I Ran a Chess Programming Tournament, Here’s How it Went!

Let’s have a look at the creative code behind some of the bots, watch their games, and find out who will ultimately emerge victorious. If you’d like to support my work, you can do so with a recurring or one-off contribution over here: The code for all the entries, as well PGN files for all the games played in the tournament can be found over here: Play against a selection of the bots from beginner to grandmaster level. How many can you defeat? Take a look at some videos that competitors made about their entries: GameTechExplained (rank 78): MilkMindV1 (rank 108): Music credits Bad Apple Remix: Videos/ TCEC 4K Info: If you’re interesting in taking part in the 4K tournament I mentioned, I recommend joining the TCEC discord linked on and enquiring about it there. You can also read more about the event here: Chapters 0:00:00 Challenge Overview 0:01:09 Some Exploits and Disqualifications 0:02:58 Beginning the Tournament 0:03:58 [Bot] Turochamp (Faithful) 0:06:28 [Bot] WhateverBot 0:08:18 [Game] Turochamp (Faithful) vs WhateverBot 0:09:35 [Game] Pawntress vs WhateverBot 0:10:30 [Bot] applemethod-orz 0:11:42 [Bot] Igris 0:13:19 [Game] applemethod-orz vs Igris 0:14:32 Token Plot 0:15:06 [Bot] BadAppleBot 0:17:30 [Bot] 200 Tokens Monstrosity 0:20:18 [Bot] Baby Squid 0:21:38 [Game] 200 Tokens Monstrosity vs Baby Squid 0:23:19 Tiebreak System 0:23:39 [Bot] TinyHugeBot 0:25:45 [Game] TinyHugeBot vs 200 Tokens Monstrosity 0:26:26 [Bot] Electric Shockwave Gambit 0:28:11 [Bot] SimpleMCTS 0:30:23 [Game] SimpleMCTS vs Electric Shockwave Gambit 0:31:30 [Game] Phoenix Chess vs SimpleMCTS 0:32:28 [Bot] ILVM 0:33:45 [Bot] Les Moutons 0:34:40 [Game] Les Moutons vs ILVM 0:35:51 [Bot] NNBot 0:38:09 [Bot] Game Tech Explained 0:38:41 [Game] NNBot vs Game Tech Explained 0:39:27 [Bot] King Gambot IV 0:41:21 [Game] King Gambot IV vs ILVM 0:41:51 [Game] King Gambot IV vs NNBot 0:42:22 Swiss Results 0:43:32 [Knockout Game] Board 1, Round of 64 0:44:27 [Knockout Game] Board 2, Round of 64 0:46:02 [Knockout Game] Board 9, Round of 64 0:47:43 [Knockout Game] Board 3, Round of 32 0:48:30 [Knockout Game] Board 4, Round of 32 0:49:31 Piece Square Table Compression 0:50:48 Round of 16 Results 0:51:14 [Bot] Tyrant’s V9 0:51:55 [Knockout Game] Board 2, Quarterfinals 0:54:40 [Knockout Game] Board 1, Semifinals 0:56:43 [Knockout Game] Board 2, Semifinals 0:58:56 [Bot] Finalist A 1:06:00 [Final Round] Game 1 1:08:56 [Bot] Finalist B 1:14:05 [Final Round] Game 2 1:15:57 Final Results and Closing Ceremony 1:16:52 [Game] Tournament Winner vs Coding Adventure Bot