TCEC S21 Starts; CCC 'Eco Mini-Matches'

Two weeks ago we had secondary events running in both world class, ongoing engine vs. engine competitions. I reported the situation in TCEC 'VSOB'; CCC 'ECO Mega-Matches' (April 2021), summarized here:-

TCEC: KomodoDragon won 'Swiss 1' with 15.5 points out of 22 games. After 'Swiss 1', the site conducted tests. '!next' says, 'Now !VSOB 20 Stockfish-LCZero and QL/L4/L3 testing, will switch between these occasionally...' • CCC: 'They came, they played, they left ... they're bots.' The site is currently running 'Eco Mega-Match 2 (part 2)'.

A week ago we had an off-week post looking at two of those events -- one TCEC, one CCC -- in more depth: VSOB 20; ECO_FULL (May 2021). What's the situation today?

TCEC: Apparently, 'QL/L4/L3 testing' has just ended. An article dated yesterday, TCEC S21 starts today (chessdom.com), started by saying,

Season 21 of the Top Chess Engine Championship starts today at 17:00 UTC. A total of 46 engines will embark on a quest for glory in the most prestigious computer chess event.

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. I'll look at the site more closely in an off-week post.

CCC: 'Eco Mega-Match 2' finished with the following results:-

• Part 1 (2012 games): Stockfish 52.8% - Lc0 47.2%
• Part 2 (ditto): Stockfish 52.0% - Lc0 48.0%

The site is currently running a series of matches, each one with the title 'Eco Mini-Match'. The results of the first two matches were:-

• Stockfish Classic vs Leela (800 games): Lc0 55.9% - Stockfish Classic 44.1%
• Dragon vs Stockfish Classic (795 games): Dragon 55.7% - Stockfish Classic 44.3%

Stockfish Classic is the pre-NNUE version of Stockfish; Dragon's full name is Komodo Dragon (or KomodoDragon). A third match is underway, titled 'Eco Mini-Match: Leela vs Dragon', pitting the winners of those two mini-matches against each other. Only in computer chess can an 800 game match masquerade as a 'mini-match'.

[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]