29 December 2020

Breaking the 3200 Barrier

The post Breaking the 3100 Barrier (May 2020) was the fifth in the 'Breaking the Barrier' series, where I keep track of reaching the milestone of another 100 posts on this blog, at the same time drawing attention to some obscure aspect of chess ratings. Post no.3200 was yesterday's TCEC/CCC 2020-H2 Summary.

For the corresponding look at rating trivia, I chose Chess.com Computer Ratings: Nov. 2020 (chess.com; 31 October 2020). It started,

Chess.com is pleased to announce the Chess.com Computer Chess Ratings. These ratings are calculated based on performances in the Chess.com Computer Chess Championship, Chess.com's 24/7 computer tournament platform where the best engines are constantly battling. To ensure accurate ratings, we conducted a benchmarking tournament under the Computer Chess Rating List (CCRL) conditions which included engines from the CCRL blitz rating list running on 4 CPUs and the current Ethereal engine, running on our hardware with 90 CPUs. Ethereal scored a performance rating of 3578. All ratings are then derived from performances in this event.

The acronym 'CCC' in the title of post no.3200 and the Chess.com 'Computer Chess Championship' are one and the same. In an earlier TCEC/CCC post, TCEC S19 Sufi 75% Finished; CCC15 Still Halted (October 2020), I noted,

The report from two weeks ago mentioned the [CCC] was running matches for 'CCRL Ratings Standardization'. Now it is running 'CCRL Calibration'.

So now everything is tied up nicely. For the record, the second CCC rating list was published in Chess.com Computer Ratings: Dec. 2020 (chess.com). Of the 27 engines on the list for 'Bullet Ratings', all but the last were rated over 3200. BlackMamba, you're a slacker!

No comments: