TCEC S17 Announced; Lc0 Wins CCC11

Another two weeks have passed since this blog's most recent report on the two most popular engine-vs-engine tournaments. To summarize that previous report, More TCEC Bonuses; CCC11 Semifinal Underway:-

TCEC: The site has progressed to 'Viewer Submitted Openings Bonus 9'. • CCC: The CCC11 Semifinal round is just getting underway.

That wasn't much of a report, but much has happened since then.

TCEC: The site has progressed to 'Viewer Submitted Openings Bonus 12'. In TCEC S17 – detailed information (chessdom.com), it announced firm plans for the next season:-

The Top Chess Engine Championship TCEC is going to start in about 10 days time. And it is going to be amazing! TCEC S17 will have a solid hardware upgrade, a new adjusted format and a new structure, a dedicated news website with a merchandising section and more.

That puts the start of the new season around 1 January 2020. In case you've forgotten the previous season, I reported it in Stockfish Wins TCEC S16; CCC11 Underway (October 2019). I reported on the subsequent cup competition in TCEC FRC Leagues; CCC11 R2 Underway (November 2019): 'TCEC Cup 4 finished with Stockfish beating LCZero for 1st place (+1-0=7)'.

The site's '!next' command informs, 'VSOB were all S17 testing and continue until S17 starts.' The acronym 'VSOB' stands for 'Viewer Submitted Openings Bonus'. More information about the new season is available at TCEC Season 17 Rules (wiki.chessdom.org).

CCC: The following chart shows the final crosstable for the CCC11 Semifinal round.

Lc0 and Leelenstein both finished with 37.5 points out of 72 games. The small print on the bottom line explains,

Stockfish and Lc0 advanced to Finals • Lc0 SB tiebreak was 1330.75; Leelenstein SB tiebreak was 1312.75

In their head-to-head semifinal match, Lc0 beat Leelenstein +3-1=20. Before the final match started, the two finalists played a warmup match titled 'CCC11 Finals (Bullet Test : 1+1)', where Lc0 beat Stockfish +24-14=112.

As I write this, the 150-game final match has eight games left to play. Lc0 leads Stockfish by four points.

[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. • NB: Leela = LC0 = LCzero]

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Later: The CCC11 Final match ended with Lc0 maintaining its four point lead over Stockfish. The last eight games were drawn, giving a final score of +13-9=128. This was the second straight loss for Stockfish in a CCC final; see TCEC S16 Final Underway; Leelenstein Wins CCC10 (September 2019) for the result of the previous final.