Abstract/Summary

This is a report of the 'TCEC Cup 1' computational experiment, the first TCEC knockout event and the second major part of TCEC’s 13th season. It featured the best 32 engines of ‘TCEC 13’ and the games were held at Blitz tempo, The different format called for different optimal settings in the engines, thereby enabling a comparison with performance at slower tempi. This event notably featured the first appearance of two non-Shannon-AB, neural-network/MCTS engines, DEUS X and LEELA CHESS ZERO. LC0 notably was a quarter-finalist, having started as 21st seed. STOCKFISH beat HOUDINI in the final with the sole win, remarkably, a short and dramatic game. All decisive games in the supplementary data have been played out by FRITZ17 at search depth 24 to benchmark endgame practice.