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The TCEC20 Computer Chess Superfinal: a Perspective The TCEC20 Computer Chess Superfinal: a Perspective GM Matthew Sadler1 London, UK 1 THE TCEC20 PREMIER DIVISION Just like last year, Season 20 DivP gathered a host of familiar faces and once again, one of those faces had a facelift! The venerable KOMODO engine had been given an NNUE beauty boost and there was a feeling that KOMODO DRAGON might prove a threat to LEELA’s and STOCKFISH’s customary tickets to the Superfinal. There was also an updated STOOFVLEES to enjoy while ETHEREAL came storming back to DivP after a convincing victory in League 1. ROFCHADE just pipped NNUE-powered IGEL on tie- break for the second DivP spot. In the end, KOMODO turned out to have indeed received a significant boost from NNUE, pipping ALLIESTEIN for third place. However, both LEELA and STOCKFISH seemed to have made another quantum leap forwards, dominating the field and ending joint first on 38/56, 5.5 points clear of KOMODO DRAGON! Both LEELA and STOCKFISH scored an astonishing 24 wins, with LEELA winning 24 of its 28 White games and STOCKFISH 22! Both winners lost 4 games, all as Black, with LEELA notably tripping up against bottom-marker ROFCHADE and STOCKFISH being beautifully squeezed by STOOFVLEES. The high winning percentage this time is explained by the new high-bias opening book designed for the Premier Division. I had slightly mixed feelings about it as LEELA and STOCKFISH winning virtually all their White games felt like going a bit too much the other way: you want them to have to work a bit harder for their Superfinal places! However, it was once again a very entertaining tournament with plenty of good games. 2 THE TCEC20 SUPERFINAL Even though LEELA had pipped STOCKFISH on tiebreak and drawn their 8-game mini-match in DivP, the memory of last season’s Superfinal - where STOCKFISH had done a much better job of defending unbalanced openings – made you suspect a STOCKFISH victory. However, influenced by the introduction of a ‘magic’ patch for LEELA which – if I understand correctly – gave a significant performance boost at the cost of slightly reduced accuracy, I voted with my heart in the Superfinal poll, predicting the narrowest of LEELA victories! After 70 games, the match was still poised at five wins apiece and chatters were optimistically talking about the first ever Superfinal tiebreak! However, just as in Season 19, STOCKFISH pulled away winning the last 30 games by 9 wins to 3. TCEC book guru Jeroen Noomen had arranged the openings in 1 Communicating author: https://matthewsadler.me.uk/. Sadler and Regan (2016, 2019a/b, 2020) are co-authors of the FIDE prize-winning Game Changer: AlphaZero’s Groundbreaking Chess Strategies and the Promise of AI, New in Chess. ascending order of opening bias, with the most unbalanced openings arriving at the end and STOCKFISH again proved itself more adept in converting advantageous positions and holding disadvantageous ones. However, a final score of 53-47 was no disgrace for LEELA and it was once again a captivating match in which games 52 and 59 were absolute pinnacles of superhuman play! Once again huge congratulations to Jeroen Noomen for an excellent book and to the TCEC sponsors, admins, UI developers, mods who make it all possible and the always enthusiastic chatters who make it such a lovely event to watch! The match started with a bang and an offbeat line of the Latvian Gambit (as someone on my Twitter feed commented, ‘offbeat’ because it’s playable for Black!) Game 2. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Bc4, Fig. 1a. In game 1, STOCKFISH sacrificed a piece for four pawns but LEELA’s activity easily compensated for its material disadvantage. In game 2 LEELA bravely grabbed the rook in the corner, Fig. 1b. While waiting for LEELA and STOCKFISH to move, I ran some rapid games between STOCKFISH and STOOFVLEES from the opening and they soon reached the crazy position of Fig. 1c. The TCEC game wasn’t quite as wild but did feature a further piece sacrifice from STOCKFISH to force perpetual. a b c d Fig. 1. Game 2, LC–ST (a) position 3b, (b) p8b; (c) ‘MS Match’ STOCKFISH–STOOFVLEES p15w; (d) game 3 p11w Games 3 and 4. The next opening was spectacular too, featuring a queen sacrifice that had been played successfully against Firouzja in 2019 and which also featured in the Season 17 Superfinal featuring STOCKFISH CLASSICAL and LEELA, see Fig. 1d (TCEC, 2020a). STOCKFISH CLASSICAL always preferred the queen against the pieces and it struggled on both sides of this opening where the pieces seem objectively stronger! The crazy position of Fig. 2a with White’s king on f4 from TCEC Season 17 is etched in my mind! Judging from the way it played its White game, STOCKFISH NNUE saw more possibilities for Black than for White. STOCKFISH played conservatively as White, setting up a static defensive formation which it felt it would hold for ever… and it proceeded to do so! LEELA played more aggressively as White in game 4 to open the position for its queen but Black was always comfortable. The game was ended just short of a neat perpetual! 36…Nf1+ ½–½, Fig. 2b. 36...Nf1+ 37.Kg1 Ng3 38.Qxa6 Nce2+ 39.Kf2 Nh1+ (Fig. 2c) 40.Kf1 Nhg3+ is a very pretty line! Games 5 and 6. The first talking point of the match! Here - when the games should have been at their most balanced - we had a 1-0, 1-0 result! The opening was taken from some analysis in Game Change (Sadler and Regan, 2019a/b) of a fascinating ALPHAZERO–STOCKFISH game. 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3 0–0 5.Bd3 b6 6.e4 Bb7 7.e5 Bxg2 8.exf6 g6 9.Bg5 d5 10.Qg4 Bxh1 11.0–0–0 dxc4 12.Bc2, Fig. 2d. While trying to fathom what was going on, I had analysed 12...Bb7 and let STOCKFISH play the Black side against me! 12...Bb7 13.Nh3 Re8 14.Qh4. 14.Nf4 was my move when facing STOCKFISH which led to a crazy draw (published in Game Changer). When I put the question to ALPHAZERO, it gave the move 14.Qh4 - played by both STOCKFISH and LEELA - with a 77.3% expected score which is closer to a win than a draw! So why was this line chosen for the TCEC book? Apparently - and funnily enough, this was also true when I analysed the position three years ago with STOCKFISH 9 - it took STOCKFISH a high search depth to display a clear advantage for White; until that moment STOCKFISH considers Black’s position perfectly defensible. Back in those days, I noticed that STOCKFISH was extremely slow (by its astonishing standards) to see the power of Bxg6 ideas followed by doubling on the h-file with queen and rook to give mate on h8. I assumed this was why its overall evaluation only rose after a great deal of analysis. I wonder whether this is still the case! 14...Bf3 15.Rg1 e5 16.Bd2. The value of not committing the knight to f4 too early: when the dark- squared bishop withdraws, Ng5 ideas are possible. LEELA struggled on but soon lost material. 16...Nd7 17.Ng5 Nxf6 18.dxe5 Bxc3 19.Bxc3 Nh5 20.Qxc4 Qd5 21.Qh4 Qc6 22.Qh3 Rad8 23.Qxf3 Qxf3 24.Nxf3 and White won in 60 moves. The reverse was also won uneventfully by LEELA although the fish emotes were numerous in the chat as STOCKFISH ‘moobed’ to a mere 0.40 evaluation after its 25th move! However, White’s 28th move caused a ‘boom’ to 2.13 and LEELA finished the game off without any problems! a b c d Fig. 2. (a) TCEC17 S’final g50 p21b; (b) TCEC20 S’final LC–ST g4 (b) p37w, (c) sideline p40w; (d) g5 p12b Games 7 and 8. The solid Norwood/Hodgson variation of the Modern couldn’t separate the engines either and led to two draws. 1.e4 g6 2.d4 d6 3.Nc3 c6 4.f4 d5 5.e5 h5, Fig. 3a. The idea behind the opening is very neat. Black plays …d5 in two moves, playing 2…d6 (instead of developing the dark- squared bishop with 2…Bg7) first and waiting with …d5 until White has played f4. After 5.e5, Black’s dark-squared bishop is better on f8 than on g7 as it can support a later …c5 break and cover the dark- squared holes on the Black kingside from e7! The English GM David Norwood remarked that Black effectively gained a move and mentioned that he had played it against England no.1 Michael Adams: “But all it meant was that Mickey took one move longer to beat me!” Games 9 and 10. These featured a scary-looking version of the Tiger Modern. I thought LEELA might struggle but nothing could be further from the truth! 1.e4 d6 2.d4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.Be3 a6 5.Qd2 b5 6.f3 Nd7 7.h4 Ngf6 8.g4, Fig. 3b. LEELA played extremely creatively, ignoring an entombed knight on h7 and striking with pawn breaks on both wings. 8...h5 9.g5 Nh7 10.f4 0–0 11.0–0–0 Nb6 12.Kb1 f5 13.Bg2 Qe8 14.Re1 b4 15.Nd1 a5, Fig. 3c. The game came to a climax in an extraordinary collection of pins and opposing rooks and queens, Fig. 3d, eventually resolving itself in a roughly balanced double rook and knight ending! Black’s knight was still on h7 when the draw was agreed! LEELA pressed in the return but an exchange sacrifice gave enough perpetual chances for STOCKFISH against LEELA’s king.
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