Only 12 engines in League 4, but an epic, a tragedy and a drama are developing at the Top Chess Engine Championship. Happening at the same time we have a Race for the first place, a race for the last qualifying position, and a race to avoid relegation.

Virtus tentamine gaudet

Two engines at the top of the standings remain undefeated – Halogen and Booot. Halogen continues to lead (see the previous report here), but Booot has caught up with it. They have a direct encounter in the next hours, where Booot will be white, and it can be decisive for the gold medal in the league.

Audentes fortuna iuvat

A fierce fight is going on for the 4th place, the last position to give promotion to L3. Monolith, the second seeded in the event, Koivisto, the winner of QL, and ClassicAra, the surprising debutant, are neck in neck in the race for fourth. Two of the engines will go through, while one will remain in the same league for the next season.

As a mirror image, there is a true battle to avoid relegation. Mr. Bob with 4,5, Nirvana and Cheng with 5,0, and Stash with 5,5 are in the race, as two of them will remain in L4 and two will relegate.

Creo quia absurdum est

TCEC is proud to provide season after season testing time to the authors on the massive 176 threads hardware. TCEC’s admin Aloril is investing a lot of effort into optimizing engines’ performance and is working with the authors to present a final stable version. Alas, this time ChessFighter’s bug – losing on time – could not be detected, as it happens only in long time control games.

But will losing so many games on time put ChessFighter in last position? We cannot be sure, as we have one true Chess F-I-G-H-T-E-R. After 14 rounds it is just 1/2 points from the penultimate position. There is “plenty of time” for ChessFighter to try to come back in the game.

Visit the official site of TCEC now And do not forget that quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur!