TCEC More Interludes; CCC19 Bullet Underway

In the previous post on the world's foremost engine vs. engine competitions, TCEC/CCC Interludes (December 2022), I could have incorporated an explanation of 'Why interludes?', but I doubt it would have been news to many chess engine fans. Following is a summary of that post.

TCEC: LCZero beat KomodoDragon +24-13=63 in the 'S23 Subfinal' for the S23 runnerup position. The site then organized another VVLTC event, the third time that VVLTC has followed a Sufi. The S23 VVLTC was followed by an SVVLTC, which was followed by 'Noomen Extra 2'; see the 'Interludes' post for an explanation of its 3+11 engine structure. • CCC: Stockfish beat Lc0 114.5-85.5 in the 'CCC19 Rapid Final'. The site then ran a series of exhibition events.

Are the interludes (aka bonuses, aka exhibitions) overtaking the seasons in importance? Let's take a snapshot of the current situation.

TCEC: Stockfish won the VVLTC, then drew the two-game SVVLTC with LCZero. KomodoDragon placed first in the top-3 section of 'Noomen Extra 2'; Ethereal placed first in the next-11 section where none of the engines won a single game against the top-3.

LCZero then won the second chess324 tournament, a half point ahead of Stockfish. The two engines drew their own mini-match and scored identically against the other six engines, except for the rofChade matches where Stockfish lost a game. See Chess324 Is a Thing (September 2022), for an earlier post on this anti-draw C960/DFRC setup variant.

The site is currently conducting '4k Testing'. What's a '4K' engine?

!4k • Engine maximum size is 4 kiB (4096 bytes), Time control: 30'+3'', Format: 6 DRRs, Book: !4kbook, Potential engines: !4ku !pygone !we4k !ice4 !sunfish

!4kbook • First DRR bookless (standard starting position), then DRRs with openings from both Noomen Extra for total of 6x DRR.

Assembler anyone? The '!4k' command also mentions, 'For draft rules see': TCEC 4k Rules (wiki.chessdom.org).

CCC: After the 'CCC19 Rapid Final', there were so many CCC exhibition events that it might be useful to list them. Lacking time for that now, I'll try to tackle the chore for the next off-week post.

The site is currently running the 'CCC19 Bullet' event. For the first time in longer than I can remember, the site has updated the event's 'Info' tab to explain its different stages. Even more amazing, the info appears to be accurate and well thought out.

The 'CCC19 Bullet Newcomers' and 'Qualifier #1' events have finished, and 'Qualifier #2' is underway. All three events counted ten engines, with the top-four qualifying into the next event. Marvin went from 'Newcomers' to 'Qualifier #2', but its quest for stardom will likely end there.

The post, 'Chess324 Is a Thing', is worth mentioning for another reason -- it was the last time I looked at CCC administrators. The reference page About Chess.com (chess.com; 'We'll have to monitor "About Chess.com" for any updates regarding CCC administration.') is now marked 'Updated: Dec 8, 2022', but Connor (Connor McMonigle) is still listed as 'CCC Tournament Director' and Andrew (Andrew Grant) is still an 'Analysis Developer'.

[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]

***

Later: Re this action...

CCC: After the 'CCC19 Rapid Final', there were so many CCC exhibition events that it might be useful to list them. Lacking time for that now, I'll try to tackle the chore for the next off-week post.

...I already have ideas for several off-week posts on the back burner, so I'll address the point here. Of 18 recent events, 10 were exhibitions.

Recent CCC Events

The regular season events bracketed in red correspond to the following posts:-

(A:) 2022-12-26: TCEC More Interludes; CCC19 Bullet Underway
(B:) 2022-12-12: TCEC/CCC Interludes
(C:) 2022-11-28: TCEC S23, CCC19 Rapid : Stockfish Wins Both

Reminder: In '(B:)' I asked, 'When was the last time Stockfish did not win a CCC Bullet, Blitz, or Rapid tournament?'