I am fascinated about chess engines. I wasn’t at first. In fact, the last time I ever used an engine for analysis, I used a version of Rybka. Like many people, I was interested with on the board chess when I was a kid, but I didn’t get serious about it. It all changed when news of a neural network engine called Alpha Zero. Doing some quick search, I landed in Agadmator’s YouTube channel, and that led me to Jerry’s ChessNetwork, and to KingsCrusher’s YouTube page. At first, I didn’t care about Leela Chess Zero at all. I was just fascinated how a self-learning AI called Alpha Zero learned chess on its own. I binged on watching Alpha Zero videos until I couldn’t watch any video about it anymore. So I tried watching a KC video about Leela Chess and I was instantly hooked.
Because of KC, I searched for TCEC (Top Chess Engines Championship). That was during Season 12 and Leela had a poor showing. I was somehow disillusioned. No, Leela Chess wasn’t the best chess engine there was. StockFish was the best engine there was. And I became a big fan of SF too. But I saw the potential in Leela becoming the best chess engine in the coming seasons.
In season 13, Leela, then using net 11248, had a better showing–climbing up the divisions up to Div2, where it was beaten to the second spot by Arasan. That said, the games Leela played were very exciting, going for sacs, positional play, and of course the “fawn” (thorn) pawn.
In season 14, Leela, still using net 11248, climbed up to DivP. Ultimately, it was beaten to the SuFi by Komodo. But it was during this season that TCEC held its Leela-SF match to simulate the 100 A0-SF matches. Leela, using net 32585 beat SF convincingly, although there were many repeated openings. Net 32742 also became the 2nd cup champion. In this season, it has become apparent that Leela is now one of the top 3 chess engines, according to its performances in both TCEC and in the Computer Chess Championships (CCC).
In season 15 DivP, Leela finished second, although it was unbeaten, and also ending SF’s long undefeated streak in the division. Leela also grabbed its second TCEC Cup.
Okay. So what is this blog all about? I plan this blog to be about following the journey of Leela and neural network chess. But it might evolve into something else entirely.