TCEC S21 L4 Underway; CCC Opening 'Specials'

This blog's previous post on the world of first class engine vs. engine events, TCEC S21 Starts; CCC 'Eco Mini-Matches' (May 2021), could have been subtitled 'TCEC Vrooming in High Gear; CCC Stuck in Second Gear'. Here is a summary of that post:-

TCEC: An article dated yesterday, 'TCEC S21 starts today' (chessdom.com), opened with 'Season 21 of the Top Chess Engine Championship starts today...' The secondary news in that article is that Chessdom.com is back with a new look and a new attempt at keeping up-to-date. • CCC: The site is currently running a series of matches, each one with the title 'Eco Mini-Match'. Only in computer chess can an 800 game match masquerade as a 'mini-match'.

I covered the announcement that 'Chessdom.com is back' in last week's post, The Return of Chessdom News (May 2021). Where appropriate, I'll mention their coverage in future posts.

TCEC: The S21 Rules (wiki.chessdom.org) for the two lowest leagues say,

Qualification League: [QL] 'The top 8 engines promote to League 4.' • League 4: [L4] 'The bottom 4 engines relegate and the top 4 promote to League 3.'

The QL results were announced in:-

• 2021-05-19: Koivisto is the winner of TCEC S21 Qualification League (chessdom.com)

L4 should finish in the next day or so, although the top four engines have an insurmountable lead over the next group. Three of those top four are engines that promoted from QL.

CCC: After the three events titled 'Eco Mini-Match', the site launched into a series of events based on specific openings. The first was 'Caro-Kann Special' with four engines -- Stockfish, Lc0, Dragon, Stockfish Classic (finishing in that order) -- in a round robin of 30 game mini-matches using a blitz time control. Subsequent 'Specials' varied the format using different openings. The current event, just getting underway, is 'Sicilian Najdorf Special' with six engines using a rapid time control.

At some point in my long, undistinguished chess career, I've played all five openings that have been explored to date. It might be useful to examine the results, but first I have to locate the PGN for the five events.

[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]