TCEC Season 19

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The 19th season of the Top Chess Engine Championship began on 6 August 2020 and
ended on 16 October 2020. The season 19 superfinal was a rematch
between Stockfish and Leela Chess Zero, the same two engines that had contested the
superfinal in the previous two seasons. Stockfish, the defending champion, won by 9
games (+18 -9 =73).

Overview[edit]
The format of TCEC Season 19 is largely unchanged from that of Season 18. The only difference is that the
time control in the superfinal is once again 120 minutes + 10 seconds per move, increased from 90 min + 10s
in Season 18.[1] The rules are also largely unchanged, with the only significant addition being r-mobility as a
tiebreak criterion. This tiebreak depends on the number of legal moves available to both sides in the last phase
of the game; the side with the fewer legal moves loses.[2]

Tiebreak rules[edit]
The tiebreak rules for TCEC Season 19 are:

1. For any event except the superfinal: the number of crashes.

2. Head-to-head score.

3. Number of wins.

4. Sonneborn-Berger score.

5. r-mobility.[2]

6. A decision by the tournament organizers.

Results[edit]
Qualification League[edit]
New entrant SlowChess was the early favorite in the Qualification League because it had shown a great deal of
improvement in self-play in spite of being a relatively new engine. It lived up to its billing by dominating the
Qualification League, scoring 16 wins in 22 games, including head-to-head wins against all its opponents.
Second place was much more fiercely contested, with Roc eventually squeezing past Combusken in spite of
losing both head-to-head matches to its rival. Eventual fourth-place finisher Monolith was also in the running up
until the last rounds, but it lost both its games against SlowChess as well as a game against Roc which
eventually left it 1.5 points behind Roc.

At the other end of the table, the other new entrant A0lite finished last together with Bagatur,
scoring 5/22.

Pos Engine Pld W D L Pts Qualification

1 SlowChess 22 16 6 0 19 Advance to League 3

 2 Roc 22 11 8 3 15

3 Combusken 22 8 12 2 14

4 Monolith 22 8 11 3 13.5

5 chess22k 22 6 12 4 12

6 ChessFighter 22 4 15 3 11.5

7 FabChess 22 4 13 5 10.5

8 Weiss 22 5 10 7 10

9 Asymptote 22 2 14 6 9

10 Tucano 22 3 9 10 7.5

11 Bagatur 22 1 8 13 5

12 A0lite 22 1 8 13 5

Source: [1]

League 3[edit]
Although the competition was much stronger, QL winner SlowChess also crushed League 3,
scoring 13/18, 1.5 points ahead of second-place and third-place Igel & Minic. This time,
however, there were three engines it was not able to beat. Comparatively the fight for second
place was very close, with Igel barely squeezing past Minic on the strength of a head-to-head
win. This result will later turn out to have a significant impact on League 2. The rest of the
league was straightforward, with iCE and Counter finishing solidly at the bottom, losing 7 games
each and 2.5 points from safety.

Pos Engine Pld W D L Pts Qualification

 1 SlowChess 18 8 10 0 13

Advance to League 2

2 Igel 18 5 13 0 11.5

3 Minic 18 6 11 1 11.5

4 Pirarucu 18 3 12 3 9

5 Gogobello 18 2 14 2 9

6 Marvin 18 3 11 4 8.5

7 Topple 18 3 11 4 8.5

8 Roc 18 1 14 3 8

9 Counter 18 0 11 7 5.5

Relegate to QL

10 iCE 18 0 11 7 5.5

Source: [2]

League 2[edit]
League 2 saw the first time an NNUE (efficiently updatable neural network) engine played. NNUEs had been
introduced to computer shogi in 2018, and defending champion Stockfish's developers had produced a working
version for chess in June 2020. This new "Stockfish NNUE" gained strength very quickly, and by August 2020
was outperforming the original Stockfish by almost a hundred elo at short time controls. [3] This led to strong
anticipation of the results when Igel, which had narrowly beaten Minic in League 3, submitted an updated
version including an NNUE.
Igel lived up to the hype with a massive winning streak to start League 2. It scored 7/9 in the first round robin,
including a win over hitherto-undefeated SlowChess. Its performance dipped in the second round, scoring
"only" 4 wins and losing a game to eventual 3rd-place finisher RubiChess, but it still won the division with
14/18. Meanwhile SlowChess recovered after the loss to Igel by scoring 5 wins in the second round, losing no
other games to finish second with 13/18. With its win against Igel, RubiChess was also the only engine to score
50% against the leader in the league, and finished clear 3rd with 11/18. The rest of the division was much more
closely contested, and only two points separated 4th-placed Pedone from last-placed Nemorino.
During testing for League 1, Booot, which had crashed in the previous season, needed to submit a patch
addressing the crashes to participate. Its author did not submit an update, which led to Booot being disqualified
and RubiChess promoting.[4]
Pos Engine Pld W D L Pts Qualification

1 Igel 18 11 6 1 14

2 SlowChess 18 9 8 1 13 Advance to League 1

3 RubiChess 18 6 10 2 11

4 Pedone 18 3 11 4 8.5

5 Vajolet 18 4 8 6 8

6 Winter 18 3 10 5 8

7 Chiron 18 2 10 6 7

8 Demolito 18 2 10 6 7

9 Wasp 18 3 8 7 7

Relegate to League 3

10 Nemorino 18 1 11 6 6.5

Source: [3]

League 1[edit]
League 1 was closely contested with the top eight engines only being separated by 2.5 points. Fire was able to
secure its return to the Premier Division by starting strong in winning three of its first four games and then never
relinquishing its lead. ScorpioNN started off by losing to RubiChess but recovered and moved into the
promotion spot after winning its minimatches against Igel and rival Xiphos. SlowChess ended its impressive
first season which featured three straight promotions from the Qualification League to League One in third
place edging out fourth place Xiphos based on its better Sonneborn-Berger score and missing promotion only
by half a point. rofChade which was relegated from the Premier Division last season finished sixth but was the
only engine that was able to defeat first placed Fire. Igel, featuring NNUE, finished with an even score of 9/18
losing only one game to ScorpioNN, but it was also only able to win one game against rofChade. Fritz and
Arasan, the only engines that weren't able to win any opening pairs, were demoted to League 2.