Computer Chess News: Komodo Grilling Stockfish; Rybka's Rajlich Returns with Fritz 15
I'm not sure if the cause is more Komodo's excellence or something wrong with Stockfish, but after 84 of 100 games in the TCEC Superfinal the match is as good as over. Komodo is leading by six points, 45-39, and is succeeding with both colors. Komodo won games 1 and 13 with white, and after a long series of draws Stockfish won game 36 with white to close to within half a point. Surprisingly, Komodo won games 38 and 46 with black, and then after an even longer run of draws Komodo won 72 with black, and then won game 78 (with black) and game 83 (with white).
Meanwhile, in other computer chess news Vas Rajlich is back. Rajlich achieved great fame several years ago when his program Rybka soared to the top of the rating lists and maintained its lead with an iron grip. His empire collapsed after a few years when a series of Russian-based programs (Ippolit, Fire, etc.) challenged Rybka's supremacy. Rajlich accused those programs of hacking his code, but then accusations came from others that Rajlich had inappropriately taken code from the chess engines Crafty and Fruit. After a storm of controversy, Rybka stopped getting updated and other engines surpassed Rybka - first Houdini and then the duumvirate of Komodo and Stockfish.
Now Rajlich is back as the programmer of Fritz 15. Fritz 14 was miles and miles behind the top programs, so even if he has made some big improvements to the industry leader of the mid-90s, it remains to be seen whether it has any relevance to the world of elite engines in the mid-2010s. If it does, that would be a good thing for engine consumers, as it will (hopefully) push the Komodo and Stockfish teams to work even harder to remain the industry standards.