Say hello to the new superstar of computer chess – Xiphos, by Milos Tatarevic. Released just two months ago, Xiphos is now dominating the field in Div 2 of the Top Chess Engine Championship. With 10 rounds gone, it has 7,0/10 and solid advantage over seasoned fighters such as Fritz, Nirvana, or Hannibal.
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Xiphos has a starting ELO 3200, but everything point to it being severely underrated. From the first ten rounds of Division 2, Xiphos has gained 56 ELO points. If it keeps the performance until the end of the division it can easily break 3300 ELO, an amazing feat for an engine that was released February 28th this year, just two months ago.
At the start of Season 12, the brand new Xiphos was just one of the newcomers of the lowest division of the Top Chess Engine Championship. It promoted as second best after Ethereal, but an update between divisions gave it a huge boost and it repeated promotion to a higher division. A third update followed and now Xiphos is clear leader of TCEC, with all chances to become a competitive First Division engine.
Replay the top games of Xiphos so far
Nirvana is a traditional top 10 engine in the Top Chess Engine Championship. Xiphos was merciless in their first encounter. It won the same opening with both colors, a feat that is rarely seen in computer chess
Nirvana – Xiphos (Vienna game) 0-1
Xiphos – Nirvana (Vienna game) 1-0
Some people found it surprising how Xiphos won with both colors in the same opening, however, this is not just a lucky shot as the brand new engine already did this in its rampage in Division 3
Nemorino – Xiphos 0-1
Xiphos – Nemorino 1-0
However, Division 2 has much stronger opposition. Yet Xiphos showed more muscle against traditional engines. The Reti opening was suitable for Xiphos against Vajolet. There Vajolet held the game with black, Xiphos calculated better in the return game and outwitted its opponent with black.
Vajolet – Xiphos (Reti opening) 0-1
The true stunner came in game 10, where Xiphos defeated Div 3 winner ChessBrainVB. In a game where a draw was a likely result, the precision of Xiphos brought it an amazing win, which deserves a replay.
ChessBrainVB – Xiphos (English, four knights, Nimzovich variation) 0-1
So far Xiphos continues without a loss, drawing with the rating leader ChessBrainVB and the updated Arasan
Replay all games of Xiphos here
TCEC Season 12 (Div 2) current standings
1. Xiphos 7,0/10
2. Fritz 5,5/10
3. Nirvana 5,5/10
4. ChessBrainVB 5,0/10
5. Texel 5,0/10
6. Hannibal 4,0/8
7. Arasan 3,0/10
8. Vajolet 3,0/8
Xiphos by GM TheChessPuzzler
Xiphos is an UCI compliant open source chess engine by Milos Tatarevic, written in C, licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0
Follow TCEC Season 12 / Find Xiphos on Github
