TCEC Premier Division final LIVE!
Rybka, Stockfish, Houdini and top engines facing each other
The first super tournament for computers for 2011 is starting. TCEC Premier Division finals begin today with the participation of the world’s top engines. Follow the games daily with live analysis.
Tournament format: double round robin
Participants
1 Shredder 12.0
2 Houdini 1.5
3 Stockfish 2.0.1
4 Naum 4.2
5 Critter 0.9
6 Ivanhoe B47cB
7 Hiarcs 13.2
8 Rybka 4.0
There are currently 3 seperate Divisions: 1, 2 and 3 where 1 is the “Premier” Division. Each Division consists of 8 engines. In each season, 56 games will be played per Division, which means a double round robin where everyone of the 8 participating engines play each other twice. The openings are made so that they are random per engine pair in rounds 1-7. In rounds 8-14 the colors are reversed, with the same openings and pairs, so all in all this means that each engine plays both black and white of the same position versus the same opponent. Note that the traditional scoring system has been replaced with a 3-1-0 system meaning 3 points for a victory, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss.
If an engine currently scheduled to play in any Division has been released in a new version, this new version takes the place of the old version, but only if the Division hasn’t started yet. So during a Division being played, no engine upgrades are allowed. When a season ends, meaning that all 3 Divisions and the Elite Match have been played, the top two engines are promoted to the Division above, and the bottom two engines are demoted to play in the Division below for the next season. In Division 3, the two bottom engines will be replaced by two new engines (or previous engines which has been released in a newer version) so they are out of the TCEC system for the coming season. If necessary, tiebreaks can be used to determine promotions and demotions. The first tiebreak critera is the Sonneborn-Berger. If still a tie, the greatest number of wins decides. In case of still being tied, then the direct encounter between the tied engines decides. If by a miracle they are still tied, then the tournament director decides which engine gets the promotion.
Each game presented on this site is played with a time control of 40 moves in 100 minutes, the next 20 moves in 50 minutes, then finally 20 minutes for the rest plus 10 seconds added per move at this last time control. If an engine loses on time for various reasons the result will stand – hence the game will not be replayed. All opening moves are randomly fetched from a PGN file which contains 215.945 different openings. They are all fixed to 12 moves / 24 plies.
what is the best chess engine in your opinion?
Rybka will win. Any doubt?
Topa will win this one!
Yes, there is much doubt, Houdini is going to make it, and Stockfish is very strong also
It is very difficult to say which engine is best because some do better under different conditions. I suspect that Rybka does well in engine tournaments because of a hardware advantage. In rapid game tournaments (5 mins or less), I have found Rybka 4 to be vulnerable to Fire and Houdini. As stated, Stockfish is also strong – I didn’t realize ver 2.0 was out!). In the past, I found Rybka won easily over available free engines (e.g., Fruit, Crafty).
With the strength of the new free engines, it’s getting difficult for me to justify spending $100 or so for each new Rybka release.
It is official! Houdini 1.5 is now the best chess engine in the world, no matter the length of the game at which it competes.
Rybka 4 was the best chess engine for a long time but not anymore and by a significant margin for Houdini 1.5. The status quo has changed!
I suggest three reliable, trustworthy chess engine rating lists:
1) The G/90mins Ratings (90 MINUTES TO PLAY ALL THEIR MOVES, 2 CORES, PONDER ON, TABLEBASES USED) at http://www.brinan.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ … atings.htm
2) The IPON-Rating-List (5 min/game + 3 sec/move, ponder ON) at http://www.inwoba.de/
3) The SWCR Rating (40 MOVES IN 10 MINUTES) at http://www.amateurschach.de/