03 October 2016

Carlsen, TCEC, Karjakin, Korchnoi

After finishing Carlsen's TMER 2000-2016 (*), what little Monday project should I tackle now? My first idea was season nine of the Top Chess Engines Competition (TCEC), currently underway. I last looked at TCEC season eight in Chess Engine Summary (January 2016), and the current season started some months later: TCEC Season 9 officially announced (chessdom.com; April 2016).

Where is the competition now? Stage 3 finished on 8 September, with Stockfish and Houdini qualifying into the superfinal. The crosstable is shown below and a readable version is available on the TCEC Archive (click on a season, stage, and a game to see the corresponding crosstable).


Crosstable for TCEC Season 9 - Stage 3

The TCEC is currently featuring a side event -- TCEC rapid starts September 9th (chessdom.com) -- which looks like it has another three weeks (or so) to go. According to that page,

TCEC Superfinal: The Superfinal of TCEC will start right after the rapid section. It will be a 100 games match between Stockfish and Houdini.

That match will likely overlap the 2016 Carlsen - Karjakin World Championship title match, where game one is scheduled for 11 November, and tiebreaks for 30 November. That's a lot of great chess coming in November. In the meantime I'll keep busy on Mondays with the Korchnoi TMER, last seen in Korchnoi's Events 1998-99 / 2014-15 (August 2016).

(*) TMER = Tournament, Match, and Exhibition Record

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