Season 8 is here !!!

After a long wait it's finally here !
It's really been too long, though now that it's here will I have time for other things?

There are some novelties this season:

• The tournament left Martin Thoresen's appartment and is now hosted by Chessdom. I noticed that they even changed the meaning of TCEC = TOP Chess Engine Championship. For me Thoresen will always be part of TCEC...
• New hardware with 20 cores. I'm not a hardware expert, the talk in the chat has been that although there are more cores than before they are slower, and the overall speed benefit is small. There are rumors that the final will be played with 40 cores, we'll see.
• Time control for the first stage is 90 minutes per engine plus 30 seconds per move. This will increase in the next stages by 30 minutes per stage, up to a monstrous 180 minutes per engine in the final. I think this is too long - every game in the final will take 7-8 hours.
• The final will consist of 100 games. At a rate of 3 games per day it will take a month to finish - I told you it was too long...
• The first stage will have no preset openings. I really enjoyed the no opening stage in last season, very happy they continued with this idea. The next stage will have short 2-move openings, and after that 8-move openings will return.

The first stage is divided into two groups. Group 1a contains Komodo, Gull, and Fire, group 1b will feature Stockfish and Houdini.

May the best engine win, and fun for all !!