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81-681: The Leinster Leagues are amateur chess team competitions run by the Leinster Chess Union (LCU) in the province of Leinster in Ireland. The competitions include the Armstrong Cup , which is reputed to be the oldest Irish team league competition. Played every year since 1888, the Armstrong Cup is one of the longest running chess leagues in the world. The leagues include a number of divisions which are sometimes divided into sections, depending on

162-413: A crosstable . A crosstable is an arrangement of the results of every game in a tournament in the form of a table. The result of each individual game is recorded in the appropriate cell. Rows contain the player's name and a number indicating their finishing position; individual games can be looked up using these numbers as co-ordinates. Wins are indicated by 1, draws by ½ and losses by 0. For example,

243-407: A draw according to the rules of chess , the player is allowed to stop both clocks and record the draw claim as long as their opponent agrees to the claim. If the opponent disputes the draw claim, the director may be called to come to a conclusion. If the claim is found to be correct, the game is drawn. Once a player has made a move from a position eligible for a draw, they lose their rights to claim

324-466: A 'Schach-motor,' the German translation for 'chess engine.' By early 1993, Marty Hirsch was drawing a distinction between commercial chess programs such as Chessmaster 3000 or Battle Chess on the one hand, and 'chess engines' such as ChessGenius or his own MChess Pro on the other. In his characterization, commercial chess programs were low in price, had fancy graphics, but did not place high on

405-734: A disassembled binary of Rybka . Due to the controversy , all these engines have been blacklisted from many tournaments and rating lists. Rybka in turn was accused of being based on Fruit , and in June 2011, the ICGA formally claimed Rybka was derived from Fruit and Crafty and banned Rybka from the International Computer Games Association World Computer Chess Championship, and revoked its previous victories (2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010). The ICGA received some criticism for this decision. Despite all this, Rybka

486-412: A draw in that position. The quickplay finish is the phase of the game when all remaining moves must be made in a limited time. If a player has two minutes or less left on their clock, they may ask the arbiter to adjudicate a draw. The arbiter must decide if the player's opponent is making any attempt to win the game by normal means, or if the position can be won in any way. If the arbiter decides against

567-428: A draw, the player's opponent will be awarded two extra minutes of time. Otherwise, the game is drawn, and the decision of the arbiter is final. Players are granted one point (1) for a win, a half point (½) for a draw, and no points (0) for a loss toward their tournament score. A minority of tournaments use alternative scoring systems such as "football scoring" (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw), but they are treated

648-556: A few tournaments, such as Bilbao and London, have experimented with the football 3-1-0 scoring system to encourage players to go for wins. A tournament that has too many participants for a round-robin format is commonly conducted as a Swiss-system tournament . This is the most common format for amateur events, and is also common at professional level. In the Swiss style, players are paired as far as possible with opponents having same or similar scores. Pairing players for Swiss-system tournaments

729-440: A fixed amount of time for all their moves of the game. The FIDE Handbook designates the following common blitz time controls: Blitz time controls increase the odds that a player would "lose on time", meaning forfeiture of the game due to expiration of their clock time. Blitz tournaments are often documented with the notation "G/5" or "G/15", meaning "game in 5" and "game in 15", respectively. In standard time controls (STCs)

810-424: A guide for future international chess tournaments that would follow it. The tournament not only showed the need for time controls but it also clearly demonstrated the drawbacks to the knockout elimination tournament format. It was won by Adolf Anderssen of Germany, who became regarded as the world's best chess player as a result. The number of international chess tournaments increased rapidly afterwards. By

891-427: A keyboard, mouse or touchscreen. This allows the user to play against multiple engines without learning a new user interface for each, and allows different engines to play against each other. Many chess engines are now available for mobile phones and tablets, making them even more accessible. The meaning of the term "chess engine" has evolved over time. In 1986, Linda and Tony Scherzer entered their program Bebe into

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972-468: A particular tournament result could count towards a particular title. The starting category for master-level tournaments was category I, which applied to a tournament whose participants had an average rating from 2251 to 2275. From 2276 to 2300 it was a category II tournament, and so on with a further category every 25 points. Categories are no longer used in these calculations, but informally, strong tournaments are sometimes described by category. Through 2005,

1053-448: A player has a set amount of time to complete a specified number of moves. If the specified number of moves is met, the player's time will rejuvenate. The first standard time controls, introduced in 1861, were 24 moves in two hours, with the average game lasting five hours. In the mid-1980s, a new format, 40 moves in two hours, proved popular because few games lasted over 60 moves. There are two main forms that provide compensation for both

1134-400: A player is forbidden to have a mobile phone or any other electronic means of communication in the playing venue; failure to comply with this may result in a forfeit. Chess score sheets may be used for recording matters relevant to the game. Players should not distract or annoy their competitor in any way. Once a player has finished their game, they are considered a spectator. Refusal of

1215-528: A player to comply with the rules may result in penalty, up to and including forfeiture of the game or even disqualification of the player. If two opponents both refuse to obey the rules, the game may be considered lost by both players. In 1976, smoking was banned in a major tournament for the first time (the National Open, Las Vegas ). The arbiter must see that the Laws of Chess are observed and make decisions in

1296-531: A program using a MuZero -derived algorithm could handle an unbounded state space . XBoard / Winboard was one of the earliest graphical user interfaces (GUI). Tim Mann created it to provide a GUI for the GNU Chess engine, but after that, other engines such as Crafty appeared which used the Winboard protocol. Eventually, the program Chessmaster included the option to import other Winboard engines in addition to

1377-450: A qualifying event for the 1993 Women's World Championship. Sylvia Chidi of Nigeria didn't enter the tournament until after the first two rounds were played, so her first two games are listed as forfeited. Relaying moves formerly required another person to copy the moves of the players on a large demonstration board behind the players, and then transmit them via radio or telegram. Advancements in camera technology allowed zooming clearly at

1458-417: A second illegal move in the same game, the arbiter shall declare the game lost by the offending player. If a game begins with the piece colors reversed, the game should be stopped and restarted unless an arbiter rules otherwise. If a player displaces any pieces, they should place them in the correct locations on their own time. In games with long time controls , each player is required to record all moves of

1539-476: A separate UCI GUI of his own design, allowing UCI or Winboard engines to be imported into it. Convekta's Chess Assistant and Lokasoft's ChessPartner also added the ability to import Winboard and UCI engines into their products. Shane Hudson developed Shane's Chess Information Database , a free GUI for Linux, Mac and Windows. Martin Blume developed Arena, another free GUI for Linux and Windows. Lucas Monge entered

1620-527: A time, computers competed in human tournaments as well, but computers have become so strong that humans are no longer able to compete with them; players now tend to treat them as analysis tools rather than as opponents. Interest remains in computer chess tournaments, especially the World Computer Chess Championship and Top Chess Engine Championship . FIDE publishes a handbook giving rules for chess tournaments. This includes sections giving

1701-585: A uci_elo parameter include Houdini , Fritz 15–16, Rybka , Shredder , Hiarcs , Junior , Zappa , and Sjeng . GUIs such as Shredder , Chess Assistant , Convekta Aquarium, Hiarcs Chess Explorer, and Martin Blume's Arena have dropdown menus for setting the engine's uci_elo parameter. The Fritz family GUIs, Chess Assistant , and Aquarium also have independent means of limiting an engine's strength apparently based on an engine's ability to generate ranked lists of moves (called multipv for 'principle variation'). The results of computer tournaments give one view of

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1782-990: A version of their database program including Fritz  4 as a separate engine. This was the first appearance of the Chessbase protocol. Soon after, they added the engines Junior and Shredder to their product line up, including engines in CB protocol as separate programs which could be installed in the Chessbase program or one of the other Fritz style GUI's. Fritz 1-14 were only issued as Chessbase engines, while Hiarcs , Nimzo, Chess Tiger and Crafty have been ported to Chessbase format even though they were UCI or Winboard engines. Recently, Chessbase has begun to include Universal Chess Interface (UCI) engines in their playing programs such as Komodo , Houdini , Fritz 15–16 and Rybka rather than convert them to Chessbase engines. In 2000, Stefan Meyer-Kahlen and Franz Huber released

1863-628: A winning party. Although modern chess had been established since around 1475, the first tournament (in the sense of structured competitions) was in Leeds in 1841. There was a knockout tournament in London in 1849 and a tournament in Amsterdam in 1851. The first international chess tournament was held in London in 1851. The London 1851 tournament took place during the Great Exhibition , and would serve as

1944-404: Is a computer program that analyzes chess or chess variant positions, and generates a move or list of moves that it regards as strongest. A chess engine is usually a back end with a command-line interface with no graphics or windowing . Engines are usually used with a front end, a windowed graphical user interface such as Chessbase or WinBoard that the user can interact with via

2025-475: Is now the most widely-used testing framework for chess engines. By the late 1990s, the top engines had become so strong that few players stood a chance of winning a game against them. To give players more of a chance, engines began to include settings to adjust or limit their strength. In 2000, when Stefan Meyer-Kahlen and Franz Huber released the Universal Chess Interface protocol they included

2106-403: Is often not an issue, as the tied players often split prizes equally, in case of necessity (for trophies, qualifications to other tournaments, etc.), there are a few ways to achieve tiebreak. In no particular order: Tournament organizers specify the tie-breaking rules (if any) on the entry form. Single-elimination style or knock-out style are also sometimes used for chess tournaments. In fact,

2187-402: Is often quite complicated due to some nontrivial constraints: Swiss tournament pairings were traditionally done by hand using cards. Today, tournament organizers usually use software. Due to the high percentage of draws and the small granularity of the scoring system which is entirely based on final results, it is common for players to have the same score as the tournament finishes. Although it

2268-405: Is partly due to the increase in processing power that enables calculations to be made to ever greater depths in a given time. In addition, programming techniques have improved, enabling the engines to be more selective in the lines that they analyze and to acquire a better positional understanding. A chess engine often uses a vast previously-computed opening "book" to increase its playing strength for

2349-579: Is reduced when every player plays everyone else. Rating categories are sometimes used to separate players of different levels into different round-robin groups. The World Chess Federation , the Australian Chess Federation and the United States Chess Federation all use different categorization scales to distinguish player ability. Most round robin tournaments use the traditional 1-½-0 scoring system. In recent years, however,

2430-634: Is simply based on the presence or absence of the world's ten highest-ranked players at the time, and does not involve rating numbers. According to this system, the Vienna 1882 chess tournament would compare in strength to Linares 1993 . A time control is a mechanism in tournament play that allows each round of the match to finish in a timely fashion so that the tournament can proceed. The three main types of time controls used in chess tournaments are blitz , standard , and compensation . In blitz chess (also known as sudden death chess) each player starts with

2511-716: Is still included on many rating lists, such as CCRL and CEGT, in addition to Houdini , a derivative of the IPPOLIT derivative Robbolito, and Fire, a derivative of Houdini. In addition, Fat Fritz 2 , a derivative of Stockfish, is also included on most of the rating lists. There are a number of factors that vary among the chess engine rating lists: These differences affect the results, and make direct comparisons between rating lists difficult. Current rating lists and rating list organizations include: Historic rating lists and rating list organizations include: Engines can be tested by measuring their performance on specific positions. Typical

Leinster Chess Leagues - Misplaced Pages Continue

2592-704: Is the Chess Olympiad , in which players compete for their country's team in the same fashion as the Olympic Games . Since the 1960s, chess computers have occasionally entered human tournaments, but this is no longer common. Most chess tournaments are organized and directed according to the World Chess Federation (FIDE) handbook, which offers guidelines and regulations for conducting tournaments. Chess tournaments are mainly held in either round-robin style , Swiss-system style or elimination style to determine

2673-406: Is the use of test suites where for each given position there is one best move to find. These positions can be geared towards positional, tactical or endgame play. The Nolot test suite, for instance, focuses on deep sacrifices. The BT2450 and BT2630 test suites measure the tactical capability of a chess engine and have been used by REBEL . There is also a general test suite called Brilliancy which

2754-461: The 29th Chess Olympiad in 1990, there were 127 member countries. The Chess Olympiads were held at irregular intervals by FIDE until 1950; since then, they have been held regularly every two years. The first chess engine (a chess playing computer program ) to beat a person in tournament play was the Mac Hack Six , in 1967. Soon after, tournaments were created just for chess computers. In 1970,

2835-446: The Universal Chess Interface , a more detailed protocol that introduced a wider set of features. Chessbase soon after dropped support for Winboard engines, and added support for UCI to their engine GUI's and Chessbase programs. Most of the top engines are UCI these days: Stockfish , Komodo , Leela Chess Zero , Houdini , Fritz 15-16, Rybka , Shredder , Fruit , Critter , Ivanhoe and Ruffian. From 1998,

2916-500: The computer hardware the engines use, in an attempt to measure the strength differences of the engines only. These lists provide not only a ranking, but also margins of error on the given ratings. The ratings on the rating lists, although calculated by using the Elo system (or similar rating methods), have no direct relation to FIDE Elo ratings or to other chess federation ratings of human players. Except for some man versus machine games which

2997-414: The endgame . An endgame tablebase includes all possible endgame positions with a small amount of material. Each position is conclusively determined as a win, loss, or draw for the player whose turn it is to move, and the number of moves to the end with best play by both sides. The tablebase identifies for every position the move which will win the fastest against an optimal defense, or the move that will lose

3078-483: The 4th World Computer Chess Championship , running it on "Chess Engine," their brand name for the chess computer hardware made, and marketed by their company Sys-10, Inc. By 1990 the developers of Deep Blue , Feng-hsiung Hsu and Murray Campbell , were writing of giving their program a 'searching engine,' apparently referring to the software rather than the hardware. In December 1991, Computer-schach & Spiele referred to Chessbase 's recently released Fritz as

3159-545: The Chess Engine Communication Protocol or Winboard engines, originally a subset of the GNU Chess command line interface. Also in 1994, Stephen J. Edwards released the Portable Game Notation (PGN) specification. It mentions PGN reading programs not needing to have a "full chess engine." It also mentions three "graphical user interfaces" (GUI): XBoard , pgnRead and Slappy the database. By

3240-600: The German company Millenium 2000 briefly moved from dedicated chess computers into the software market, developing the Millennium Chess System (MCS) protocol for a series of CD's containing ChessGenius or Shredder , but after 2001 ceased releasing new software. A more longstanding engine protocol has been used by the Dutch company, Lokasoft, which eventually took over the marketing of Ed Schröder's Rebel . Chess engines increase in playing strength continually. This

3321-624: The ICU. The leagues normally start in late September and continue until early May. After this, clubs may put forward teams for three knockout competitions, from among players who played in the leagues. These competitions include the: Chess tournament Today, the most recognized chess tournaments for individual competition include the Candidates Tournament and the Tata Steel Chess Tournament . The largest team chess tournament

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3402-772: The King engine which was included. In 1995, Chessbase began offering the Fritz engine as a separate program within the Chessbase database program and within the Fritz GUI. Soon after, they added the Junior and Shredder engines to their product line up, packaging them within the same GUI as was used for Fritz. In the late 1990s, the Fritz GUI was able to run Winboard engines via an adapter, but after 2000, Chessbase simply added support for UCI engines, and no longer invested much effort in Winboard. In 2000, Stefan Meyer-Kahlen started selling Shredder in

3483-409: The Laws of Chess. Most chess tournaments are held in either round-robin style, Swiss-system style or single-elimination style. In round-robin tournaments , each participant plays every other participant an equal number of times. Round-robin tournaments involving four participants are known as "quads" or "foursome". Round-robin tournaments are often used for small groups because the element of luck

3564-465: The SSDF ( Swedish Chess Computer Association ) rating lists while engines were more expensive, and did have high ratings. In 1994, Shay Bushinsky was working on an early version of his Junior program. He wanted to focus on the chess playing part rather than the graphics, and so asked Tim Mann how he could get Junior to communicate with Winboard . Tim's answer formed the basis for what became known as

3645-475: The SSDF had organized many years ago (when engines were far from today's strength), there is no calibration between any of these rating lists and player pools. Hence, the results which matter are the ranks and the differences between the ratings, and not the absolute values. Missing from many rating lists are IPPOLIT and its derivatives. Although very strong and open source , there are allegations from commercial software interests that they were derived from

3726-405: The arbiter at all times. A player must make their own move before offering a draw , and must not stop their own clock and start their opponent's clock before they have made the offer. If a player does not make a move before offering a draw, the opponent can request a move before considering the draw offer (which cannot be retracted). No conditions may be attached to a draw offer. If a player claims

3807-472: The best interest of the competition, but must not interfere with the game otherwise. If a rule is broken, the arbiter may choose from a number of penalties including the following: The arbiter may also expel offending spectators from the venue. Spectators are also forbidden to use mobile phones at any time in the playing area, and may be expelled for it. Member federations are allowed to ask FIDE authorities to give an official decision about problems relating to

3888-498: The competition. Double-elimination tournaments work in the same way as single-elimination tournaments except that a player loses eligibility to take first prize after two losses. Since chess is believed to have a first move advantage for white , to ensure fairness, the players have to face each other in an equal number of white and black games. For example, in the Chess World Cup , players face off each other in two games, except

3969-669: The complexity, and the contribution it has made to chess make it the most important game ever played." Some chess engines have been developed to play chess variants , adding the necessary code to simulate non-standard chess pieces , or to analyze play on non-standard boards. ChessV and Fairy-Max , for example, are both capable of playing variants on a chessboard up to 12×8 in size, such as Capablanca Chess (10×8 board). For larger boards, however, there are few chess engines that can play effectively, and indeed chess games played on an unbounded chessboard ( infinite chess ) are virtually untouched by chess-playing software, although theoretically

4050-501: The end of the 1850s, chess tournaments had been held in Berlin, Paris, Manchester , New York City, San Francisco, Birmingham , and Vienna . By the end of World War II there were 24 international chess tournaments per year, and by 1990 there were well over a thousand. An attempt was made in 1924 to include chess in the Olympic Games . However, because it was very difficult to distinguish between amateur and professional chess players ,

4131-513: The event was called off. While the 1924 Summer Olympics was taking place in Paris, the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad took place separately from the Olympics, but also in Paris. The Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) was formed on the closing day of the first unofficial Chess Olympiad. FIDE organized the first official Chess Olympiad in 1927 in which there were 16 participating countries. By

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4212-399: The final with four games. Resolving ties is absolutely crucial in this format, with the modern rule generally following: 1. The players play a number of rapid games (2 or 4) until ties are broken. 2. If the players are tied, they keep playing pairs of blitz games until ties are broken, or until a set number of pairs are played (usually 1 or 2 pairs, although it can be up to 5 pairs). 3. If

4293-613: The first North American Computer Chess Championship (NACCC) was held in New York City, and in 1974, the first World Computer Chess Championship (WCCC) was held in Stockholm . Kaissa , a chess program of the Soviet Union was named the world's first computer chess champion. In 1995, the first World Computer Speed Chess Championship was held in Paderborn , Germany for blitz chess . For

4374-446: The first international chess tournament was held in single-elimination style. In single-elimination tournaments, the loser of a game is immediately eliminated from winning the first prize. In most single-elimination chess tournaments there is a chance for players to compete for positions other than first. Players are normally given seeds based on their rating in order to prevent the highest ranked players from facing each other early in

4455-402: The first move. The player or the arbiter may end the game at any time after the player's opponent has overstepped their time limit. If a timed-out clock remains unnoticed, the game will continue as normal. If the game needs to be interrupted, the arbiter shall stop the clock. Due to most tournaments having increment or delay as well as digital clocks being more precise, digital chess clocks are

4536-530: The first several moves, up to possibly 20 moves or more in deeply analyzed lines. Some chess engines maintain a database of chess positions, along with previously-computed evaluations and best moves—in effect, a kind of "dictionary" of recurring chess positions. Since these positions are pre-computed, the engine merely plays one of the indicated moves in the database, thereby saving computing time, resulting in stronger, faster play. Some chess engines use endgame tablebases to increase their playing strength during

4617-490: The following cross table shows the result of the Hastings 1895 chess tournament : From this table, it can be seen that tournament winner Pillsbury lost to Chigorin, Lasker and Schlechter; drew with Blackburne, Walbrodt and Marco; and won his remaining 15 games. In Swiss-system tournaments, results are usually displayed on a round by round basis. There are variants to the way Swiss tournaments are displayed, such as listing wins by

4698-554: The game in algebraic chess notation . If, however, a player reaches less than five minutes on their clock, and does not have an increment of thirty seconds or more, they are excused from recording the remaining game moves until the game has been completed. At the conclusion of the game, both players must sign each other's score sheets and turn them to the event organizer if instructed to do so. In fast chess games , players are not required to record moves, as it would take away from important thinking time. The score sheets must be visible to

4779-676: The game. Advances in chess engines also allow for casual viewers to evaluate the position in real time; for this reason tournament broadcasts commonly include a 30-minute delay. FIDE has rules for disabled players, with the aim of facilitating competition on an equal footing with able-bodied players. Although the Blind Chess Olympiad is the most significant chess event for the blind and visually impaired , players in either group can participate at most standard tournaments including international ones. In some cases, specially designed chessboards with raised squares and pegs are used to aid

4860-416: The late 2010s, free and open source programs have largely displaced commercial programs as the strongest engines in tournaments. Current tournaments include: Historic tournaments include: Chess engine rating lists aim to provide statistically significant measures of relative engine strength. These lists play multiple games between engines. Some also standardize the opening books, the time controls , and

4941-466: The letter "W", losses by the letter "L" and draws by the letter "D". Additional symbols may also be used, such as indicating wins by forfeit with "X", losses by forfeit with "F", half point byes (i.e. byes requested by the player) with "H", full point byes (unpaired due to odd number of players) with "B" etc. The following table shows the result of the 1991 Women's Interzonal Tournament in Subotica , Serbia,

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5022-466: The mid-2000s, engines had become so strong that they were able to beat even the best human players. Except for entertainment purposes, especially using engines with limited strength, matches between humans and engines are now rare; engines are increasingly regarded as tools for analysis rather than as opponents. Common Winboard engines would include Crafty , ProDeo (based on Rebel ), Chenard, Zarkov and Phalanx. In 1995, Chessbase released

5103-639: The number of teams participating. In the 2023/24 season, for example, there were three sections in the Bodley Cup but no O'Sullivan Cup divisions. At the end of each season, there is promotion and relegation of two or more teams between divisions. As of the July 2023, the Leinster Leagues consisted of seven divisions: The LCU is affiliated to the Irish Chess Union (ICU), and all players have to be registered with

5184-470: The open section was rewarded $ 30,000, while the winners of lesser sections were rewarded subsequently smaller amounts. Other chess tournaments, such as the World Chess Championship , also reward the winners with a title, such as "World Chess Champion". Lesser tournaments sometimes replace monetary rewards with book prizes or trophies . Chess engine In computer chess , a chess engine

5265-403: The parameters uci_limitstrength and uci_elo allowing engine authors to offer a variety of levels rated in accordance with Elo rating , as calibrated by one of the rating lists. Most GUIs for UCI engines allow users to set this Elo rating within the menus. Even engines that have not adopted this parameter will sometimes have an adjustable strength parameter (e.g. Stockfish 11). Engines which have

5346-425: The participation of over 50,000 people from more than 75 countries, deciding their moves by plurality vote . The game lasted four months, ending after Kasparov's 62nd move when he announced a forced checkmate in 28 moves found with the computer program Deep Junior . The World Team voters resigned on October 22. After the game, Kasparov said: "It is the greatest game in the history of chess. The sheer number of ideas,

5427-541: The player will receive a half-point, as if they had drawn the game. A player who wins by forfeit or default will also be granted one point. Players are not allowed to take any action that will bring the game into disrepute. For example, deliberate attempts at cheating by sneaking a captured piece back on to the board can be punished by this rule, rather than the rules dealing with illegal moves. Players can not make any use of any outside information. This includes advice, notes, and analysis of another chess board. During play,

5508-558: The players are still tied, a single deciding game (Armageddon) will be used, with Black receiving draw odds (draw count as a win) in exchange for White having time advantage (typically 5 vs 4 minutes). The Scheveningen system, first used in Scheveningen , Netherlands in 1923, involves two teams, each member of one team playing against each member of the other team. Typically each team has between 6 and 12 players, and both individual and team prizes may be awarded. Results are reported using

5589-407: The players' board, although relaying moves was still done manually. In the early 2000s, autosensory boards were introduced, allowing moves to be relayed instantaneously, but are not commonly used due to their cost. In elite tournaments, besides cameras on the players' boards, there are also chess commentators – strong chess players who comment on the game and explain the thought processes and plans of

5670-407: The preferred choice of equipment in tournaments. If it is found that the starting position of the pieces was incorrect, the game must be cancelled and restarted. If it is found that an illegal move has been made, the game must return to the position directly before the irregularity. For the first illegal move by a player, the arbiter shall give two minutes extra time to his opponent. If a player makes

5751-527: The relative strengths of chess engines. However, tournaments do not play a statistically significant number of games for accurate strength determination. In fact, the number of games that need to be played between fairly evenly matched engines, in order to achieve significance, runs into the thousands and is, therefore, impractical within the framework of a tournament. Most tournaments also allow any types of hardware, so only engine/hardware combinations are being compared. Historically, commercial programs have been

5832-408: The rules of the game, but there are also sections specifying how tournaments are organized and regulated. A chess clock is a clock with two separate time displays of which only one display can be running at a time. The player with the black pieces will initiate their opponent's timer at the start of the game. Thus the player with the white pieces will have their timer running first, and will make

5913-414: The same as regular scoring for the purposes of Elo rating . Full-point byes are received when a player is excluded from a round because of an extra player. Thus, in tournaments with an odd number of players, a different player will receive a full-point each round. A full-point bye is equal in points to a normal win. Half-point byes can be requested by a player who will be unavailable for a round. If accepted,

5994-417: The slowest against an optimal offense. Such tablebases are available for all chess endgames with seven pieces or fewer (trivial endgame positions are excluded, such as six white pieces versus a lone black king ). When the maneuvering in an ending to achieve an irreversible improvement takes more moves than the horizon of calculation of a chess engine, an engine is not guaranteed to find the best move without

6075-399: The software code. As of June 2017 , a total of more than 745 years of CPU time has been used to play more than 485 million chess games, with the results being used to make small and incremental improvements to the chess-playing software. In 2019, Ethereal author Andrew Grant started the distributed computing testing framework OpenBench, based upon Stockfish's testing framework, and it

6156-451: The strongest engines. If an amateur engine wins a tournament or otherwise performs well (for example, Zappa in 2005), then it is quickly commercialized. Titles gained in these tournaments garner much prestige for the winning programs, and are thus used for marketing purposes. However, after the rise of volunteer distributed computing projects such as Leela Chess Zero and Stockfish and testing frameworks such as FishTest and OpenBench in

6237-504: The strongest tournaments had been classified category XXI. The Zurich Chess Challenge 2014 , held from 29 January to 4 February 2014, was the first ever category XXIII tournament, with an average Elo rating of 2801. The 2014 Sinquefield Cup , held from 27 August to 7 September, was the second category XXIII tournament, with an average Elo rating of 2802. To gauge tournaments held before 1970, Jeff Sonas devised an unofficial class system, intended to roughly correspond to categories. This

6318-424: The time lost in physically making a move and ensuring that a player can avoid having an ever-decreasing amount of time remaining. The winners of chess tournaments are often rewarded with monetary prizes. Often, the chess tournament draws its prizes from a prize fund , dispensing rewards for all the winners in each section. For example, the 2008 World Open chess tournament had a prize fund of $ 400,000. The winner of

6399-492: The use of an endgame tablebase, and in many cases can fall foul of the fifty-move rule as a result. Many engines use permanent brain (continuing to calculate during the opponent's turn) as a method to increase their strength. Distributed computing is also used to improve the software code of chess engines. In 2013, the developers of the Stockfish chess playing program started using distributed computing to make improvements in

6480-409: The visually handicapped, while a tournament assistant can be used to help players with other physical handicaps. FIDE uses tournament results to determine whether a player has qualified for a title , such as Grandmaster . For a number of years, starting in 1970, FIDE classified tournaments in categories according to the average Elo rating of the participants, as part of the calculation of whether

6561-583: Was compiled mostly from How to Reassess Your Chess Workbook . The Strategic Test Suite (STS) tests an engine's strategical strength. Another modern test suite is Nightmare II which contains 30 chess puzzles. In 1999, Garry Kasparov played a chess game called "Kasparov versus the World" over the Internet , hosted by the MSN Gaming Zone . Both sides used computer (chess engine) assistance. The "World Team" included

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