The TCEC/CCC Hegemony

Continuing with the two premier engine vs. engine competitions, we can summarize the previous post, TCEC S22 DivP, CCC17 Rapid : Both Underway (March 2022), in a few sentences:-

TCEC: With two weeks to go in DivP, KomodoDragon, Stockfish, and LCZero are in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, well ahead of the other five engines. • CCC: In the 'CCC17 Rapid Semifinals', which have just finished, Stockfish, Dragon, and Lc0 are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, well ahead of the other three engines. The next event in 'CCC17 Rapid' will be a challenger match between Dragon and Lc0.

Two weeks later the situation has evolved according to expectations. Stockfish is the odds-on favorite to win both events.

TCEC: In S22 DivP, Stockfish finished a half point ahead of KomodoDragon, which finished three points ahead of LCZero. What's next?

First, there will be an 'Infrafinal' ('Infi' or 'Infra') between the engines that finished 3rd and 4th in DivP, i.e. LCZero and rofChade. LCZero won their DivP minimatch +3-1=4. Then follows the 'Superfinal' ('Sufi') between Stockfish and KomodoDragon, who scored +1-0=7 in their minimatch. Then follows a 'Subfi' (Subfinal?) between the winner of the 'Infrafinal' and the loser of the 'Superfinal', probably LCZero and KomodoDragon (+0-0=8 in their minimatch). These three matches will all use forced opening variations.

CCC: Dragon won the 300-game 'CCC17 Rapid Challenger' match against Lc0 by the margin of a single game. Dragon is currently getting crushed by Stockfish in the final match.

In 2022, Stockfish is the engine to beat. Between Lc0 and Dragon, it's a tossup. Other engines are far behind. Who will break this hegemony?

[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; Dragon = KomodoDragon]