TCEC S16 DivP & CCC10 S2 Both Underway

A week ago, in TCEC S16 L1 Finished; CCC10 S1 in Trouble, I reported,

TCEC: TCEC admins are currently testing a new server in preparation for Premier Division, which will run for about three weeks. • CCC: In the 'CCC10 Qualification', all non-AI/NN engines have finished playing against each other, while the four AI/NN engines are currently completing their schedules.

Both engine-to-engine events have moved to the next stage.

TCEC: The Premier Division (DivP), to determine which two engines will compete in the Superfinal (SuFi), is underway with eight engines. The URL for the live broadcast changed to tcec-chess.com, and I updated the tab 'TCEC/CCC Links' to record the new address.

CCC: The 'CCC10 Quarterfinals' are underway with 11 engines instead of the 10 announced; I couldn't find an explanation for the change. The top six engines will advance to the semifinal.

The previous event 'CCC10 Qualification' is not in the archive, although a crosstable and a PGN file are available. Stockfish won, followed by Leelenstein and LC0, which were well ahead of the rest of the field. The top seven engines were joined in the quarterfinals by four others: Fire, Houdini, Komodo, and Komodo MC.

[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]

A Special Chess Board

It's been a few years since I last featured a DGT (Digital Game Technology) video: DGT at the Olympiad (August 2014). Here's a new one from Denmark.

What's Special about a Professional Chess Board? (3:07) • 'Published on Aug 13, 2019'

The video description didn't have much to add. In response to a comment, 'Nice commercial', the video's creator wrote,

Per Danish law we cannot make a commercial without stating it clearly in the video and description. This is not a commercial. We have not been paid for this video and neither the DGT company nor Chesshouse [NB: the distributor supplying the board] has had ANY editorial rights. Not that we would have any problems with making commercials mind you -- but any such paid content would be clearly marked both in the video and the description.

Danish law or not, that's a good guideline for anyone producing online content.

'Game Changer' PGN Explored

Last month, in 'Game Changer' PGN, I collected PGN files relevant to Sadler & Regan's book 'Game Changer', and noted,

As a bonus, the 'Annotator' tags in the NIC file match the 'Round' tags in the AZ_vs_SF files. This provides a cross-reference between the two sets of files. I'll use these files for further explorations.

The 'NIC file' is a PGN file covering the games in the book. I used the NIC file to prepare last week's post, Playing Without a Horizon. The 'AZ_vs_SF files' are two PGN files of games between AlphaZero and Stockfish provided by DeepMind to Sadler & Regan. Those games were behind the authors' motivation to write the book.

Having a little time on my hands, I used it to dig deeper into the three files. The 'NIC file' contains 106 games in the same sequence as the games presented in the book. Of these, 69 games are AZ_vs_SF, while the other 37 games are from various sources. Many of the other games were played between world class players and were used by Sadler & Regan to illustrate recurring themes from the AZ_vs_SF games.

Of the 69 AZ_vs_SF games, 48 have AlphaZero playing White. One peculiarity of the 'NIC file' is that only 51 of the 69 games can be cross-referenced to the AZ_vs_SF files. That means 18 games are from other sources. I looked at the first two of those games (no.12 and no.17 in the NIC file) and confirmed that they are indeed missing from the AZ_vs_SF files, although they are discussed in the book. Were there other game files examined in the preparation of the book?

Of the 51 games from the AZ_vs_SF files, 32 are unique, meaning that many of the games were used more than once in the book. One game appears four times. By some sort of pleasant coincidence, this is the same game I discussed in last week's 'Horizon' post.

Despite the massive effort that went into Sadler & Regan's book, there are still plenty of the original AZ_vs_SF games to explore. What other chess secrets might those games reveal?

Pal Benko 'On the Cover'

Pal Benko has been on my mind lately -- and I imagine he's been on many chess players' minds. While I was preparing the previous post, September 1969 'On the Cover', I decided to find Benko's earliest appearance on the covers of the two main American chess magazines.

The earliest Chess Life (CL) cover is shown below on the left. The year 1961 was the first with CL published in magazine format, switching from the newspaper format of previous years. By coincidence, Benko appeared on the cover of Chess Review for the same month, October 1961.

Left: 'Pal Benko - U.S. Open Champion'
Right: 'Open Champion'

Chess Life

Benko Wins U.S. Open Championship; Highest Score Ever Attained At Largest Open • Hungarian born International Grandmaster Pal Benko, of New York City, topped a record field of 198 players at the U.S. Open held in San Francisco August 14th to 26th with a record-breaking score of 11-1. By drawing only two games and winning 10, Benko's score was the highest ever achieved in the sixty-three consecutive years that the event has been conducted.

The tournament conducted in the picturesque city of San Francisco was the largest attended Open -- Milwaukee, 1953 -- with 183 players holding that first place spot for the last eight years.

Although the article mentions '63 consecutive years' of the U.S. Open, a table at the bottom of the page ('Former U.S.Open Champions') starts with '1941 Reuben Fine'. For the complete list, see Wikipedia's U.S. Open Chess Championship; the 1961 U.S. Open is given as no.62.

Chess Review

Hungarian Day at USCF Open • Two Hungarian-born players finished first and second respectively in the United States Open Championship at San Francisco. Pal Benko, international grandmaster residing in New York, went undefeated through twelve Swiss rounds to gain the crown and a $1,000 first prize with a tally of 11-1. Runner-up was his compatriot, California champion Zoltan Kovacs, 10-2, who lost only to Benko.

The earliest photo of Benko in Chess Life was the 20 January 1958 issue (CL was published twice a month at that time). It showed Benko with the 'Players and Officials at Dallas International 1957'. The players included Reshevsky, Evans, Gligoric, Larsen, and Najdorf, plus other international luminaries. Since Benko was neither a player nor an official in the tournament, what was he doing in the photo? The last CL issue of 1957 explained,

By-products of this assemblage of masters were two challenges: an exhibition match between Dallas Master Kenneth R. Smith and the recently defected Hungarian International Master Paul Benko; and a blindfold match between International Masters Miguel Najdorf and George Koltanowski.

As for Chess Review, we find Benko on the cover for March 1959 (composite photo, centered on Fischer, of U.S. Championship); and August 1959 ('Twice Champion', New York and Western Opens). He also appeared numerous times on interior pages.

September 1969 'On the Cover'

Fifty years ago, the two main American chess magazines were only two months from being merged into a single publication. Their covers featured American chess players from two different centuries.

Left: 'Marshall Rohland; USCF Secretary 1956-66, President 1966-69'
Right: 'A Morphy Sidelight'

Chess Life

Presidential Report by Marshall Rohland • At the end of one's Presidency, it is appropriate and constructive to look back over the progress in USCF during the three year term, and also the preceding years. Looking back in perspective reveals a long story of struggle and accomplishment.

For a similar report from Rohland's successor (in CL November 1972), see The USCF in Numbers (June 2014).

Chess Review

A Morphy Sidelight by Manfred Zitzman • Paul Morphy! The name remains a magic one for countless chess players past, present and yet to be born. As someone has said, it is because we remember other chess greats not in the plenitude of their powers, but as dethroned champions -- bitter, disillusioned men who, more often than not, avoided their most dangerous challengers for years before they finally played and succumbed.

Alekhine, it is true, died with the World Championship still in his possession; but his twenty years of dodging a re-match with Capablanca will forever cloud his reputation. In contrast, Paul Morphy's light blazes undiminished across more than a century of time! Here there was no dodging or evasion. Morphy actively sought out the strongest challengers he could find and blasted them off the board.

The CR cover shows the October 1859 cover of 'The Chess Monthly', published almost 110 years before the CR issue. We saw the earlier magazine on this blog a few months in Five Volumes of 'Chess Monthly' (May 2019), and looked at Morphy's role in Paul Morphy, Editor (ditto). The author of the three page Morphy article also featured on the CR side of December 1965 'On the Cover' (December 2015).

TCEC S16 L1 Finished; CCC10 S1 in Trouble

Another Monday, another report on the two ongoing engine-vs-engine competitions. Last week, in TCEC S16 L1 Wrapping Up; CCC10 S1 Underway, I noted,

TCEC: 'League 1' is almost finished. • CCC: The first stage, 'CCC10 Qualification', is already more than one-third completed and should finish this week.

Since 'almost finished' and 'should finish' are only forecasts, what's the current status of the two events?

TCEC: After 'League 1' finished, the top four engines participated in a playoff to determine which two engines would advance to the Premier Division (aka 'DivP'). The two AI/NN engines, Stoofvlees and ScorpioNN, finished 1st/2nd in the playoff. The results of both events are shown in the following chart.

TCEC admins are currently testing a new server:-

TCEC webserver has proven to not have been stable always. Therefore we are currently configuring a completely new webserver, and will continue with DivP when ready, which should be within a day (at most). This new webserver will eventually completely replace the old one.

The Premier Division will run for about three weeks.

CCC: Last week's forecast -- 'CCC10 Qualification should finish this week' -- ran into some kind of a brick wall. All non-AI/NN engines have finished playing against each other, while the four AI/NN engines are currently completing their schedules. During the past week, the CCC ran a 'Sanity Test GPU Server' with those same four engines. I couldn't find a discussion of the problem.

[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]

1974 Spassky - Byrne Poster

We don't see many posters in this blog's series for Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010), and I'm not sure why. Is it because there aren't many chess posters that command three or four digit prices? Or because there aren't many chess posters in existence? Or because of some other reason.

The item shown below was titled 'Genuine 1974 Vintage Chess Poster Boris Spassky vs. Robert Byrne in Puerto Rico'. It sold for US $599.95 'Buy It Now'.

The description added,

Here we offer a scarce (perhaps singular) relic from the apogee of the 1970's worldwide chess craze: an original silk-screened poster promoting the January 1974 Cold War chess match between USSR champion Boris Spassky and American grandmaster Robert Byrne, held at the College of Engineers, Architects, and Surveyors, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The poster is signed in the plate, "AM". I purchased this poster 35 years ago from the front window of the renowned Village Chess Shop in Greenwich Village, NYC. Though it's got some minor tears, stains, pin holes, and creases, it is printed on very thick stock and looks absolutely wonderful. The design is remarkable and worthy of a centerpiece location! Measures 18.25 x 25.75 inches.

The match is documented on my World Championship page 1973-75 Candidates Matches as:-

Quarterfinal match; San Juan, Puerto Rico; I, 1974; Spassky - Byrne; +3-0=3 (4.5-1.5)

For another eBay poster from the same era, see 1972 Fischer - Spassky Poster (March 2013). By coincidence, an alternative item for this current post was also from the 1972 Fischer - Spassky match. Its decription said,

Exceptional memorabilia from the closing ceremony of The World Chess Championship in Reykjavik, Iceland 1972 where Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky played the match of the century in Reykjavik, Iceland 1972. An item like this only comes on the market every 10-15 years.

A signed conclusional banquet menu from the closing ceremony of the World Chess Championship 1972. With official stamp and cancel of the match, dated September 3rd 1972. Signatures of the newly crowned world champion Bobby Fischer and the newly defeated champion Boris Spassky and the chief arbiter Lothar Schmid. Size approx. 24 x 10,5 cm (folded).

The menu sold for US $1525 after five bids from two bidders.