benefit of bughouse, where it is important to keep an eye on your partner's game.

[Henk]

Skipper doing much better. 18th spot. Never ended so high. Maybe in the future it gets to top ten. Who knows.

[Joost Buijs]

Skipper doing much better. 18th spot. Never ended so high. Maybe in the future it gets to top ten. Who knows.

At least it plays without problems. It is just a matter of time to improve your engine.

If the number of participants drops below a certain point, we'll probably stop with this tournament all together.
Nowadays most people seem to have more interest in tournaments like TCEC and CCC, and I can't blame them.

[Henk]

Skipper doing much better. 18th spot. Never ended so high. Maybe in the future it gets to top ten. Who knows.

At least it plays without problems. It is just a matter of time to improve your engine.

If the number of participants drops below a certain point, we'll probably stop with this tournament all together.
Nowadays most people seem to have more interest in tournaments like TCEC and CCC, and I can't blame them.

Ok then better not hope Skipper gets to top ten.

[chrisw]

Skipper doing much better. 18th spot. Never ended so high. Maybe in the future it gets to top ten. Who knows.

At least it plays without problems. It is just a matter of time to improve your engine.

If the number of participants drops below a certain point, we'll probably stop with this tournament all together.
Nowadays most people seem to have more interest in tournaments like TCEC and CCC, and I can't blame them.

That would be a shame because it’s the only engine authors tournament there is. Monthly gives a target to aim at.

I have a tentative theory that the newer recent engines are done by people more interested in the software engineering than in the chess, so individual games and so on are not so interesting to them.

[jdart]

I thought Arasan-Wasp was an interesting game. I don't always watch these live online but I was watching this one.

It was a typical unbalanced Gruenfeld. I thought Black was better for a good part of the game. The pawn on the 7th rank was concerning. But Arasan eventually sacrificed the exchange, and the resulting endgame was a draw.

[pgn][Event "?"]
[Site "nightmare-chess.nl"]
[Date "2022.08.27"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Arasan"]
[Black "WaspX"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "D80"]
[WhiteElo "2859"]
[BlackElo "2832"]
[TimeControl "300+1"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Bg5 Ne4 5. Bf4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 dxc4
7. e4 b5 8. a4 c6 9. Qb1 a6 10. axb5 cxb5 11. Bxc4 bxc4 12. Bxb8 Bg7
13. Bg3 e5 14. dxe5 O-O 15. Nf3 a5 16. Nd4 a4 17. O-O Qa5 18. Qc2 Bd7
19. f4 Rfb8 20. h3 a3 21. Ra2 Ba4 22. Qd2 Bb3 23. Raa1 a2 24. Kh2 Rb7
25. h4 Re8 26. h5 Bh6 27. Qe1 Rd7 28. Bh4 Bg7 29. Nc6 Qb5 30. Nb4 h6
31. hxg6 fxg6 32. Bf2 g5 33. g3 gxf4 34. gxf4 Bxe5 35. fxe5 Qxe5+
36. Bg3 Qxe4 37. Qxe4 Rxe4 38. Bf4 Rf7 39. Kg3 Re6 40. Rf2 Rd7
41. Kg4 Kh7 42. Kf5 Re8 43. Rh2 Rf7+ 44. Kg4 Re6 45. Rah1 Kg8 46. Nd5
Rd7 47. Rd2 Kf7 48. Rf1 Kg6 49. Kg3 Kg7 50. Ra1 h5 51. Kh4 Re4
52. Kg5 Kf7 53. Bb8 Ke6 54. Nf4+ Ke7 55. Rh2 Kd8 56. Nxh5 Rd5+
57. Kg6 Kc8 58. Nf6 Re6 59. Ba7 Ra5 60. Bd4 Re7 61. Nh7 Kc7 62. Ng5
Re8 63. Kf7 Kd7 64. Rd2 Rd5 65. Raxa2 Bxa2 66. Rxa2 Rf5+ 67. Kg6 Rf4
68. Ra5 Kc6 69. Rc5+ Kd7 70. Rd5+ Kc6 71. Rc5+ Kd7 72. Be5 Rf1
73. Bg7 Rf4 74. Ra5 Rg8 75. Ra7+ Kc6 76. Ne6 Rf3 77. Nd4+ Kb6
78. Nxf3 Kxa7 79. Kf7 Rd8 80. Nd4 Rd7+ 81. Kf6 Kb6 82. Bf8 Rd5
83. Ke6 Rh5 84. Bb4 Kc7 85. Nf5 Kb6 86. Ng3 Rh3 87. Bd6 Kc6 88. Bf4
Rh8 89. Ke5 Rd8 90. Ne4 Rd3 91. Bg5 Rd5+ 92. Ke6 Rd7 93. Be3 Rd3
94. Bd4 Rh3 95. Nf6 Rh6 96. Ke5 Rh3 97. Ng4 Rh5+ 98. Ke6 Rh3 99. Ke5
Rh4 100. Ne3 Rh5+ 101. Ke4 Rh4+ 102. Ke5 Rh5+ 103. Ke4 Rh4+ 104. Kf5
Rh5+ 105. Kg4 Rh1 106. Kf5 Rh5+ 107. Kf4 Rh4+ 108. Ng4 Rh1 109. Nf2
Rh4+ 110. Ke3 Kd5 111. Bf6 Rh6 112. Bg5 Re6+ 113. Kf4 Kc5 114. Ne4+
Kd5 115. Nf6+ Kc6 116. Kf5 Re1 117. Ng4 Kb5 118. Kf6 Ka4 119. Bd2
Rf1+ 120. Ke6 Kb3 121. Ne5 Rd1 122. Nf3 Rxd2 123. Nxd2+ Kxc3
124. Nxc4 1/2-1/2[/pgn]