Monday, January 1, 2018

Season 11 starts this week

Season 11 is about to start, the target date is Jan 3rd 2018.

You can see the announcement on Chessdom, including the participats list, as well as a more details on the new league format.

The divisions will be played from the lowest to the highest, gradually increasing the time control and the number of games per engine. The premier division will be a huge 12RR event with time control of 90+10 (336 games) and the superfinal with the usual 100 games and time control of 120+10. Each division will have promotions and relegations so I expect a lot of excitement.

This season the engine Fritz will make a first appearance, replacing its predecessor Rybka. Rybka has been on TCEC from season 1, it was very strong to begin with but has not been developed for a long time and is not considered very strong now.

The twitch channel is going to feature GM commentary for the first time, something the viewers always wanted. It should be interesting to see how that works out. Another first for the season is a new '3 crashes and out' rule, engines crashing three times in a division will be automatically relegated.

Here's to a happy new year and a great new TCEC season.

Go TCEC!

1 comment:

  1. The big 3 placed 1st, 2nd and 3rd on LTC, Rapid and Blitz, with Fire finishing 4th in all 3 events. The thing that interests me the most is that Chiron 251017 finished 5th in all of those events. It could well establish itself as the 5th best engine, in much the same way as Fire has as 4th best.

    I'm also keen to Laser 1.5 in action. It's supposed to be around 100 Elo stronger than Laser 1.4. What that will translate into in terms of performance, I don't know, but I like the idea that the little guys are upping their game. I suppose it's easier to gain large amounts of Elo when you're lower rated anyway.

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