TCEC 23 superfinal opening PGN available

The TCEC 23 superfinal finished on Thursday, November 17th. Stockfish prolonged its title by beating Leela Chess Zero by 58.5-41.5. Stockfish won 27 games, Leela won 10 games and 63 games ended in a draw.

21 lines ended decisive, i.e. in a 1.5-0.5 score. Stockfish won 19 lines, while Leela won 2 lines. In total 8 lines ended with two wins.

Via the link below you can download the TCEC 23 superfinal opening PGN. The odd numbered lines were selected by GM Matthew Sadler. The even numbered lines were selected by Jeroen Noomen.

TCEC 23 superfinal book

TCEC 23 superfinal book, by GM Matthew Sadler and Jeroen Noomen

The TCEC 23 superfinal book was again developed in cooperation between international chess Grandmaster Matthew Sadler and myself (Jeroen Noomen). 

Here is the most important information about our book:

• The TCEC 23 superfinal book was completed in the months before July 2022. Both Matthew and I have chosen 25 lines, which will be played alternately. Matthew's lines are #1, #3, #5 and so forth, my lines are #2, #4, #6 and so forth. The lines are mixed in a special way, the 2nd half of the superfinal will have a higher bias. 
• I ordered both Matthew's and my own lines from 1 (lowest exit) to 25 (highest exit). My own lines are played from 1 (lowest) to 25 (highest). Matthew's five highest exits will be played first, i.e. in the first 10 lines there are 5 with a very high bias. After that Matthew's lines continue with 1,2,3.... 20.
• All lines typically have a Leela Chess Zero book exit between +0.35 and +0.55, with a few exceptions (note: this is an old Leela net, with lower evaluations than the current Leela net!). Of course the book exits at TCEC can be very different, because of much faster hardware or because engines like Stockfish and Komodo Dragon have much higher evaluations than Leela.  
• All important openings will be played; just like in the previous TCEC superfinals the opening lines are risky and have a (very) high bias. This is necessary to avoid an excessive number of uninteresting draws. 
• The chosen lines typically have a length between 2 moves and 13 moves; there are two lines which are 2 moves (4 ply) long and there is one line which is 13 moves long. 
• Five opening lines have a black advantage, to increase the chance of a black win.
• Average move length is 6.36, which is lower compared to the previous superfinal.
• We have avoided positions that could lead to many exchanges, as well as positions with a symmetrical pawn structure and positions that could lead to easy wins for the side with an advantage. The last aspect is becoming more and more difficult, with strong hardware, a long time control and engines being so strong. Of course risky lines means that the chance of 1-0 1-0 is increasing.
• The purpose of the lines is to have interesting play with a reasonable chance of a decisive result. An opening result of 1.5-0.5 is the preferred outcome. Enjoy the TCEC 23 superfinal!

 

ECO code distribution

ECO A: 13 lines

ECO B: 18 lines

ECO C: 8 lines

ECO D: 1 line

ECO E: 10 lines

Move length distribution

2 moves: 2 lines

3 moves: 3 lines

4 moves: 7 lines

5 moves: 9 lines

6 moves: 10 lines

7 moves: 3 lines

8 moves: 7 lines

9 moves: 5 lines

10 moves: 1 line

>10 moves: 3 lines

Opening PGN TCEC S23 Premier Division

Here you can download Jeroen Noomen's opening PGN that is used in TCEC season 23 Premier Divsion:

TCEC S23 Premier Division book

The PGN contains 112 lines with a high/very high bias. Each round has a specific theme. F.e. round 1 of four games is 'Sicilian Dragon', round 2 is 'King's Indian Mar del Plata' and so forth.

Enjoy testing!

A new Noomen openingbook for Rebel

Hello chess fans,

Recently I made a new openingbook for the Rebel engine: Rebel.bin. It's a Polyglot book that contains a lot of modern theory. Like the Ruy Lopez Berlin, the Sicilian Sveshnikov, the Sicilian Taimanov, the Semi-Slav (Botwinnik, Moscow, anti-Moscow and Meran defences). You can download this book here:

Rebel.bin openingbook

If you prefer to have the Rebel.bin book incorporated in Rebel and Arena, you can download it here:

Rebel.bin + Rebel package

If you only want to browse the book, you can f.e. use SCID: SCID download

* Put the Rebel.bin book in the SCID bin/books folder
* Start SCID
* Choose the menu option Tools => Book tuning
* In the Book tab select Rebel.bin
* SCID shows the moves that are in the book with their preferences
* Make moves on the board to browse through the book

Enjoy the book!

October 2022, Jeroen Noomen

Outside theory: 2 ply fun testset

Today's engines play all theoretical lines very well. Even without books they follow theory for a very long time, often leading to the same stuff over and over again. And lots of draws, of course. Are you tired of seeing the same openings all the time? Do you want to see something different than the well trodden paths that have been seen in thousands of games? Then the following testset for engine-engine testing might be interesting for you:

Noomen 2 ply fun testset

This is a testset with 2 ply openings only, thus one move for white and one move for black. But none of these 2 ply openings will lead to standard opening play. You'll find stuff in this testset like:

• 1. h4 a5
• 1. g4 b5
• 1. Na3 Nh6

And so forth. Let your engines find out how to handle such non standard and sometimes even erratic positions! No theory, no standard play, no recognizable themes/patterns. Enjoy testing!

Note: don't take this testset too seriously. It's for fun purposes only :-).

TCEC 22 superfinal opening PGN available

The TCEC 22 superfinal finished on Saturday, April 23rd. Stockfish prolonged its title by beating Komodo Dragon by 59.5-40.5. Stockfish won 28 games, Dragon won 9 games and 63 games ended in a draw.

19 lines ended decisive, i.e. in a 1.5-0.5 score. Stockfish won all of these opening lines . In total 9 lines ended with two wins.

Via the link below you can download the TCEC 22 superfinal opening PGN. The odd numbered lines were selected by GM Matthew Sadler. The even numbered lines were selected by Jeroen Noomen. 

TCEC 22 superfinal PGN

TCEC 22 superfinal book, by GM Matthew Sadler and Jeroen Noomen

Just like the TCEC 21 superfinal book, the TCEC 22 superfinal book was again developed in cooperation between international chess Grandmaster Matthew Sadler and myself (Jeroen Noomen). 

Here is the most important information about our book:

• The TCEC 22 superfinal book was completed in the months before September 2021. Both Matthew and I have chosen 25 lines, which will be played alternately. Matthew's lines are #1, #3, #5 and so forth, my lines are #2, #4, #6 and so forth. The lines are mixed, which means that lower book exits are mixed with higher book exits. I ordered both Matthew's and my own lines from 1 (lowest exit) to 25 (highest exit). Then I made pairs: 1-25, 2-24, 3-23, 4-22 and so on. The pairs are distributed randomly over the book.
• All lines typically have a Leela Chess Zero book exit between +0.35 and +0.50, with a few exceptions. Of course the book exits at TCEC can be very different, because of much faster hardware or because engines like Stockfish and Komodo Dragon have much higher evaluations than Leela.  
• All important openings will be played; just like in the previous TCEC superfinals the opening lines are risky and have a (very) high bias. This is necessary to avoid an excessive number of uninteresting draws. Statistics of the previous superfinals show that a Leela book exit below +0.30 is an almost 100% certain draw. 
• The chosen lines typically have a length between 1 moves and 16 moves; there is one line which is 1 move (2 ply) long and there is one line which is 16 moves long. 
• Three opening lines have a black advantage, to increase the chance of a black win.
• Average move length is 7.3, which is a bit higher compared to the previous two superfinals.
• We have avoided positions that could lead to many exchanges, as well as positions with a symmetrical pawn structure and positions that could lead to easy wins for the side with an advantage. The last aspect is becoming more and more difficult, with strong hardware, a long time control and engines being so strong. Of course risky lines means that the chance of 1-0 1-0 is increasing.
• The purpose of the lines is to have interesting play with a reasonable chance of a decisive result. An opening result of 1.5-0.5 is the preferred outcome. Enjoy the TCEC 22 superfinal!

 

ECO code distribution

ECO A: 10 lines

ECO B: 10 lines

ECO C: 13 lines

ECO D: 4 lines

ECO E: 13 lines

Move length distribution

1 move: 1 line

3 moves: 2 lines

4 moves: 3 lines

5 moves: 8 lines

6 moves: 7 lines

7 moves: 3 lines

8 moves: 12 lines

9 moves: 6 lines

10 moves: 3 lines

>10 moves: 5 lines