Top Chess Engine Championship

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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. The tournament has attracted nearly all the top engines compared to the World Computer Chess Championship. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Chess_Engine_Championship)

There have been 27 games completed in the current TCEC Chess Championship, Season 22. The Chess program known as Stockfish has drubbed the Chess program known as Komodo by scoring ten wins with Komodo having registered only three victories. If this were boxing the bout would have been stopped much earlier. Although I have followed most of the previous TCEC Chess Championships I am no authority on what, exactly, is transpiring. There was an event preceding the final in which the two aforementioned programs competed, along with many other programs. Stockfish managed to win the event but Komodo won one of the games played with Stockfish with the latter not being able to score a win against the Dragon; the other games were drawn. This led the AW to believe the current match would be close. When it comes to computer program Chess, what the fork do I know?

It is difficult to write about the event with limited knowledge. I should probably do some research before writing but, frankly, I have no desire to spend time jumping through the hoops necessary to obtain more information, so will go with what I know, Joe.

In the Top Chess Engine Championship (TCEC) Season 21 Superfinal the top two engines from the Premier Division compete in a 100-game match for the TCEC Grand Champion title. Stockfish bested LCZero by a score of 56-44 (https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/tcec-season-21-superfinal-2021).

At this moment the twenty-eighth game is underway. The opening is an “A80 Dutch, Korchnoi Attack.” I have played the Dutch Defense for many decades and, to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time I have heard of the “Korchnoi attack.” I kid you not…This sent me to the Ironman. After inquiring Tim said he had never heard of the Korchnoi attack against the Dutch. Between us we have over a century of Chess experience, yet neither of us recalled the Korchnoi Attack, which is 1 d4 f5 2 h3
(https://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=4&n=53&ms=d4.f5.h3&ns=7.60.53). The ChessBaseDataBase contains only 136 games in which the Korchnoi Attack was played. The Big Database at 365Chess shows 394 games with the attack by Korchnoi. The name “Korchnoi” is found only once at the 365Chess.com webpage of the “Korchnoi Attack” (https://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=4&n=53&ms=d4.f5.h3&ns=7.60.53), and that would be the header: A80 Dutch, Korchnoi attack. The ongoing game shows Stockfish, playing White, has a completely won game after thirty moves…Komodo did, though, win the first game of the mini-match utilizing the Korchnoi attack (https://tcec-chess.com/#div=sf&game=27&season=22).

In an earlier round the featured opening was a Petrov defense, or as it is found over at 365Chess, “C42 Petrov, Cochrane gambit.” The opening moves of the Cochrane Gambit are: 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nf6 3 Nxe5 d6 4 Nxf7… Both games of the mini-match were drawn. (https://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=8&n=1124&ms=e4.e5.Nf3.Nf6.Nxe5.d6.Nxf7&ns=3.5.5.221.601.707.1124)

The opening has been so rarely played that the Big Database at 365Chess shows 382 games contained therein. At the ChessBaseDataBase one finds only 113 games having been previously played in the history of Chess. This begs the question of who chooses the openings played; and why such obscure openings have been chosen; and “What the Fork?”

For over a decade I have wondered why the humans at TCEC did not allow the programs to choose their own moves. Human interference has marred the event. It would be more understandable if the programs were forced to play, say, 1 e4 c5, the Sicilian defense, the most popular opening of humans. I could understand letting the programs begin after the most popular Sicilian opening, the Najdorf, which is 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 a6. Yet the openings chosen force the game to begin after a long string of obscure moves have been played. What is the point?

Evidently other players, or at least spectators, feel the same because rarely does one see more than a couple of hundred people watching the “action.” The TCEC Championship was interesting when it began but the novelty has worn off along with the interest. After 44 moves played in the latest game the page shows Stockfish winning by 8.38. The game has obviously been over, for all intents and purposes, for many moves, yet the programs keep producing moves on demand, no matter how lopsided the score.

Ordinarily I would post a game to go with the words, but TCEC makes it difficult, if not impossible, to cut and paste the moves. If you would like to see any of the action, check it out @ https://www.chessdom.com/

DJ Roboto

OAKLAND/LOS ANGELES, Calif., Dec 2 (Reuters) – Andy Chanley, the afternoon drive host at Southern California’s public radio station 88.5 KCSN, has been a radio DJ for over 32 years. And now, thanks to artificial intelligence technology, his voice will live on simultaneously in many places.

“I may be a robot, but I still love to rock,” says the robot DJ named ANDY, derived from Artificial Neural Disk-JockeY, in Chanley’s voice, during a demonstration for Reuters where the voice was hard to distinguish from a human DJ.

Rockin’ Robot

Our phones, speakers and rice cookers have been talking to us for years, but their voices have been robotic. Seattle-based AI startup WellSaid Labs says it has finessed the technology to create over 50 real human voice avatars like ANDY so far, where the producer just needs to type in text to create the narration.

Zack Zalon, CEO of Los Angeles-based AI startup Super Hi-Fi, said ANDY will be integrated into its AI platform that automates music production. So instead of a music playlist, ANDY can DJ the experience, introducing the songs and talking about them.

The next step will be for the AI to automate the text that is created by humans as well. “That’s really the triumvirate that we think is going to take this to the next level,” Zalon said.

This achievement could raise concerns of deep fakes as AI perfects its mimicking of people in real time.

“On a weekly basis, we have a team of content moderators that will cancel accounts,” said Martín Ramírez, head of growth at WellSaid. “If you’re creating content that is not in alignment with our values and our ethical claims, goodbye. It is that straightforward for us.”

Ramirez said once the voice avatars are created, WellSaid manages the commercial agreements according to the voice owner’s requests. WellSaid voice avatars are doing more than DJ work. They are used in corporate training material or even to read audiobooks, said Ramirez.

For Chanley, leaving a voice avatar behind has extra significance, since his recovery from Stage 2 lymphoma, which he discovered he had two years ago, while he was recording his voice.

“It was perhaps the way that my 11- and six-year-old kid, if things didn’t turn out the way I wanted, might never forget what I sound like,” Chanley said, emotion in his voice. “Elvis Presley fed his family a long time after he was gone. Maybe this is, you know, somehow what might send my kids to college someday.” (Reporting by Jane Lanhee Lee in Oakland, Calif., and Rollo Ross in Los Angeles Editing by Karishma Singh) (https://news.trust.org/item/20211202105756-019bf)

MVL Versus Magnus Carlsen: Fooling Caissa

Two consecutive tournament wins ahead of Carlsen

by André Schulz

Four players were at the top in the Norway Chess tournament at the start of round nine: Wesley So, Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. Caruana and So met each other, while Carlsen was dealt black against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Nakamura faced off against Levon Aronian, also with black. Even Viswanathan Anand, with 3½ points, had chances jump into a tie for first with a win, although the 15th World Champion was black as well, against Sergey Karjakin.

Carlsen, was in no mood to take any chances against Vachier-Lagrave. When the game was in full swing on just move 17, the players began repeating moves in a position reached several times before. It certainly played a role that the two players trained together for Carlsen’s 2016 World Championship title defence, as Magnus himself pointed out in the “confession box” (in Norwegian):

The World Champion conceded half the point. Considering his chances to reach a tiebreak as about 50/50, he was content to watch his rivals fight it out.
https://en.chessbase.com/post/norway-chess-2018-round-9

Unfortunately, I do not understand Norwegian so the accompanying video could not be understood. What I do understand is that Magnus Carlsen, rather than fight like a World Champion, decided to be content with a draw. The decision by the HWCC was an insult to Caissa, and a disgraceful act unworthy of a World Champion. What kind of example has Magnus Carlsen set for all the children playing the Royal game? The above noted article at Chessbase seems to take the position, like most of the Chess world, that what Magnus did was perfectly acceptable. Chess is dying by draw, yet one hardly ever notices a discussion concerning the proliferation of draws. THERE ARE NO DRAWS IN THE ANCIENT ORIENTAL GAME OF GO! Before you send that nasty email, I am aware of the triple Ko situation in Go, in which the game is declared drawn. It happens about as often as a leap year, and when it does occur it makes news all around the Go world. Magnus did not have to agree to a draw; he did it because he is the HWC and can do what he wants to do when he wants to do it, without being called out by anyone involved with Chess. Magnus decided to rest on his laurels. As we say in America, Magnus CHICKENED OUT! I would have more respect for the HWCC if he had fought, and lost, while trying to win, rather than meekly acquiescing to a draw.

The moves in the game have been played so many times one cannot help but wonder if the fix was in…Was it a prearranged draw? Let us examine the “game.”

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

vs World Champ Magnus Carlsen

Altibox Norway Chess 2018

Last round, with all the marbles on the line.

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. d3 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. a3 (Stockfish at the CBDB shows 8 a4 as the best move)
8…O-O (Although Komodo shows this as the best move, Houdini has 8…Na5 best)

9. Nc3 (One Stockfish program has this as best, but the other prefers 9 Ba2. Komodo shows 9 Re1 as best)

Na5 (The most often move played in this position is 9…Bg4, and it is the choice of the Dragon. Houdini would play 9…Rb8)

10. Ba2 Be6 11. b4 Bxa2 12. Rxa2 Nc6

13. Bg5 (Although the Stockfish program at ChessBomb shows this best at depth 21 after 30 seconds of ‘reflection’, the Stockfish program at the ChessBaseDataBase at depth 30 gives 13 Nd5. Komodo at depth 24 would play 13 h3)

13…Ng4 (SF at the Bomb has this in second behind 13…Nd7. The Fish and the Dragon at the CBDB would play 13…Qd7)

14. Bd2 (The SF at CBDB plays this move, but Komodo would play 13 Be3, a TN. Meanwhile, the SF at ChessBomb would play 14 Bxe7)

14…Nf6

(Let us stop here too reflect a moment. If the Royal game had the Ko rule, as does Go MVL would not be allowed to play 15 Bg5 and repeat the position. MVL would be forced to play elsewhere)

15.Bg5 (SF at CBDB plays 15 Re1; SF at DaBomb would play either 15 Qb1 or Ra1)

Ng4 16. Bd2 Nf6 17. Bg5 1/2-1/2

Pathetically pitiful…

From the above it is apparent there was a plethora of choices each player could have chosen, had they been inclined to do so. They were not so inclined, for whatever reason. To their credit, fellow countrymen Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So played a full-bodied game of Chess, with neither backing down and offering a draw. THEY PLAYED TO WIN!

Magnus Carlsen embarrassed himself and his reputation with his servile acquiescence to split the point. Magnus took a page out of the old Soviet Union Chess playbook when he decided to not fight in the last round of a major tournament held in HIS OWN COUNTRY! Oh, the SHAME…

Since the candidates tournament I have vacillated between the choice of Magnus versus Fabiano to win the upcoming World Human Chess Championship. The fact is that Caruana has shown much more fighting spirit in the tournaments in which the two have battled since the candidates tournament. Fabiano Caruana has demonstrated tremendous FIGHTING ability recently. We Chess fans can only wish the WCC were longer, as in the past. Mikhail Botvinnik considered sixteen games the optimum number of games, and who would know better than the Botvinnik? If it were a sixteen game match, without any speed games in case of a tie, I would wager on Fabi. Magnus is a much superior speed Chess player, so Magnus has draw odds going into the match, which is an unfair advantage. Speed Chess is NOT Chess! It is ABSURD to settle a WCC with speed games. I have often heard that “speed kills.” Speed Chess is killing the Royal game! The title of WCC should NOT be won by playing speed Chess!