The Komodo Baton

Whenever I need an idea for an off-week engine post, seen previously in OpenBench Interlude (April 2023), I turn to Talkchess.com. The last time this happened was Talkchess Talks Top Engines (January 2023). Nestled in the news about 'Top Engines' was a Talkchess discussion identified as:-

2022-12-19: Dragon 3.2 Released at KomodoChess.com [lkaufman] • Talkchess user 'lkaufman' is GM Larry Kaufman.

A brief survey of recent Talkchess threads for this current post revealed:-

• 2023-03-17: KomodoChess and Chess.com [lkaufman] • 'Five years ago, Chess.com purchased a stake in KomodoChess along with rights to use our software. Now the merger is complete; Chess.com has bought out KomodoChess entirely. Chess.com will now run the website, pay for further development of Komodo, and for the most part take over the responsibilities of both myself and Mark Lefler. Mark and I will remain as paid consultants thru 2025, but Chess.com will make the decisions. Dietrich Kappe remains onboard as the NN trainer.'

GM Kaufman listed a number of reasons for his personal decision. One of them was:-

Komodo Dragon and Stockfish have effectively "solved" standard chess in the sense that with long time limits and large thread counts, they are both probably invincible if allowed to choose their own openings or at least get to choose from near-optimal openings.

Don't expect the former World Senior Champion to ride off into the sunset. He promises,

I hope that I am still able to make some significant contributions to the further development of Komodo Dragon. I remain interested in and involved with computer chess.

His Talkchess signature says, 'Komodo rules!'. The same could be said for him.

The first response to Kaufman's announcement informed, 'You have Andrew Grant on the team now -- he's employed by Chess.com, and I suspect he'll be able to increase the standard of play.' Is this the passing of the baton to the new generation of engine developers? By a not-so-curious coincidence, Andrew Grant also figured in the previous 'OpenBench Interlude' post.