Latest Update: 25.03.2023


Hello Chess Friends,

As usual, I am pleased to announce that,I organized another Candidate CS for the next book tours!Btw, here are the previous Candidate tourneys: I  /  II  /  III
1st of all,Tour's target is simply that, to check the Top engines strength...Plus to compare the overall draw percentages produced on latest2x EPYC 7B12 machine and as we see, here is as mystery ! e.gThis time, Cfish 030820 (6-times Champion) is not Number OneBut anyhow, over the past years...the same Cfish vers was with  Outstanding performance..no any other has similar great records!
Well, as participants,I picked those engines, which are capable to use BIN booksPlus the small ones (about 1 MB in size) are used to play...
And here are the most important factors, which are required:
1. Engine Strength (Higher better...)2. Draw Percentage (Lower better...)3. Stability (without crashes, time forfeits...)
And after checking the latest played results... it is already clear that,Best Suitable Engine seems to be (on 2x EPYC): CF EXT 291120 E.g playing itself: CF-EXT 6 Core performed even less: 81% drawsWhere in other test (via 2 Core/Game) is fallen down to 75% drawsBtw, current CF EXT was quite successful..proved on 2x E5-2686 tooE.g many book tours are organized by same CF EXT 291120 engineAnd why CF again? its performance belongs to the strongest ones...!Plus the lowest draw percentage belongs to CF EXT 291120 again...E.g there is difference almost 10% with some...really that means a lot...And sad that there are a few e.g theirs draws are as NNUE (enabled)Meanwhile,SF Polyglot 's performance is best, but its draw ratio higher..
Rank Name                 Elo   +    -  games score oppo. draws   1 SF Polyglot 15      3661   11   11   330   53%  3644   88%    2 Stockfish XIr4      3659   11   11   330   52%  3644   88%    3 StockfishMZ 170522  3652   11   11   330   51%  3645   90%    4 Zeus 26.5           3652   11   11   330   51%  3645   90%    5 CF EXT 291120       3650   11   12   330   51%  3645   83%    6 Brainfish 240720    3647   11   11   330   50%  3645   84%    7 SF PB 040123        3645   11   11   330   50%  3645   88%    8 Cfish 030820        3642   11   11   330   50%  3646   87%    9 Raubfisch X48e      3640   11   11   330   49%  3646   90%   10 Kayra 1.7           3634   11   11   330   48%  3646   88%   11 Eman 6.91           3633   11   11   330   48%  3646   84%   12 Charisma Light 2    3628   11   11   330   47%  3647   90%  
More Details,The engines are mainly AVX2/Popcnt and all played as NON-NNUE  In short, all played at Classical mode (without using NN assistance)• The overall draw percentage (based on 1980 games) is high: 87%   Why 87% draws? main reasons: played on fast CPU + Strong openings   E.g on my older machine, the overall draws were about 10% less:  I  /  II • Current database has no any game lost time..it seems stable cond.• Download all the played games (in PGN format): Candidate CS IV 


Best,Sedat