Top Chess Engine Championship

Top Chess Engine Championship, formerly known as Thoresen Chess Engines

Competition (TCEC or nTCEC), is a computer chess tournament that has been run since
2010. It was organized, directed, and hosted by Martin Thoresen until the end of Season 6;
from Season 7 onward it has been organized by Chessdom. It is often regarded as
the Unofficial World Computer Chess Championship because of its strong participant line-up
and long time-control matches on high-end hardware, giving rise to very high-class chess.[1][2]
After a short break in 2012,[3] TCEC was restarted in early 2013 (as nTCEC)[4] and is currently
active (renamed as TCEC in early 2014) with 24/7 live broadcasts of chess matches on its
website.
Since season 5, TCEC has been sponsored by Chessdom Arena.[5][6] The current TCEC
champion is Stockfish 19092522, which defeated AllieStein v0.5-dev_7b41f8c-n11 by a score
of 54.5-45.5 in the TCEC Season 16 Superfinal 100-game match ending 13 Oct 2019.

Overview
Basic structure of competition
The TCEC competition is divided into seasons, where each season happens over a course of a
few months, with matches played round-the-clock and broadcast live over the internet. Each
season is divided into several qualifying stages and one "superfinal", where the top two chess
engines play 100 games to win the title of "TCEC Grand Champion". In the superfinal, each
engine plays 50 openings, once as each side. Beginning in Season 11 in 2018, a division
system was introduced; the top 2 engines in each division are promoted, and the bottom 2 are
relegated. Currently there are 5 divisions (a Premier division, and divisions 1-4); newcomers
generally start in division 4.
Engine settings/characteristics
Pondering is set to off. All engines run on mostly the same hardware[7] and use the
same opening book, which is set by the organizers and changed in every stage. Large
pages are disabled but access to various endgame tablebases is permitted. Engines are
allowed updates between stages; if there is a critical play-limiting bug, they are also allowed to
be updated once during the stage. If an engine crashes 3 times in one event, it is disqualified
to avoid distorting the results for the other engines. TCEC generates its own elo rating list from
the matches played during the tournament. An initial rating is given to any new participant
based on its rating in other chess engine rating lists.
Criteria for entering the competition
There is no definite criterion for entering into the competition, other than inviting the top
participants from various rating lists. Initially, the list of participants was personally chosen by
Thoresen before the start of a season. His stated goal was to include "every major engine that
is not a direct clone".[8] However, Shredder's developers have declined to enter it in the
competition. Usually chess engines that support multiprocessor mode are preferred (8-cores or
higher). Both Winboard and UCI engines are supported.

Structure by season

Season
Structure
number
 3 matches followed by 2 tournaments then alternating between match and tournament until
Pre TCEC
there were 6 tournaments and 5 matches

1 3 division (1 through 3) followed by elite match

2 Same as Season 1 but with 6 divisions (A through F)

3 2 stages (1 followed by 2a). Season not completed.

Same as Season 3 but with 4 more tournaments (Stages 2b, 3 and 4 followed by a
4
superfinal, in that order)

5 4 stages (1 through 4) followed by a superfinal

Same as Season 5 but stage 1 was stage 1a through c and a Chess960 tournament after the
6
superfinal

7 Same as Season 6 but no stage 1c nor tournament after the superfinal

8 Same as Season 7 but no stage 4

Same as Season 8 but between the stage tournaments and superfinal was a rapid
9
tournament

2 stages (1 followed by 2) then superfinal then 2 other tournaments (rapid followed by

10
blitz)

5 divisions (labelled 4, 3, 2, 1, and Premier) of 8 engines each. Top 2 of each division

11 – 14 promote, bottom 2 relegate; top 2 of Premier play the superfinal. Seasons 13 and 14 also
had a cup, which were a 5-round single elimination tournament.[9]
Tournament results (TCEC)
Main seasons

Superfinal
Season Date Winner Runner-Up
score

TCEC Season Dec 2010 –

Houdini 1.5a Rybka 4.0 + 12 = 23 - 5
1 Feb 2011

TCEC Season
Feb – Apr 2011 Houdini 1.5a Rybka 4.1 + 9 = 26 - 5
2

TCEC Season Apr – May

N/A (season not completed)
3 2011

TCEC Season Jan – May

Houdini 3 Stockfish 250413 + 6 = 38 - 4
41 2013

TCEC Season Aug – Dec

Komodo 1142 Stockfish 191113 + 10 = 30 - 8
52 2013

TCEC Season Feb – May

Stockfish 170514 Komodo 7x + 13 = 45 - 6
6 2014

TCEC Season Sep – Dec

Komodo 1333 Stockfish 141214 + 7 = 53 - 4
73 2014

TCEC Season Aug – Nov

Komodo 9.3x Stockfish 021115 + 9 = 89 - 2
8 2015

TCEC Season May – Dec

Stockfish 8 Houdini 5 + 17 = 75 - 8
9 2016

TCEC Season
Oct – Dec 2017 Houdini 6.03 Komodo 1970.00 + 15 = 76 - 9
10
 Superfinal
Season Date Winner Runner-Up
score

TCEC Season
Jan – Apr 2018 Stockfish 260318 Houdini 6.03 + 20 = 78 - 2
114

TCEC Season
Apr – Jul 2018 Stockfish 180614 Komodo 12.1.1 + 29 = 62 - 9
124

TCEC Season Aug – Nov

Stockfish 18102108 Komodo 2155.00 + 16 = 78 - 6
134 2018

TCEC Season Nov 2018 –

Stockfish 190203 LCZero v0.20.2-32930 + 10 = 81 - 9
144 Feb 2019

TCEC Season Mar 2019 – LCZero v0.21.1-

Stockfish 19050918 + 14 = 79 - 7
154 May 2019 nT40.T8.610

TCEC Season Jul 2019 – Oct AllieStein v0.5-

Stockfish 19092522 + 14 = 81 - 5
164 2019 dev_7b41f8c-n11

TCEC Season
Jan 2020
174

Other TCEC tournaments

Season Date Winner Runner-Up

TCEC Season 6 FRC5 June – July 2014 Stockfish 260614 Houdini 4

TCEC Season 9 Rapid6 September 2016 Houdini 200716 Komodo 1692.19

TCEC Season 10 Rapid December 2017 Stockfish 051117 Houdini 6.03

 Season Date Winner Runner-Up

TCEC Season 10 Blitz December 2017 Komodo 1959.00 Stockfish 051117

TCEC Cup 17 October 2018 Stockfish 270918 Houdini 6.03

TCEC Cup 27 January 2019 LCZero v0.20.1-32742 Houdini 6.03

TCEC Cup 37 May 2019 LCZero v0.21.1-nT40.T6.532 Stockfish 19042711

TCEC Cup 47 October 2019 Stockfish 19100908 LCZero v0.22.0-nT2