The victory of Komodo at the Top Computer Chess Championship (TCEC) sent ripples of shock waves through the world of computer chess. It attracted the attention of close to 1 million user sessions in 165+ countries in just 3 months time. The victory of Komodo was the major chess news in international media during the Christmas and New Year Eve holidays, and it continues making headlines today. From the Spanish ABC, through major tech blogs in USA, to MIT and German science publications, the chess engine was praised all around the world.

Review: Komodo is the new TCEC Grand Champion /Replay all games with analysis

Here are some of the TCEC Season 7 articles on the internet:

ABC, Spain, “Komodo enlarges the gap between human and computer chess”

The author Frederico Marin Bellon makes an extensive review of the Superfinal of TCEC Season 7 and the Komodo win over Stockfish +7 =53 -4. He notes the growing gap between human and computer chess and the Komodo – Magnus Carlsen ELO difference of 348 points.

Read the ABC article here

Phys.org, “Komodo 8 is champion”

The world’s largest Physics website has as featured main page news today the victory of Komodo at TCEC Season 7. The author Nancy Owano, with exclusive quotes by Sebastian Anthony of ExtremeTech, makes a review of the Komodo’s victory and its significance for the world of chess.

Read the full article at Phys.org

I-Programmer, “Komodo is Computer Chess Champion again”

The author Alex Armstrong notes the comeback of Komodo, as the engine regains the TCEC title it held in Season 5. “After its recent win in Season 7 of the TCEC computer chess tournament, Komodo has become the latest TCEC champion and taken top slot in the computer chess rankings.”

Full article by I-Programmer

Ajedrez GCC, “¡Komodo, nuevo Campeón Mundial!”

The most extensive Spanish review of TCEC Season 7 was made by Juan A. R. Parra for Ajedrez GCC. With detailed analysis of the Superfinal, a look at the decisive games, special notes about engine updates, full standings and statistics, this publication definitely deserves a read.

Read the full article here

ExtremeTech, “A new (computer) chess champion is crowned”

The major technological publication ExtremeTech reviews the victory of Komodo and notes its superiority to human chess. It looks at Moore’s law, software development, the current rating lists, and even the history of the Deep Blue match.

“It’s almost 18 years since IBM’s Deep Blue famously beat Garry Kasparov at chess, becoming the first computer to defeat a human world champion. Since then, as you can probably imagine, computers have firmly cemented their lead over puny, fallible meatbags — Garry Kasparov is still considered by many to be the greatest chess player ever, while computers are only getting more and more powerful. Today, following the completion of TCEC Season 7, we have a new computer chess world champion. Called Komodo, the software can reach an Elo rating as high as 3304 — about 450 points higher than Kasparov, or indeed any human brain currently playing chess.”

Rjlipton, “The New Chess Champion”

Probably the most detailed scientific look at the Komodo victory is made by Dick Lipton, a Professor of Computer Science at Georgia Tech.
He looks at the TCEC competition, but also analyzes theory of the human depth of games, Moore’s Law in chess, patterns and singularity, skill and rating horizon, and more.

Read the full article

Heist.de, “Komodo gewinnt Computerschach-WM”

The German mainstream newspaper, and top-1000 website in the world, Heist.de had a prominent mention of TCEC’s Superfinal right before New Year’s Eve. The author Hans-Peter Schuler note’s Komodo’s jump in the rating list and cites a range of important sources for more information.

Article by Heist.de

MIT, “One chess champion per laptop”

From the famous “Too weak, too slow!” by Magnus Carlsen, to the victory of Komodo in TCEC, the MIT article by Roberto Perez-Franco is a must read.
With a quality final conclusion, the authors hits the right note of computer chess expectations at the moment, “The three-way rumble between Houdini, Komodo and Stockfish in the latest TCEC season revived enthusiasm in computer chess and spurred a sort of arms race, as the teams behind each engine prepare stronger versions for the next TCEC, due to start in late January. Larry Kaufman, regarded as an expert on how to evaluate positions in chess, has thoroughly “taught” Komodo the ropes. As a result, Komodo’s play in long games is rock solid, earning praise from world-class experts such as Boris Avrukh and Roman Dzindzichashvili. Not to be outdone, team Stockfish is leveraging the power of open-source to summon the creative power of a dozen developers spread around the world, and is constantly testing new ideas using a cloud-based network of computers volunteered by Stockfish fans, who like the fact that Stockfish is offered free of cost and its code is available online.

There are a lot of expectations from thousands of fans around the world: Will Komodo retain the crown? Will Stockfish prove the superiority of the open-source model? Will Houdini regain and retain the top spot it enjoyed for so long? The answers to these questions remain to be seen. But, regardless of the next TCEC’s result, the clear winner in this new rivalry is the world of chess, which has now access — even for free — to top-class chess analysis tools that were thought impossible just a generation ago.”

Read the full article

Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
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