TCEC VSOB 21, CCC Blitz 2021 : Both Still Underway

The title of the previous report about two ongoing, world class, engine vs. engine tournaments, TCEC VSOB 21, CCC Blitz 2021 : Both Underway (August 2021), needs only a minor modification for this current report. The situation two weeks ago is summarized here:-

TCEC: The site is currently running 'S21 - Viewer Submitted Openings Bonus', aka 'VSOB 21'. The schedule says it will run for at least another month. • CCC: The site is currently running 'CCC Blitz Championship 2021'.

Both events have been chugging steadily along since then. Here's the current situation:-

TCEC: The site is still running 'VSOB 21'. The schedule says it will run until the first week in October. In the meantime, let's record these '!command' messages for posterity:-

!vsob • If you want to submit an opening to potentially be included in a future VSOB, see pinned messages in #bonus-arena in !discord for format and current openings.

!vsob1 • Before you submit a VSOB opening you can check if it is completely busted at
    https://www.chessdb.cn/queryc_en/
or (if it is more of a fantasy opening) at
    https://lichess.org/analysis/standard/

Along with oodles of crappy opening suggestions -- 1.e4 c6 2.Qh5, to select one particularly dreadful variation; there are many more, equally dreadful -- the !discord #bonus-arena has one idea with some merit:-

GM Sadler suggested that future VSOB openings could be classified into three categories: crazy, offbeat, theoretical. He even offered to the the [sic; 'to do the'?] classification himself. I think one of the ideas is to have the possibility to use the crazy openings in a separate VSOB event. To do one crazy VSOB event, and one another more clean one.

As for the VSOB1 busted / fantasy dichotomy, I'll look at those resources in an off-week post.

CCC: The six top engines in the 'Blitz Championship 2021' qualified into the semifinals, where the two top engines qualified into the finals, which was convincingly won by Stockfish over Lc0 in a 300-game match. The engines that placed 3rd/4th in the semifinals are currently playing a 300-game 'Runners-up' match, where Dragon has a substantial lead over Allie after one-third of the match has been played.

[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]