Thoresen Chess Engines Competition

Thoresen Chess Engines Competition (TCEC or nTCEC) is a computer chess tournament organized, directed, and hosted by Martin Thoresen. It is often regarded as the Unofficial World Computer Chess Championship because of its strong participant line-up and long time control matches on high-end hardware, giving rise to very high-class chess.

The first TCEC was in 2010. After a short break in 2012, TCEC was restarted in early 2013 (as nTCEC) and is currently active (renamed as TCEC in early 2014) with all-day live broadcasts of chess matches on its website. Supported by original engine authors and based on voluntarism and donation, it caused a furor in February 2011, when the free version of Houdini defeated reigning computer chess champion Rybka in a 40-game match. The current season of TCEC is sponsored by Chessdom Arena.

The current TCEC champion is Komodo, having defeated Stockfish in TCEC Season 8 superfinal in November 2015.

Overview

The TCEC competition is divided into Seasons, where each Season happens over a course of a few months, with matches played round-the-clock and broadcast live over the internet. Each season is divided into 4 qualifying stages and 1 Superfinal, where the top two chess engines battle it out over a series of 64 games to win the title of TCEC Grand Champion.