The first edition of TCEC Cup is coming this fall, with the top 32 engines in a knockout competition
It has been an year since TCEC switched to league format – 32 participants in four qualification divisions with relegation and promotion, a Premier division and a Superfinal to determine the TCEC Champion. The league format has proven superior to any other stage system tried in the computer championship before, bringing balanced chess and maintaining the excitement until the last matches.
A league system with divisions is not a novelty by TCEC, rather it is a well proven system in many sport competitions. Every such league is often accompanied by a secondary event with a different format called Cup. A most logical step is to include such event in TCEC as well.
TCEC Season 13 official website / TCEC beta GUI /TCEC Twitch TV / Facebook page
TCEC Cup full participants list
TCEC Cup format
The TCEC Cup will take place right after the Premier Division and before the Superfinal, the exact dates will be announced soon. It will be a knockout championship with 32 participants divided into brackets. Each participant will be seeded according to its standing in the TCEC league event with the #1 seed meeting the #32 seed, #2 meeting #31, etc.
The TCEC Cup will consist of a total of 31 matches divided into sixteenth-final, eighth-final, quarter-final, semi-final and final. For an engine to reach the TCEC Cup gold medal it must win a total of five matches. Both participants that lose the semi final will be awarded a bronze medal.
Matches and tiebreaks
Each of the matches will consist of 4 pairs of games (8 games, every second with reversed colors and the same opening) with time control 30 mins + 10 sec. In case of an equal score after these games, pairs of tiebreak games with the same time control will be held until a winner is determined.
More details about the TCEC Cup
– the TCEC Cup is a minor title of the TCEC championships, more of which are coming in the year ahead
– the goal of the TCEC Cup is to give a chance to each engine to show strength in head to head competition, not just the participants in the Superfinal
– traditional engines will be equipped with 43 cores, ponder off to maximize performance
– NN engines will be provided with at least 2x Tesla GPUs by Google
TCEC Cup pairings
Ivanhoe vs Premier #1
Tucano vs Premier #2
Chess22k vs Premier #3
Senpai vs Premier #4
Rodent vs Premier #5
Wasp vs Premier #6
Bobcat vs Premier #7
Nemorino vs Premier #8
Hannibal vs Fizbo
Deus X vs Fritz
Pedone vs Jonny
Leela vs Laser
Vajolet vs Booot
Arasan vs ChessBrainVB
Nirvana vs Xiphos
Gull vs Texel
TCEC Cup brackets
Check out the full brackets here
