Frequently Asked Questions
1) What is the purpose of the UCECL?
Chess is a beautiful sport and chess engines are fascinating to watch. The UCECL is meant to be an entertaining competition between UCI-based chess engines in an environment that does not aim to "solve chess" or infallibly prove which engine is better than another. The UCECL is played in the tournament director's spare time and has no affiliation with any official chess organization.
2) Why does the UCECL lack some of the latest commercial chess engines?
All commercial chess engines are purchased with personal funds. Commercial engines may or may not be updated as finances and tournament interest allows.
3) A competition without the latest in high-end commercial engines makes the UCECL a second-tier competition!
I'd rather put food on the table for my family than keep all of my commercial engines up to date.
4) Why is the computer hardware for the UCECL so weak?
The UCECL tournament computer is spare desktop-class hardware sitting in the corner of my home office sucking up power 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I would love to have a multi-CPU server, dedicated cooling appliances, and my own nuclear power plant to provide clean and free energy, but I can only use what I can afford. The hardware will be upgraded if the opportunity ever presents itself.
5) Can I view the games live?
No, but the games and tournament tables will be updated as time allows. PGNs will be made available at the end of every stage.
6) Why isn't UCI chess engine [Insert Name Here] included in the UCECL?
If you think a UCI chess engine should be included in the next UCECL season, send in a note to the tournament director with the engine's name, website, and any comments that you think are important. Your input is appreciated and will be considered.
7) You do not update the UCECL website often enough with results! I come here every day and sometimes it's not updated for a week!
Updating this site is a manual process and I'm not always able to make time on a nightly basis but I will try to update as often as I can. Any long-term absences will be published via the news feed and twitter as soon as they are known. Thank you for your interest.
8) What is the best way to stay up to date with the latest UCECL news?
Subscribe to the News RSS feed and follow the UCECL on twitter @UCECL
8) Why does the UCECL support custom opening books yet disable tablebase access?
Custom opening books are used to ensure a wide variety of modern opening variations up to 8 moves deep as engines left to their own devices tend to choose the same narrow and repetitive opening moves every game. The goal of using a custom opening book is not to bypass the opening completely, but to put the chess engines in positions that are both varied and topical to modern opening and middlegame discussion.
Tablebases are disabled so that engines that have fought through the middlegame must rely on their own ability to survive the endgame. Using tablebases mostly eliminates the late middlegame and endgame as a place where victory can be won or lost. With tablebases disabled, it is expected that games will be fought to the bitter end without the endgame always being a pointless formality.
Chess is a beautiful sport and chess engines are fascinating to watch. The UCECL is meant to be an entertaining competition between UCI-based chess engines in an environment that does not aim to "solve chess" or infallibly prove which engine is better than another. The UCECL is played in the tournament director's spare time and has no affiliation with any official chess organization.
2) Why does the UCECL lack some of the latest commercial chess engines?
All commercial chess engines are purchased with personal funds. Commercial engines may or may not be updated as finances and tournament interest allows.
3) A competition without the latest in high-end commercial engines makes the UCECL a second-tier competition!
I'd rather put food on the table for my family than keep all of my commercial engines up to date.
4) Why is the computer hardware for the UCECL so weak?
The UCECL tournament computer is spare desktop-class hardware sitting in the corner of my home office sucking up power 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I would love to have a multi-CPU server, dedicated cooling appliances, and my own nuclear power plant to provide clean and free energy, but I can only use what I can afford. The hardware will be upgraded if the opportunity ever presents itself.
5) Can I view the games live?
No, but the games and tournament tables will be updated as time allows. PGNs will be made available at the end of every stage.
6) Why isn't UCI chess engine [Insert Name Here] included in the UCECL?
If you think a UCI chess engine should be included in the next UCECL season, send in a note to the tournament director with the engine's name, website, and any comments that you think are important. Your input is appreciated and will be considered.
7) You do not update the UCECL website often enough with results! I come here every day and sometimes it's not updated for a week!
Updating this site is a manual process and I'm not always able to make time on a nightly basis but I will try to update as often as I can. Any long-term absences will be published via the news feed and twitter as soon as they are known. Thank you for your interest.
8) What is the best way to stay up to date with the latest UCECL news?
Subscribe to the News RSS feed and follow the UCECL on twitter @UCECL
8) Why does the UCECL support custom opening books yet disable tablebase access?
Custom opening books are used to ensure a wide variety of modern opening variations up to 8 moves deep as engines left to their own devices tend to choose the same narrow and repetitive opening moves every game. The goal of using a custom opening book is not to bypass the opening completely, but to put the chess engines in positions that are both varied and topical to modern opening and middlegame discussion.
Tablebases are disabled so that engines that have fought through the middlegame must rely on their own ability to survive the endgame. Using tablebases mostly eliminates the late middlegame and endgame as a place where victory can be won or lost. With tablebases disabled, it is expected that games will be fought to the bitter end without the endgame always being a pointless formality.