TCEC C960 FRC3

On my main blog, where I've been tracking the world's two foremost, ongoing engine vs. engine competitions, the most recent fortnightly post, TCEC FRC3, CCC Rapid 2021 : Both Finals Underway (March 2021), noted,

FRC3 [Fischer Random Chess 3] has reached the final match, where Stockfish and KomodoDragon are tied with one win each after 29 of the 50 games have been played. The following chart from the TCEC Wiki shows the different stages of the event.

Here's the chart mentioned in the quote, taken from TCEC FRC 3 (wiki.chessdom.org):-

I ended the post on my main blog saying,

After the final match finishes, I'll have more to say about the tournament on my chess960 blog. I covered the previous edition in TCEC FRC2. In that event, Stockfish beat LCZero +8-0=42.

At the time I wrote the referenced post TCEC FRC2 (December 2020) -- which incorporated the same TCEC flow chart shown above -- the TCEC treated chess960 as a second class citizen, reported only in a section of the TCEC Wiki's home page. Since then, the main page section has been promoted to a separate page, TCEC FRC 2 (wiki.chessdom.org), which announces,

Though at the time advertised as [a] Bonus event, the TCEC Fischer Random Chess will as of now be a regular part of seasonal events.

According to the Wiki's history page, the move happened exactly a month ago:-

23:07, 27 February 2021 [...] (moved from Main page)

'Will be a regular part of [TCEC] seasonal events' -- that's one small step for TCEC, one significant step for chess960. The TCEC Wiki's 'FRC 3' page includes a chart showing the scores of the event's four stages.

A similar chart is now available on the Wiki's 'FRC 2' page. In the 'FRC 3' final, KomodoDragon beat Stockfish by a score of +2-1=47. A 94% draw rate echoes the sort of result we expect from a traditional chess match (SP518 RNBQKBNR) between engines. Will the TCEC FRC organizers be forced to dictate the chess960 opening variations, just as they do for SP518? Let's hope not.

Except for an occasional CCRL game, I can't remember ever looking at an engine vs. engine chess960 game. Is there anything to be learned from such an exercise, or is the play of the engines beyond comprehension? Watch this space; if not for FRC3, maybe for FRC4 or beyond.

[The title of my 'TCEC FRC2' post on this blog is nearly identical to the title on the TCEC Wiki, 'TCEC FRC 2'. To avoid confusion in future reports on the TCEC C960 events, I decided to change the title on this current FRC3 post.]

From Sveti Stefan to Budapest

In the previous post, The Early Evolution of Fischerandom (February 2021), I finished with a question:-

From this we see that Fischer's early [chess960] activities were bunched into two time periods. The first period took place in 1992-1993, when Fischer developed the rules of his emerging invention. The second period took place in 1995-1996, when Fischer revealed his invention to the world. What happened in 1994 and after 1996? Looking at Fischer's other activities in those periods might help answer those questions.

Let's set a starting point at the end of the 1992 Fischer - Spassky Rematch; Sveti Stefan / Belgrade, IX-XI, 1992:-

1992-11-05: g.30, last game of 1992 match

Two of the links in the 'Early Evolution' post cover Fischer's subsequent travels. The first link is [Frank] Brady on Fischer Random (January 2011). There I wrote,

After the [1992] match Fischer stayed in 'Magyarkanizsa, in the northernmost reaches of Serbia, on the border of Hungary'. There he made the acquaintance of the Polgar family and, with their encouragement, later moved to Budapest.

The second link is Chessmaniac, Comments on Chess960 (February 2015):-

'Bobby Fischer's Pathetic Endgame', where the original by Rene Chun is subtitled 'Paranoia, hubris, and hatred -- the unraveling of the greatest chess player ever' (theatlantic.com, December 2002). The portion covering the birth of chess960 takes seven paragraphs, which I'll quote in entirety...

The map below shows the main points in Fischer's travels during 1992-93.

Europe Maps - Perry-Castaneda Map Collection - UT Library Online
see the map 'Eastern Europe (Political) 1993'

Budapest, in the center of the map, is circled. Southeast of Budapest, marked with an asterisk, is Magyarkanizsa [aka Kanjiza], on the border between Hungary and Serbia, not far from Szeged. The city south of Magyarkanizsa is Belgrade, which I haven't marked. Southwest of Belgrade, also marked with an asterisk, is Sveti Stefan, which is not far from Podgorica. In his book 'Endgame', Brady wrote (p.255),

1993-05: 'The Polgars, the royal chess family of Hungary, visited Bobby [in Magyarkanizsa] -- Laszlo, the father, and his two precocious daughters, Judit, sixteen, and Sofia, nineteen. Both girls were chess prodigies. (The oldest daughter, Zsuzsa, twenty-three -- a grandmaster -- was in Peru at a tournament.)'

Judit was also already a grandmaster. Zsuzsa [Susan] visited Bobby when she returned from Peru and convinced Fischer to move to Budapest. From there I'll continue the story in another post.