Stockfish Wins TCEC S14; CCC6 S2 Underway

TCEC: 'Stockfish wins TCEC S14' -- shouldn't that be followed by 'Ho-hum'? After all, Stockfish has won the last three TCEC seasons and we have to go back to season 10 to find a different winner. Here are the posts on this blog that signalled the TCEC winners:-

• 2017-12-11: Houdini, Komodo, Stockfish, and AlphaZero • S10: 'With the score at +14-9=73 after 96 games, Houdini was declared the winner' (over Komodo)
• 2018-04-16: Stockfish Wins TCEC Season 11
• 2018-07-16: Stockfish Wins TCEC Season 12
• 2018-11-12: Stockfish Wins TCEC Season 13 (and Everything Else)

In season 14, Stockfish almost lost. As I wrote in last week's report, TCEC S14 Final, CCC5/-6; Part 2/2:-

The TCEC S14 final match between Stockfish and Leela has seen 72 games completed. Leela leads by one game, +9-8=55. If Leela can maintain this slim lead through the full 100 games, it will signal a major shift in chess engine dominance.

Of the next 28 games in the 100 game match, Stockfish won two games and the rest were drawn, making the final score +10-9=81 (50.5-49.5) in Stockfish's favor. That's as narrow a match win as exists in chess, much to the delight of Stockfish fans and the chagrin of Leela fans. Congratulations to both open source teams for a thrilling superfinal!

CCC: In the other major, ongoing engine competition, the 'CCC6: Winter Classic' completed stage 1. Eight engines qualified to stage 2, as shown in the following crosstable.

For a readable version of the same crosstable see the tab for 'TCEC/CCC Links' at the top of this page and follow the link for 'CCC #tournament-results'. Those eight qualifying engines were joined by the big four -- Komodo, Leela (Lc0), Stockfish, and Houdini -- for a total of 12 engines in the stage 2 'Playoffs'. Two of those engines will qualify for the 200-game final.