TCEC is back after a short cup event and a short break, Season 18 has started.
This season the hardware is ready from the start, CPU and GPU servers. The league format changed again. There will be a qualification league, and then leagues 3, 2 and 1, followed by the premier league and superfinal. The lower leagues will include 10 engines that will play one DRR, the premier league will include 8 engines that will play 3 DRRs. Two engines will promote and two engines will relegate between the leagues.
The orgranizers have decided in season 18 to allow only engines under active development to participate. I find this a bit disappointing. I have nothing against new engines and I'm in favor of improving them, but I think that we shouldn't throw away past achievments. If an engine reached its final form a year ago and it is still competitive, why should it not be allowed to compete? I can understand if there is a technical problem, such as hardware compatibility. Other than that I think an engine should play until it relegates out.
The engines playing in the qualification league are:
- Played in season 17: Counter, FabChess, Tucano, Asymptote, ChessFighter
- Returning after missing season 17: Bagatur, Monolith, chess22k
- New engines: Combusken, Weiss
Hi
ReplyDeleteI heard that they actually brought out Houdini because he's a clone of Stockfish. I don't know how true this is ...