TCEC Cup 3 Nears QF; CCC8 S1 90% Finished

The title of last week's post on the two engine-vs-engines tournaments that I'm following was TCEC S15 Final: SF vs. Leela; CCC8 S1 at 3/4 Mark. Deciphering that title requires a summary of the post:-

TCEC: In the last event for S15, Stockfish and Leela will play a season-ending final match (aka superfinal, sufi) for the second time to determine the best engine on the planet. [...] Before the final match, the TCEC will be holding another cup event, as announced in TCEC Cup 3... • CCC: As of this writing, 18 engines have started play in CCC8; the most recent was Leelenstein. Nearly 590 games have been played. That means 75% of the engines have started play, but somewhat more than half of the games have been played.

During the intervening week, TCEC Cup 3 and CCC8 have both advanced; neither has finished, but both should be finished before next Monday's post. Let's have a quick look at their current status.

TCEC: Currently in the octofinal stage (the round of 16) five of the original 32 engines have already qualified for the quarterfinal, with three octofinal matches remaining to determine the other three quarterfinalists. So far there have been no surprises in the mini-matches.

CCC: Of the original 24 engines, 21 have entered the event and have run the gauntlet of the engines that started before them. Fizbo is the 22nd engine to start, leaving only Stockfish and Leela still to start. The following chart shows the current standings for the first 12 of the 21 engines that have already played each other.

A week ago I wrote, 'Houdini and Antifish are at no.1 and no.2, unfortunately a meaningless observation.' Leelenstein, which was just starting the event at that time, is currently at no.1, followed by Antifish and Houdini. Assuming that both Stockfish and Leela finish among the first four, that leaves place for two more engines. Only two engines from the same AI/NN family can qualify for the final stage, and -- as far as I know -- all of the top AI/NN engines are from the Leela family. That means Leelenstein and Antifish will be fighting each other for one of the last two places in the final.

[For further information from the various stakeholders in the engine-to-engine events, see the tab 'TCEC/CCC Links' at the top of this page.]