TCEC 4kII

4k Event

In the spirit of economizing means, in the spirit of demo competitions, maybe even related to the tiny systems with which the Apollo missions safely conquered the moon, TCEC admin Aloril came up with the idea to organize a competition for tiny engines. After some deliberation, 4kiB used by the demo competitions was agreed upon as a good size for a tiny chess engine based on the fact that there already existed sub 1kiB chess engines and this would have a reasonable amount of additional space to improve strength. It is a good test for efficient programming, because the competing engines will test themselves against similar competitors. TCEC believes this is a first not only for TCEC but also in the larger world of chess programming. It now has become a regular event in the future as long as it is sufficiently successful.

Format

Time control: 30+3. A Pool stage consisting of a 6DRR with reverse games will be played (180 games in total), followed by a 24 games final between the two first placed engines in the pool stage.

Participating engines

1. ice4 - update from s24-swiss to version v3 received
2. 4ku - update from 2.0 to version 3.0 received
3. we4k -> STRO4K - upgraded to and replaced by STRO4K version 1.0
4. pygone - update from 1.5.2 to version 1.5.4 received
5. sunfish - (no reply, email reminder sent) - no update therefore version 2022-12-24_classic will play
6. m4sseur - engine version 1.0 received

Explanation of typography

Explanation of special typography:

• underlined means possible invite
• italics - invited for this particular event
• bold - contact has been sought or established with, the author(s)
• bold italics - engine and/or update received.
• struck through - declined or not participating

Rules

• seeTCEC 4k Rules

Questionnaire

All participants are required and kindly asked to fill in the questionnaire below, by email (if they did not do so already, and also in case something essential was changed in their engine):

1. Who is the main author of your engine’s code?
2. Please name any other engines and authors whose code (if applicable: the various parts of) your engine, uses?
3. What is the license(s) under which (if applicable: the various parts of) your engine’s code is/are placed?
4. Please name the parts and the authors of the code you use for training in case you use a neural network?
5. In case your engine uses Training Data (NNUE or NN parts): what is the origin of this data? Did you obtain permission for use from the original authors if applicable?
6. In case of NNUE: does you engine comply with the unofficial TCEC NNUE Guideline, to the best of your knowledge?

This questionnaire is a requirement for TCEC participation. Answers are not made public by TCEC, but authors can so do of their own accord.

Apart from this. there exists of course also the Chess Programmer Code of Honor.