Top Chess Engine Championship (TCEC), the world’s premier championship for computer chess, started its new season with the highly anticipated TCEC Swiss 8 tournament, featuring 44 of the world’s most advanced chess engines. This event surpassed the record set by last season’s Swiss 7, cementing its status as the strongest chess championship ever. With a lineup of elite engines, cutting-edge hardware (record: see the press release), and a global audience of chess enthusiasts, TCEC Swiss 8 promises to deliver a unique show 24/7 over the next months. Follow TCEC Swiss 8 live: Official website / TCEC Chess TV / Lichess / Chessdom live

Stockfish is sole leader after 16 games

After 8 double rounds, or 16 games, Stockfish is the sole leader of TCEC Swiss 8. In R8 Stockfish scored 1,5-0,5 vs Ethreal, while the surprise of the season Integral managed to hold Leela to a 1-1 draw. This was enough for Stockfish to collect 11,0/16, half a point ahead of Leela and 1,5 points ahead of Berserk, KomodoDragon, Integral, and PlentyChess.

Next round will see Stockfish – PlentyChess and Leela Chess Zero – Seer

Top Chess Engine Championship (TCEC), the world’s premier championship for computer chess, started its new season with the highly anticipated TCEC Swiss 8 tournament, featuring 44 of the world’s most advanced chess engines. This event surpassed the record set by last season’s Swiss 7, cementing its status as the strongest chess championship ever. With a lineup of elite engines, cutting-edge hardware (record: see the press release), and a global audience of chess enthusiasts, TCEC Swiss 8 promises to deliver a unique show 24/7 over the next months. Follow TCEC Swiss 8 live: Official website / TCEC Chess TV / Lichess / Chessdom live

After 7 double rounds of TCEC Swiss 8, Stockfish and Leela share the lead with 9,5/14 each. Leela won its match against Boot (replay here), while Stockfish defeated the surprising early leader KomodoDragon, overtaking it in the standings

TCEC Swiss 8 standings after 14 games

Leela Chess Zero close to crossing the 3700 elo mark

Round 1 of TCEC Swiss 8 is now in the history books, with a second engine approaching 3700 elo mark. After Stockfish became the first engine to cross 3700 this month of April, now Leela Chess Zero is close to joining the 3700 elo club. Leela defeated Ethereal (elo 3617) with the score 1,5-0,5 in their TCEC Swiss 8 mini match. The current elo of Leela Chess Zero is 3699

Replay all the games of round 1 here

No engine achieves double victory in round 1

As per the rules, each round the opponents play the same opening once as white and once as black. A total of 15 engines won their mini matches in round 1. Yet, no engine achieved to win the mini match with a perfect 2,0/2 score. Here are the standings after the first round.

Patricia (3357) – 1.5
KomodoDragon (3620) – 1.5
Stockfish (3733) – 1.5
LCZero (3697) – 1.5
PlentyChess (3551) – 1.5
Starzix (3482) – 1.5
Weiss (3383) – 1.5
Velvet (3522) – 1.5
Berserk (3650) – 1.5
Obsidian (3644) – 1.5
Integral (3428) – 1.5
Ginkgo (3543) – 1.5
Stormphrax (3543) – 1.5
Tucano (3384) – 1.5
Texel (3380) – 1.5

sirius (3322) – 1
Booot (3454) – 1
BlackMarlin (3500) – 1
Uralochka (3540) – 1
STRO4K (2914) – 1
Reckless (3460) – 1
ScorpioNN (3411) – 1
rofChade (3578) – 1
Stoofvlees (3556) – 1
Horsie (3508) – 1
Viridithas (3578) – 1
Clover (3535) – 1
Renegade (3438) – 1
Stash (3344) – 1

Ethereal (3617) – 0.5
Lynx (3226) – 0.5
ice4 (3140) – 0.5
DeepSjeng (3451) – 0.5
Igel (3526) – 0.5
Minic (3456) – 0.5
Caissa (3598) – 0.5
Ceres (3628) – 0.5
Seer (3552) – 0.5
Revenge (3522) – 0.5
ChessFighter (3206) – 0.5
Altair (3439) – 0.5
Arasan (3481) – 0.5
RubiChess (3600) – 0.5
Princhess (3169) – 0.5

Follow Swiss 8 live: Official website / TCEC Chess TV / Innovations in TCEC / Live on Chessdom

Top Chess Engine Championship Swiss 8 participants

Graham Banks comments, “Hikaru Nakamura played 16 games with LeelaKnightOdds at 3’+2″, winning the first game, drawing the last one and one other, and losing 13, including ten in a row! His score of 12.5% was actually much better than other top GMs against the same version; players in the World top 50 (FIDE) scored only 4% in 80 games before this, without a single win! He played only g1 odds, not b1. He only intended to play 3 games, but after losing games 2 and 3 wanted to keep playing until he got a second win, which never happened. I think he could do somewhat better with a bit of opening preparation and less talking, but he regularly wins Titled Tuesday while talking so it doesn’t seem to hurt his play too much.”

Do you want to try Leela Pieces Odds yourself? Go to Lichess and give it a shot

Note: Top Chess Engine Championship Swiss 8, where Leela will defend its title, starts this May 9. Follow the live action at the official website

I’m grandmaster Matthew Sadler, a 2-times British Champion, and ranked in the world’s top 50 for many years. I’m also a prolific author. My latest book “Re-Engineering the Chess Classics” appeared in May 2023. It uses the techniques described in “The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement” to analyse afresh thirty-five of the most fascinating and complex chess games ever played by World Champions and other top grandmasters.

More from Great Engine Games: Great engine games, Leela-Ethereal / Great engine games, Leela-Caissa / Great engine games, Equisetum – Leela

More: Leela Chess Zero wins TCEC Swiss 7 / Leela-Obsidian TCEC Swiss 7 (video) / Slicing and dicing the Budapest: Alekhine’s 4.e4… with a twist!

Another lovely game from Leela in which a single dominant theme – the domination of Black’s passive dark-squared bishop by Leela’s knight – is pursued from beginning to end. A classic demonstration of the technique of exchanging the right pieces to leave the opponent with only passive ones! The game is viewable here: https://tcec-chess.com/#div=sw&game=352&season=27

More from Great Engine Games: Great engine games, Leela-Ethereal

More: Leela Chess Zero wins TCEC Swiss 7 / Leela-Obsidian TCEC Swiss 7 (video) / Slicing and dicing the Budapest: Alekhine’s 4.e4… with a twist!

It’s a lovely opsitional squeeze from Leela starting from an opening position that suits its style down to the ground. An early (book) advance of the g-pawn in a Budapest Gambit secures Leela the f4-square for its pieces in perpetuity. Leela uses this asset beautifully to extract more and more concessions from Ethereal culminating in a tale of 2 rook’s pawns in a 2 bishops against 2 knights endgame: Leela’s rook’s pawn on h6 is invulnerable and crippling, Ethereal’s a4-pawn is weak and open to attack! The game is viewable here: https://tcec-chess.com/#div=sw&game=396&season=27

More: Leela Chess Zero wins TCEC Swiss 7 / Leela-Obsidian TCEC Swiss 7 (video) / Slicing and dicing the Budapest: Alekhine’s 4.e4… with a twist!

In an impressive display Leela Chess Zero won nine of the eleven matches. Particularly impressive were the wins against the top 10 engines Berserk, Obsidian, Ethereal, KomodoDragon, and Caissa. The other medalists – Stockfish and Ceres – managed to hold Leela to equal score, but dropped points against lower rated opposition.

Follow TCEC live: Official website / TCEC Chess TV / Lichess / Chessdom live More: Interview with Gabriele Lombardo from Obsidian

TCEC Swiss 7 final standings

1. Leela Chess Zero 15,5/22
2. Stockfish 14,5/22
3. Ceres 13,5/22
4. Berserk 12,5/22
5. Revenge 12,5/22
6. Obsidian 12,0/22
7. Ethereal 12,0/22
8. KomodoDragon 12,0/22
9. Caissa 12,0/22
10. Viridithas 12,0/22

Full standings here

Next: TCEC Cup

Next up on the TCEC season is the TCEC Cup – the knockout competition featuring the top 32 engines from the Swiss. This will be the 14th edition of the Cup, with Stockfish entering as defending champion.

Second position is for Stockfish 17 with 10,0/16. The third place is shared by Ceres, Caissa, Ethereal, and Obsidian with 9,5/10.

While the difference of a full point seems heavy at this moment, we have to take into account that Stockfish has played all top 8 engines in the standings. LCZero has to meet Ethereal and Komodo.

Follow TCEC live: Official website / TCEC Chess TV / Lichess / Chessdom live More: Interview with Gabriele Lombardo from Obsidian