I am willing to start something new and if there is interest enough repeat it.

YAT is a computer-computer tournament that emulates a human-human tournament or a SSDF | ICGA | CSVN | CCT tournament as close as possible in the sense that opening books are allowed, all kind of learning is allowed, opponent preparation is allowed and last but not least that engine authors have the right to know the name and elo rating of the opponent.

Specifics:

• Hardware HP Z800 8 core, 8 Gb RAM, approx 2.8 GHz
• Time control 40m/20m repeating.
• Type: Robin rounds.
• Number of games between 500-1000 (1)
• Single processor only.
• Permanent Brain = on.
• Opening book(s) (3)
• Learning allowed.
• Opponent name and elo rating provided (2)
• No table bases since they may influence other cores.
• Interface: in principle Arena.

1. Depending on how many programs subscribe the number of games to play will be determined. If in the first edition (say) only 5 engines subscribe 50 rounds will be played delivering 500 games. When 10 engines subscribe 20 rounds giving 900 games. With 20 participants 5 rounds producing 950 games. With 25 participants 3 rounds producing 900 games. With 30 participants 2 rounds producing 870 games.

1. Elo rating provided. Before a game starts I will put a textfile (OPPONENT.TXT) in your root directory that contains the name of your opponent and the elo rating, CCRL ratings will be used. You then can set your contempt factor, change playing style, change opening book, whatever you think is needed to get the best result. Textfile layout:

Komodo

3274

2500

Red being the opponent elo, green the elo rating of your program. You can choose to ignore this information but on the other hand if you for instance know your opponent is 500-600 elo better then maybe it's a smart move to set your contempt factor on a full pawn (or so) and take the first occasion on a 3-fold repetion and celebrate the ½ point as a victory.

If you don't want to use the OPPONENT.TXT textfile as input because your engine supports the Winboard or UCI command for that then you should inform me explicitly.

1. On opening books - you are responsible for your own opening book. If you don't have one make sure you get one. There are many freely available opening books. You can also make the choice to use the Arena book. Just instruct me well.

Other stipulations

• You are allowed to change version and/or opening book only once.
• Round updates | ranking | PGN download.
• Will try to install a live viewer. Perhaps need some help here.
• Private engines allowed as long as they are not clones or closely derived, I will check.

Suggested start at December 1, 2015 so you can make preparations.

If you are interested subscribe using the contact form.

List of subscribed programs.

Initial ELO ratings are CCRL based.

WaDuuttie is a private engine without a CCRL rating and gained a provisional elo rating of 2921 after 200 games.

Bottom line of this tournament is if the initial elo ratings will change much.

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Pairing

created with stChess

With 9 engines we will play 30 rounds producing 1080 x 40/20 games all together, thus each engine will play 240 games.

Because of the trouble to configure each game with the right parameters concerning opponent learning (OPPONENT.TXT or its Winboard equivalent RATING) and the big time delays that will cause we will speedup the tournament by letting the engines play 30 (instead of 1) games in 9 rounds against each other. So the complete paring for this first edition of YAT will be:

Because the most likely scenario is that the battle for the tournament victory will be

between Texel and Andscacs we will play round 2 as last round to

keep the tension to the last moment.

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Live Support

using TLCV

broadcasting all 1080 games live

Download Tom's Live Chess Viewer and log in as follows:

HOST yatchess.ddns.net

PORT  16001

and/or

Start a new TLCV session and use PORT's 16002 | 16003 | 16004

Doing so you can watch all 4 matches in progress.

Important TLCV features: PGN | Chat | Result Table

Remark: TLCV and Arena sometimes miscommunicate at the start of a new game and have the colors wrong. This oddity (bug) however has no effect on the engines itself, the result table is okay, the PGN for download likewise. Another visual glitch that may happen (or not) is that the TLCV clocks are not in sync with the Arena clocks.

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Cross table

created with ProTools

Initial ratings

created with ORDO

Tournament ratings

created with ORDO

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Tournament Statistics

Depths, Time control, Book

created with ProTools

Time control comparison between engines

Depth    : Average search depth

Time      : Total time engine used

Moves    : Total moves engine played

Average  : Average time per move in centi-seconds

Forfeit    : Games engine lost due to time forfeit

Book      : The engine that profited most of its book

List is sorted on Average Time indicating the engine that used the most time tops.

Programmer stuff on a separate page.

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YAT

Medal Competition

PGN