Third place is for Gull 2.2 by Vadim Demichev with 12,0/19. It started as 8th seeded, but showed spectacular ability outplaying all lower rated competitors and getting a full point against the winner Komodo. With the same points as Gull, but with lower tiebreak, at fourth and fifth positions are Hiarcs. It is the top placed engine under 3000 elo and fared through the event with good start and strong finish.
Houdini 3, the absolute champion of the competition, remained at 5th position. The engine by Robert Houdart rated 3145 elo scored 11,5/19. A total of 10 engines qualify for Stage 3 (that starts October 19th at 12:00 CET). The remaining qualifiers are Bouquet with 11,5/19, Rybka with 11,5/19, Critter with 11,5/19, Naum with 10,0/19, and Junior with 8,5/19. (final standings all engines here)
Replay the games of Stage 1 / Replay the games of TCEC Stage 2 / See the current live game / Full list of participants / Information / Play online at Chessdom Arena
Stage 3 starts today!
TCEC enters the decisive stages of the competition, that will allow the chess world to evaluate which is the strongest engine at the moment. All 10 participants qualified at this stage deserve to be here – Komodo, Stockfish, Gull, Hiarcs, Houdini, Bouquet, Rybka, Critter, Naum, and Junior. It is a field with average ELO approaching 3100 and exciting chess is expected ahead.
To spice up things even more, the tireless tournament director Martin Thoresen has decided that Stage 3 will be thematic – the openings used by the engines will be taken from Candidates 2013, Sinquefield Cup, and King’s Tournament ! After seeing how the top chess players played out the strategy in the given situations, it will be curious to se what the engines will add to that.
Stage 3 starts October 19th at 12:00 CET Watch the live games here / Visit the official website
These are the evaluation graphs, time usage and the depth search of the engines. Onno was always a step ahead
Stage 3Stage 3 consists of the 10 engines that qualified from Stage 2. The format for Stage 3 is a double round robin and the openings are chosen per pair so that each engine will play both sides of the same opening against each other. The top 6 will move on to Stage 4 while the rest is out of nTCEC for the current Season. 90 games are played in Stage 3.
See predictions for Stage 3 here
Stage 4
Stage 4 consists of the 6 engines that qualified from Stage 3. It is a hexa round robin and will use the same book rules as in Stage 3, meaning that the openings are chosen randomly per pair so that each engine will play both sides of the same opening against each other. The top 2 will qualify to play the Superfinal, while the other 4 engines are out of nTCEC for the current Season. 90 games are played in Stage 4.
Superfinal
After Stage 4 has finished, the top 2 engines will meet in a Superfinal of 48 games. This match is played with 24 different openings so that each engine plays both black and white of the same position. The match will be presented with opening 1 used in games 1 and 2, then opening 2 used in games 3 and 4 etc. If the match is theoretically won for one side before game 48, the match will still continue until all 48 games have been played. In the case of a drawn match there will be a Rapid match of 12 games with a time control of 25′ + 10″. In case it is still tied there will be a Blitz match of 6 games with a time control of 3″ + 2′. When the Superfinal is over, the current Season ends.
The nTCEC Grand Champion
The winner of the Superfinal will be crowned the nTCEC Grand Champion and will keep this title until there is a winner in the next Superfinal. There is no automatic qualification for the reigning Grand Champion, it will have to go all the way through the next Season for it to be able to defend the title.
