The expert part 2

A few days ago I read another funny anecdote in the book Ivan's Chess Journey Unravelled. Ivan explains that he and his opponent the Latvian strong grandmaster Alexei Shirov got a standing ovation after that their game ended in a spectacular draw. The game was played in 1994 so before engines were strong enough to give accurate evaluations. That means nobody knew that the game was full of serious mistakes.

In those days chess was still magic. You had fans sheering for their heroes. Today an absolute world class-player like Wesley So has only a fanbase of just 3 members. Engines show us every day that everybody makes many mistakes so not much appreciation for talent still exists.

I am not fond of idealizing people but that doesn't mean that I can't sympathize with the results of others. Of course I do follow the first steps of my son in chess but I am also interested in the games of my team-mates and other friends. Besides kibitzing national or international games can be fun too.

Obviously some players are more attractive to follow than others. The rating plays naturally a role. I notice in each broadcast that the games of the reigning world-champion Magnus Carlsen are a magnet. Except the rating also somebodies style and theoretical knowledge are important for me. The strong British grandmaster Nigel Short is famous for this experiments with openings which we normally only see in games played at the club. The strong Ukrainian grandmaster Andrei Volokitin and the Greek grandmaster Vasilios Kotronias are interesting for me because of their refined opening repertoire.

Experts of openings which I play myself are good to follow and study. In my article switching colors part 2 I talked about the Turkish IM Burak Firat, meeting 17 times the same line on the board. However even better is to look at players above 2600 elo, selecting their opening-lines much more solidly and professionally. Anyway we already know that Botvinnik told Kasparov to learn an opening via studying the games of the best players.

Nowadays most players play a big variety of openings (which was covered in my article the list of strength) but there are still a few exceptions whom stick to a much more narrow repertoire. In this category belongs for sure former European champion and Russian grandmaster Vladimir Potkin. In the last 5 years he chose in 81 out of 104 games for the Sicilian after 1.e4. Further he answered 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 almost always (66 out of 69 games) with e6. Vladimir is a real expert in the Sicilian Taimanov as can be seen in the game below against the Russian super-grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi.

[Event "RUS-ch 63rd"] [Site "Moscow"] [Date "2010.12.16"] [Round "6"] [White "Nepomniachtchi, Ian"] [Black "Potkin, Vladimir"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ECO "B83"] [WhiteElo "2720"] [BlackElo "2646"] [PlyCount "43"] [EventDate "2010.12.11"] [EventType "tourn"] [EventRounds "11"] [EventCountry "RUS"] [EventCategory "19"] [SourceTitle "CBM 140"] [Source "ChessBase"] [SourceDate "2011.01.18"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. d4 cxd4 5. Nxd4 Qc7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Be2 Be7 8. O-O O-O 9. f4 d6 10. Qe1 Nxd4 11. Bxd4 e5 12. fxe5 dxe5 13. Qg3 Bc5 14. Bxc5 Qxc5 15. Kh1 Kh8 16. Rxf6 gxf6 17. Qh4 Rg8 18. Qxf6 Rg7 19. Rd1 Be6 20. Rd8 Rxd8 21. Qxd8 Rg8 22. Qf6 1/2-1/2

It is of course  not a coincidence that we see almost an identical copy of a game published in my article ambitions part 2.  After that game Benjamin confessed that he had studied the games of Vladimir.

On the other hand I noticed that Vladimir since 2015 switched to a6 again. I assume that he wasn't fully satisfied about the line and then even an expert will make some changes to his repertoire. Now he chooses the modern Negi concept as so many others. That line was earlier already covered in my article to shoot a mosquito with a canon.

[Event "Tata Steel-B 77th"] [Site "Wijk aan Zee"] [Date "2015.01.21"] [Round "10"] [White "Navara, David"] [Black "Potkin, Vladimir"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ECO "B85"] [WhiteElo "2729"] [BlackElo "2608"] [PlyCount "67"] [EventDate "2015.01.10"] [EventType "tourn"] [EventRounds "13"] [EventCountry "NED"] [EventCategory "13"] [SourceTitle "CBM 165"] [Source "ChessBase"] [SourceDate "2015.03.11"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nc3 Qc7 6. Be2 a6 7. O-O Nf6 8. Be3 Be7 9. f4 d6 10. a4 O-O 11. Kh1 Nxd4 12. Qxd4 Bd7 13. Qd2 Bc6 14. Bd3 b5 15. axb5 axb5 16. Nxb5 Qb7 17. c4 Nxe4 18. Qc2 f5 19. Bd4 Nc5 20. Bxc5 dxc5 21. Qe2 Rf6 22. Rxa8 Qxa8 23. Nc7 Qb7 24. Nxe6 Bxg2 25. Qxg2 Qxg2 26. Kxg2 Rxe6 27. Bxf5 Re2 28. Rf2 Rxf2 29. Kxf2 Bf6 30. b3 g6 31. Be4 Bc3 32. h4 Kg7 33. Kg3 h5 34. f5 1/2-1/2

Anyway I guess Vladimir had recently not much time to work on his own repertoire. During the candidate-finales as during the world-championship he assisted the challenger Sergei Karjakin with his preparations. A good worker for the openings is always useful but I assume Vladimir also influenced the opening-strategy of Sergei. We clearly see a difference between Magnus and Sergeis strategies

WC Strategy

The yellow moves tell us where Magnus deviated from earlier games in the championship. The blue moves are the ones of Sergei when he deviates. It is clear that Magnus is almost always the first one to do (10 - 4) and besides he does it very early. The Ukrainian super-grandmaster Ruslan Ponamariov wonders himself at Chessbase what Carlsen has shown us at the world-championship. Well maybe that it is possible to stay world-champion without going into big theoretical fights.

Finally we should not ignore the fact that Sergei came very close to get the title. Opening-experts are still playing an important role today for amateurs and finalists of a world-championship. Kasparovs tweet about the lack of preparation of Carlsen definitely contains some truth.

Brabo

Addendum 
A nice article fitting to this theme is  Can You Still Specialize In An Opening?

The fake truth part 2

With the New Year celebrations in front of us a lot of money will be spent. We are searching the right gifts for our loved ones but should not forget ourselves. This reminds me that I am still looking for a good book about chess to read during the Christmas's holidays. Currently I am reading the book Ivan's_Chess_Journey_Unravelled which I like so something similar is fine but other proposals I welcome too in the reactions.

In this period of the year we see shops making extra efforts to attract customers. Advertising, newsletters, ... are just a few techniques used to promote the products. The commercial king of chess is already for several decades Chessbase. Nobody else succeeds better to earn money by selling chess products. Except a large variety of attractive products also huge investments are done in marketing which plays a crucial role in their sales.

The financial resources of Chessbase are many times larger than the competition. This advantage they exploit maximally via skillful marketing-plans. This year Chessbase didn't miss a golden opportunity like the world-championship to attract (new) customers. They were the only ones to get annotations of the games by the world class pros Ruslan Ponomariov, Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So and David Navara. I can't remember an earlier world championship for which 4 players with an average of +2760 elo were asked to provide their analysis. I write this blog unpaid but I am sure these guys got a very high fee for their services.

It is very hard to predict if Chessbase will see an increase of their sales by this stunt. Besides are the analysis of the best players in the world really better than what you can get on the other sites? In my previous article you could read that today's best engines play several hundred points better than any player. You could therefore deduct that an annotator will just talk through the analysis of the engine.

From pure analytical perspective I do not see much difference. The engines point out quickly and accurately the mistakes which are covered in any proper report. One big exception is the opening. The top-players play and know each others repertoire extremely well so are able to tell us which lines are critical and popular. I give one example. Game 11 was a pretty harmless looking opening but Wesley So demonstrates things can quickly get out of control.

[Event "AGON FWCM 2016"] [Site "New York"] [Date "2016.11.26"] [Round "11"] [White "Karjakin, Sergey"] [Black "Carlsen, Magnus"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [WhiteElo "2772"] [BlackElo "2853"] [PlyCount "67"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. d3 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. a3 O-O 9. Nc3 Be6 10. Nd5 Nd4 11. Nxd4 exd4 12. Nxf6 {(Wesley So claims Nxe7 is the critical test in this opening.)} (12. Nxe7 Qxe7 13. Bg5 Bxb3 14. cxb3 h6 15. Bh4 Qe6 16. f4 c5 17. b4 Rfe8 18. f5 Qe5 19. Bg3 Qe7 20. bxc5 dxc5 21. e5 Nd5 22. f6 Qe6 23. fxg7 Ne3 24. Qd2 Nxf1 25. Rxf1 Qg6 {(Wesley stops here which I find a bit strange as this position pops up in the game Ivanchuk - Svidler played in 2013 which surprisingly white lost. Anyhow white can easily improve.)}) 12... Bxf6 13. Bxe6 fxe6 14. f4 c5 15. Qg4 Qd7 16. f5 Rae8 17. Bd2 c4 18. h3 c3 19. bxc3 d5 20. Bg5 Bxg5 21. Qxg5 dxe4 22. fxe6 Rxf1 23. Rxf1 Qxe6 24. cxd4 e3 25. Re1 h6 26. Qh5 e2 27. Qf3 a5 28. c3 Qa2 29. Qc6 Re6 30. Qc8 Kh7 31. c4 Qd2 32. Qxe6 Qxe1 33. Kh2 Qf2 34. Qe4 1/2-1/2

The biggest added value of the best players is their commentary. Computers are not capable today to understand the chess-psychology in human games. Besides this is something very much linked to somebodies playing strength. Finally Wesley so also injects lessons in his commentary for the average player. You notice clearly that Wesley has quite some experience in coaching weaker players contrary to his illustrious colleagues. He tells us to be practical if we analyze openings. Don't spent countless hours into studying some opening which will very rarely pop up in your practice. You will develop much faster by carefully selecting and absorbing ideas.

Another remarkable statement of Wesley is that he doesn't fully trust his notes of 2013. He rightly claims that Houdini, the computer and the internet were much slower 3 years ago. This fully matches my previous article in which I wrote that we saw a jump in strength of 200 ratingpoints in only 3 years for the engines. On the other hand I do wonder what he exactly means with the internet. I see today many enjoyable and addictive multi player games (slither.io, agar.io, diep.io, splix.io) boom via the faster network but I normally use only 1 or 2 PC's for the analysis.

The problem is for an amateur of course much smaller. The influence of the opening is rather small upon the final result of a game (see studying chess openings). On the other hand I always try to add something scientific into my games. It is pretty frustrating to discover afterwards that the used analysis in which quite some personal effort was put, are outdated. Something like that happened to me recently in the Belgian interclub. In 2007 I met for the first time a rather obscure line of the Sicilian after which I spent a number of hours to find an anti-dote.

[Event "Interclub Deurne - KOSK"] [Date "2007"] [White "Brabo"] [Black "De Baenst, B."] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B29"] [WhiteElo "2303"] [BlackElo "2219"] [PlyCount "49"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nc3 d5 4. exd5 Nxd5 5. d4 {(Critical is Bb5 but I was not aware of that during the game.)} Nxc3 {(More popular is Nc6. I once won a nice victory against that setup see my game Brabo - Hajenius. The chosen move is a more direct way to solve the opening problems.)} 6. bxc3 g6 7. Ne5 $6 {(I start an aggressive plan which leads to winning a pawn at move 11 but it contains too large disadvantages like a big lag of development and a crippled pawnstructure. Better are Bb5, Bf4, Be2 but I can not find an advantage for white.)} Bg7 8. Bb5 Nd7 9. Qf3 O-O 10. Bxd7 Bxd7 11. Qxb7 Ba4 12. O-O cxd4 13. Re1 $6 {(I miss blacks next move which further deteriorates my position. Better is Qb4 which loses a pawn but still keeps fighting chances.)} Qa5 14. Bf4 Qxc3 15. Rac1 Bxc2 16. Nxf7 $6 {(Objectively Re2 is better but maybe my move is a better practical choice.)} (16. Re2 $5 Rab8 17. Qxa7 Rb1 18. Rxb1 Bxb1 $17) 16... Qc8 $4 {(Black totally miss the strength of my next move. The game turns completely upside down after this. The cool Rae8 should very likely win for black.)} (16... Rae8 $1 17. Qb5 Rxf7 18. Re2 d3 19. Rexc2 dxc2 20. Qxe8 Rf8 21. Qa4 $19) 17. Qd5 Rxf7 18. Rxe7 Qf8 19. Rxf7 Qxf7 20. Qxa8 Bf8 21. Rxc2 Qxf4 22. Qd5 Qf7 23. Qxd4 Qf5 24. Rc1 Bh6 25. Rd1 1-0

In the second round I got recently again the same opening on the board by Hendrik Ponnet. I still could remember my recommendation from my opening-book but only after the game I found out that the theory was developed a lot since then.

[Event "Interclub Deurne - KGSRL"] [Date "2016"] [White "Brabo"] [Black "Ponnet, H."] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ECO "B29"] [WhiteElo "2314"] [BlackElo "2277"] [PlyCount "60"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nf6 {(Our third confrontation and each time Hendrik chooses a different line to avoid any preparation.)} 3. Nc3 d5 4. exd5 Nxd5 5. Bb5 {(In 2007 I played Bc4 against Bruno De Baenst. In the meanwhile I knew that Bb5 is the mainline.)} Bd7 6. Qe2 $6 {(I recommended this move in my opening book but today I prefer Ne5.)} (6. Ne5 $1 e6 $5 7. Qf3 $1 Qf6 8. Nxd7 $1 Nxd7 9. Nxd5 $1 Qxf3 10. Nc7 Kd8 11. Nxe6 fxe6 12. gxf3 Ne5 13. f4 $1 Nf3 $14) 6... Nf6 $6 {(My last move threw Hendrik out of book. Better chances for equality are given by Nb4, a6 and Bc6.)} (6... Nb4 $5 7. Bxd7 $5 Qxd7 8. d3 N8c6 $5 9. a3 Nd5 $13) (6... a6 $5 7. Bxd7 $5 Qxd7 8. Ne5 Qe6 9. Nxd5 Qxd5 10. O-O Nc6 11. Nxc6 Qxc6 $13) (6... Bc6 $5 7. O-O {(Or first d4 and then 0-0.)} e6 8. d4 cxd4 $5 9. Nxd4 Nxc3 10. bxc3 Be7 $13) 7. d4 cxd4 8. Nxd4 e6 $146 {(An interesting novelty. A6 and g6 were tried before but without success.)} 9. Bg5 Be7 10. O-O-O O-O 11. Rhe1 $6 { (Played superficially as the sacrifices against e6 do not work. More useful moves are Bc4 and Kb1 with a slight advantage.)} Bxb5 12. Qxb5 Qc7 13. Qe2 Nc6 14. Nxc6 bxc6 15. Ne4 $2 {(I was slightly irritated not to get something tangible and besides I consumed already too much time. However this rushed move to exchange pieces and get a draw is an ugly mistake. I did take into account Nc3 earlier in the game but my emotions probably confused my thoughts.)} Nxe4 16. Bxe7 Nc3 17. Qe5 Nxa2 18. Kb1 Qxe7 19. Kxa2 Rfd8 20. g3 Rxd1 $2 {(The exchange of the rooks improves drastically the drawing chances for me as it is difficult for black to get active due to the weak c-pawn.)} (20... Qb4 $1 21. f4 h6 $5 22. Re4 Qb6 23. Rxd8 Rxd8 24. Qc3 Qa6 $5 25. Qa3 Qb5 $1 26. Qc3 Rd1 27. b3 Rh1 28. Ra4 $1 Qf1 29. Rc4 Rxh2 30. Rxc6 Qd1 31. Rc7 $17) 21. Rxd1 Rd8 22. Rxd8 Qxd8 23. c4 Qb6 24. Qd6 h5 25. Ka3 g6 {(I recommended after the game Qa5. The engines agree but Stockfish nevertheless shows a way how white can defend.)} (25... Qa5 $5 26. Kb3 c5 27. Qb8 Kh7 28. Qb5 $1 Qc7 29. Ka4 Qe5 30. Ka5 $13) 26. b4 Qa6 27. Kb3 Qb6 28. Ka4 Qa6 29. Kb3 Qb6 30. Ka4 Qa6 {(Black did not want to take any risks while playing solely upon increments and that is fully understandable. Anyway it is very doubtful if black can still try something here.)} 1/2-1/2

I get the impression that Hendriks preparation wasn't very extensive as normally I should not have obtained any advantage out of the opening. Sometimes using outdated analysis can throw the opponent out of book but you can't count on such coincidences of course.

We know that the raise of the machines won't stop immediately so we do have to take into account also in the future that some of our analysis will be outdated. Especially if you play sharp tactical lines you have to be very careful to rely on old analysis. Next I also experienced that by studying properly the options of the opponent you can improve drastically the opening analysis. Till a couple of years ago I was already satisfied after finding an answer to the lines which the engine showed. Today I also investigate any line which was played with some success in practice (+2300 standard chess, chess between computers, correspondence chess and even my own online-games). Well any line is of course not possible as in the end you do want to finalize the analysis in maximum a couple of weeks.

By looking at a much bigger variety of lines, I get a more balanced evaluation of an opening. Finally I also discovered that this method of studying openings bears a number of ideas which I use as surprises.

Brabo

Rise of the machines part 3

Regularly we have it on this blog about new engines. They don't only improve continuously but they also influence the way we play (see revolution in the new millennium) and analyze (see the fake truth). Besides we haven't yet met the ceiling as developments today are happening very rapidly. Personally I am really astonished about this after 2 decades of intensive programming done by several great talents. It is not easy to valuate this gigantic progression correctly  but I will give it a try in this article.

In 1997 Deep Blue defeated the at that time reigning world-champion Garry Kasparov which generally is considered as a milestone but it still took several years till every player could use an engine of the same strength. It is difficult to pin an exact date when that happened but I estimate 2003 will be close. 2003 was the period of the matches Kasparov against Deep Junior and X3D Fritz which were both drawn.

Ever since the top-engines have surpassed everybody and not a little bit. If we look at CCRL then Fritz progressed with 470 elo-points in the last 13 years. On top of that we notice that today Komodo 10 is an additional 210 rating-points stronger than the strongest version of Fritz. That makes a total of 680 points or averagely 52 points per year. If we only look at the 3 recent years then we have the same trend. End of 2013 I worked with stockfish 4. Last week I download Stockfish 8 which again is 165 points stronger than edition 4 based on the figures of CCRL. That is again 55 points averagely per year.

An important role during the progression of the last couple of years plays without any doubt TCEC (Top Chess Engine Championship). Ameliorations to the engines are allowed between the stages within 1 championship and this combined with the ever growing interest of the championship, clearly motivates most programmers.

Currently the superfinal of season 9 is ongoing and we are very close to the final decision. I see 2 big surprises this season. The first one is the non-qualification to the superfinal of Komdo while leading at CCRL. I guess this is related to new improved versions of the competitors which are not yet used by CCRL. The second big surprise is the comeback of our Belgian super talented programmer Robert Houdart with his engine Houdini. I didn't expect that as Houdini 4 already dates back from 2013 !. At the site of Houdini they claim a progression of not less than 200 ratingpoints which doesn't seem exaggerated to me.

In the separate rapid-championship Houdini won in front of Komodo and Stockfish but in the superfinal of the classical chess-championship, Houdini will most likely narrowly lose against Stockfish. Anyway 1 game will for sure be remembered for longtime if only because it created quite some controversy. Of course I talk about the 17th.

[Event "TCEC Season 9 - Superfinal"] [Site "http://tcec.chessdom.com"] [Date "2016.11.15"] [Round "17"] [White "Stockfish 8"] [Black "Houdini 5"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B78"] [WhiteElo "3228"] [BlackElo "3182"] [PlyCount "143"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nc6 9. Bc4 Bd7 10. O-O-O Rc8 11. Bb3 Ne5 12. h4 Nc4 13. Bxc4 Rxc4 14. h5 Nxh5 15. g4 Nf6 16. Kb1 Re8 17. b3 Rc8 18. Nd5 Nxd5 19. exd5 e5 20. dxe6 fxe6 21. Qh2 Qf6 22. a4 b6 23. Qxh7 Kf7 24. g5 Qe5 25. Rh6 Qxe3 26. Rxg6 Rg8 27. f4 d5 28. f5 exf5 29. Nxf5 Qxb3 30. cxb3 Bxf5 31. Ka2 Rc2 32. Ka3 Bxg6 33. Rf1 Ke7 34. Qxg8 Bb2 35. Kb4 Bc3 36. Kb5 Bd3 37. Kc6 Be5 38. Kb7 Rc7 39. Ka8 Bxf1 40. Qxd5 Bg7 41. Kb8 Rd7 42. Qe4 Kf8 43. Qf5 Rf7 44. Qc8 Ke7 45. Qc7 Ke6 46. Qc6 Kf5 47. Qd5 Be5 48. Ka8 Rf8 49. Kxa7 Be2 50. b4 Bh5 51. Kxb6 Bf7 52. Qf3 Bf4 53. Qc6 Rb8 54. Ka7 Kxg5 55. Qd7 Bh5 56. b5 Re8 57. b6 Be3 58. Qd5 Kh4 59. a5 Re7 60. Ka8 Re8 61. Kb7 Re7 62. Kc8 Bg4 63. Kb8 Bf4 64. Ka8 Kg3 65. Qg8 Re5 66. a6 Re6 67. Kb7 Be3 68. a7 Rxb6 69. Kc7 Ra6 70. a8=Q Bf4 71. Kb7 Rxa8 72. Kxa8 {(This position was automatically adjudicated as a win for white which created quite some controversy. The Nalimov tablebes show a win in 72 moves but the Syzygy tablebases tell us that the 50 moves rule comes into force. Besides the evaluations of both engines do not show a win at all.)} 1-0

In the final position a win was awarded automatically to Stockfish based on the Nalimov tablebases. However many viewers didn't agree with the verdict. First both engines showed a quotation of 0.00 in the final position see TCEC but on top the 50 moves-rule was not taken into account. If TCEC had used instead  Syzygy tablebases then the rule could have been applied.

Evaluation by Syzygy tablebases of the final position game 17th TCEC season 9

DTZ tells us how many moves no pawn was moved or piece was captured against optimal play. DTM on the other hand shows us the number of moves to mate against optimal play. 123 plies or 62 moves for DTZ means indeed that the 50 moves-rule comes into force.

However we should not forget that the 50 moves-rule is something introduced for humans to avoid searching endlessly for a win in vain. As I already wrote in my article ICCF it does make sense to ignore this rule here too.

Besides that it is still looks strange to me to award a win when both engines don't see at all such win. I do understand that adjudications win a lot of time and energy. Till then this was always going smoothly but not this time. Afterwards some people claimed rightly that Houdini would have avoided the final position if it was allowed to consult in advance the tablebases.

Decisions by (much) weaker arbiters often create problems when they are related to playing for a win but the opposite also exists. The much stronger arbiter makes a judgment based on its capabilities but ignores the much weaker skills of the involved players.

By accident something similar happened to my son Hugo playing in the -8 category of the Flemish youth-criterium at Gent. His third game was adjudicated as a draw when an endgame of each rook + king was on the board and the opponent risked losing on time. After the game Hugo could not suppress his tears anymore. The arbiter made a call in good conscience but it is of course very painful when just a few weeks earlier you lost the exact same endgame in the step-tournament of Turnhout against a brother of the opponent.

[Event "Step-tournament Turnhout"] [Date "2016"] [Round "9"] [White "Hugo"] [Black "Brother of opponent Gent"] [Result "0-1"] [SetUp "1"] [FEN "6r1/8/4k3/5R2/5K2/8/8/8 b - - 0 1"] [PlyCount "7"] 1... Rg1 {(Both players had still several minutes but none thinks this is a draw.)} 2. Ke4 $4 {(Only considering Rg4. As a parent I was not surprised to see this move as Hugo played the complete game below its normal level.)} Re1 3. Kf4 Rf1 4. Ke4 Rxf5 {(Black needed more than 50 moves to mate but as there was no notation, a draw could never be claimed. This game decided the second place of the 2nd category of the step-tournament.)} 0-1

Maybe Hugos opponent in Gent would have not made such kind of mistake but we can't be sure of that. You never know what will or will not happen in the -8 category so any decision is debatable. Eventually I advised Hugo to accept the decision of the arbiter. A draw was a fair result and from my experience I know that it is often better not to fight against such things on the long term.

I assume TCEC thought the same. The adjudication wasn't optimal but the decision was made and you can't change the rules during the superfinale anymore. In the end 100 games will be played and it doesn't look like this 1 game will influence who will win the final.

I expect after this superfinal CCRL will start to test the new versions of both finalists. Normally this means we will see Stockfish as the new number 1 with a bunch of ratingpoints ahead. Some difficult times are coming for the commercial engines as few will want to pay for a weaker engine while you can get the strongest one for free.

The exact elo-strength of the engines calculated by Carlsens rating + the progression since 2003 looks too simplistic to me. If we would do such math then it would mean Carlsen would not be able to score theoretically one single point in a standard game without a handicap. I do see him losing a match with a big margin but with the right openings it should be possible to score a couple of half points which means the rating-difference can't be 700 points.

On the other hand in this article I only talk about the strength of the engines. We don't take into account hardware developments, improved interfaces or new and bigger tablebases. Together they maybe push the rating another 200 points up.

It is not for no reason that I stated at the beginning of this article that the progression of the engines is difficult to valuate correctly. If you add up all the numbers then you get a dazzling rating of around 3800 elo which makes no sense. The only way to evaluate the engines is to let them compete against other engines. Unfortunately we also see a lot of players using the engines to denigrate our top-players which just shows a complete lack of respect.

Brabo