Stockfish Wins TCEC S18; Leela Wins CCC14

My previous post in the fortnightly series on the world's top engine vs. engine competitions was a summary covering nine months of previous posts: TCEC/CCC 2019-Q4 & 2020-Q1/Q2 Summary (June 2020). The last entry in that post -- TCEC S18 Sufi Underway; CCC14 on Medical Leave -- was dated four weeks ago meaning that I have to play some serious post-vacation catch up. To summarize that last post in a nutshell:-

TCEC: In the 100-game final match (aka 'Superfinal' or 'Sufi') Stockfish leads LCZero (aka Leela) by +6-3=13. [...] A three point lead for Stockfish in S18 with less than a quarter of the games played does not bode well for Leela to repeat as TCEC champion. • CCC: The CCC14 16-engine preliminary double round robin ('Round 1') finished with the usual suspects occupying the top places. An '!' command informs, '!next • Greco is battling Covid-19, so CCC14 is on hold.'

Even though I haven't posted anything on the subject in four weeks, that doesn't mean I haven't been following the progress of the two competitions. I generally look at them once a week, take a few screenshots showing their status, and note anything of particular interest. This lets me go back in time to a previous week if I need to do a followup. What has happened in the two competitions since the TCEC_S18/CCC14 post?

TCEC: The S18 Superfinal finished with Stockfish beating LCZero in the 100 game match by a score of +23-16=61. This reversed the result from the previous season that I documented in Leela Beat Stockfish in TCEC S17 & CCC13 Finals (April 2020). The next event was TCEC Cup 6, which has reached the round of 16 and should finish in the next week.

CCC: CCC14 was a double-elimination event, meaning that an engine had to lose two matches to be knocked out of the competition. This also means that it is difficult to describe the evolution of the tournament linearly. For example, Stockfish beat Lc0 in their first encounter, then lost to Lc0 in their second encounter while also losing to Leelenstein. Lc0 beat Leelenstein in the 'final' match but since this was Leelenstein's first match loss, the two engines played a second 'final' match, which Lc0 also won. In both Lc0 - Leelenstein matches the standard 12 game match finished tied and was decided after a long tiebreak. (What sort of a mind does it take to invent these events?)

The CCC then conducted a series of 'Post-CCC14' matches, most of them featuring a new 'Stockfish NNUE' engine. Since I didn't have the time to look at these matches in any detail, I'll save that for the next, off-week post in the TCEC/CCC series.

[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]