TCEC trying a new league format, allowing engines with only 4k

[Deberger]

[Mike Sherwin]

TCEC trying a new league format, allowing engines with only 4k in (code or binary) size.

Does not sound like a good idea. Those authors that know APL or J programming languages could pack a lot more functionality in 4k of code than someone using most other languages. And the x86 Tiny C Compiler can make very small binaries compared to most other compilers. So if this is done, using the Tiny C Compiler should be mandatory but the authors that do not know C might not agree.

[JoAnnP38]

Will the host server be connected to the internet?

[dangi12012]

Some cool loopholes:
https://codegolf.meta.stackexchange.com ... by-default


Assume this:
My language is ChessLang. I am the Inventor.
Oh it has a main function. What does it do? It is a full chess engine. No more code required. Actually it can even be a blank file and when its fed to ChessLang compiler it will produce a chess engine.

[Modern Times]

I think what a nice change would be is if they ran a tournament under more "normal" conditions, so say 32 threads maximum. And a single RTX GPU.

I get that they run 200+ cores so that the engines are the best they can possibly be, and to provide something that no-one else is able to do themselves. That really is something amazing.

I also get that there are some ratings lists already that have 16 threads - but probably not 32.

But under TCEC conditions, TCEC hand-picked openings etc etc, it would be good to see such a tournament on hardware that an average consumer can aspire to, IN ADDITION to the high-end stuff that they run.

[thomasahle]

This is great! The engines they chose: ic4, 4ku, we4k, pygone and sunfish are all open source very readable. Not obfuscated at all.

I think more engine developers should try to limit their code base size, so they can focus on the parts of the engine that are actually important.