Preview on the Ultimate Challenge Tour 2017

One week to go until start of the giant computer chess event ULTIMATE CHALLENGE with 22 rounds in one month, April 21 – May 20, time control 90 minutes + 30 seconds. 60 players already signed up, among them many of the world's best engine players and about 20 top centaur players, who will try to give the decisive human input to their machines. Stockfish, Houdini, Komodo and many other high-end chess engines, some of them hybrid versions or derivates from other engines will be in the game. And pc systems with 4, 6, 8, 12 etc. cores up to work stations with dozens of cores will be used in order to win the first prize of $ 6,000 dollars or one of the other prizes of the $ 20,000 dollars prize fund.

The ULTIMATE CHALLENGE follows the tradition of former open Freestyle Chess events, first promoted on playchess.com in 2005. Since then progress in computer technologies has never stopped, giving humans an extremely hard time nowadays, when they try to find better moves and plans as the machines do while staying on their own. Computer chess has almost completely occupied the entire human sphere of correspondence chess, but still there are highly specialised human chess players who know how to do their job, who know how to build a team with the machine, though they often have to take risks, if they deciding for moves that chess engines don't consider the best ones. „Win or die“ is a human approach, while the engines normally don't feel the tension of a chess match.

„Which opening to play?“ is the basic first question for all, whether pure engine players or centaurs. The opening choice often decides on the level of risks players are ready to take. And both sides, Black and White, have to answer this question, never being absolutely sure what actually will happen. We like to encourage players to try out new or unusual moves, to take risks and to be creative. Even if such games often end up in a draw same as other games, which looked uneventful all the time, those games might be worth any applause by the audience. For this reason Infinity Chess will give a „best game award“ to two players after each round. The player(s) with the highest number of such awards at the end of the tournament will receive a special trophy with their name(s) engraved.

Looking forward to an exciting event with lots of high-class games of chess!

Please note, that the registration period ends on 18^th April, 23:00 server time. For more information look up the Tournament Announcement and the Rules.

Provisional Start List, 14th April

 Ratings from Engine and Centaur Chess.