Hello all,

from my computer chess collection, I most usually run swiss tournaments including a mix of chess computers and chess programs; selected in a range of relatively close ELOs.

On another hand, it is a best practice to power up and use each and every chess computer now and then; so I decided few years ago to run a yearly cup competition dedicated to my chess computers.

My first cup (2019) included 32 devices, later I used 48 chess computers, last year I entered 57 of them, and now I reached the nice number of 64 chess computers - so I am about to run this 64-cup!

It should be a three months or so effort; but considering I am now retired I plan to store and share the games (which I did not, previously).

Strong chess computers can face weak ones in such a cup, this can be unusually fun to watch

How do I proceed:
- 8 groups are created with 8 competitors each; of which one is selected amongst the eight strongest chess computers ("top seed"); and seven from the rest of my collection are randomly assigned to this group.
This ensures the top chess computers will not prematurely eliminate each other during the selection phase.

- Then I run short swiss tournaments, one for each group. Three rounds are usually enough to rank 8 competitors (eventually using Sonneborn/Berger score). Each competitor plays once with the light pieces, once with the dark ones, thus two games per round. All the cup competition is played using 15secs/move level (or closest level).

- This selection phase provides 2+1 chess computers that will keep on fighting, and 5 that are eliminated. The first and second ranks will play for the cup, while the third one will play for a consolation prize.

- 1/8th final for the cup (featuring 16 chess computers) will cross-face for elimination 1st from a group and 2nd from another group (1st of group 1 plays 2nd of group 8; 2nd of group 2 plays 1st of group 7, 1st of group 3 plays 2nd of group 6, and so on...).

- next phases for the cup are classical quarter-final, semifinal, and final plus a secondary/small final for third place.

- the consolation prize for the third ranked computers from the selection phase is played in cup mode, starting at quarter-final step (featuring 8 chess computers).

Obviously the DGT Centaur (expert mode) is expected to win the cup; nevertheless this should not prevent some interesting games to happen. Which chess computer will challenge it as a finalist, and what about the third place? Forecasts for the first three horses are welcome...

MfG,
Tibono