This paper aims to test the validity of the esports ranking system published by HLTV, which is widely recognized and used for ranking teams in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO). The results of the study demonstrate that the HLTV ranking system has a reasonable level of explanatory power in predicting the outcomes of CS:GO matches. Furthermore, the study reveals that the difference in abilities between two consecutively ranked players decreases as their ranking in CS:GO gets lower, similar to tennis rankings, resulting in a pyramid-like structure. As a result, spectators, sponsors, and bettors can rely on the information provided by the ranking system to make informed decisions and enhance their viewing experience during tournaments.

After two years of pandemic-related cancellations, the World Computer Chess Championship returned in July 2022. The title of World Computer Chess Champion, first contested in 1974, was successfully defended by Komodo. The World Chess Software Championship was won by Ginkgo. The World Computer Speed Chess Championship title was shared by Leela Chess Zero and Ginkgo.

Stalemating the opponent in chess has given rise to various opinions as to the nature of that result and the reward it should properly receive. Here, following Lasker and Reti, we propose that ‘stalemate’ is a secondary goal, superior to a draw by agreement or rule – but inferior to mate. We report the work of ‘Aloril’ who has created endgame tables holding both ‘DTM’ depth to mate and ‘DTS’ depth to stalemate data, and who should be regarded as the prime author of this paper. Further, we look at the classification of ‘Chess Stalemate Studies’ in the context of a ‘Lasker Chess’ which recognises the stalemate goal.

This is a report of the 'TCEC Cup 4' computational experiment, the 4th TCEC knockout event and the second major part of TCEC’s 16th season. It started on 16th October 2019 and featured the best 32 engines of the ‘TCEC 16’ league event and the games were held at Blitz tempo, The different format called for different optimal settings in the engines, thereby enabling a comparison with performance at slower tempi. STOCKFISH retrieved the title from LEELA CHESS ZERO, defeating it when their perspectives diverted on move forty of game eight. All decisive games in the supplementary data have been played out by FRITZ17 at search depth 24 to enable and benchmark endgame practice.

The 'WCSC 2019' World Chess Software Championship was the ICGA's ninth experimental test of computer chess software in a neutral hardware environment. Held in Macau, this event was won by KOMODO with JONNY and CHIRON scarcely separable in second and third.

This is the Chess Engine Rating list of 2019-12 from Svenska schackdatorföreningen, the Swedish Chess Computer Association. SSDF has produced the list for 22 years. Here we supply the 'Selected 50' subset with headline notes on each engine. SSDF's 2019-12 narrative, top 50 and long lists (both with match details) may also be downloaded from here.

In 1970, Thomas Strohlein gained his doctorate with the thesis 'Research on Combinatorial Games'. This included a graph-theoretic definition of an algorithm for computing endgame tables for chess. The computation was carried out on the LRZ AEG TR4 computer in Munich. The results spanned KRk, KQk, KRkb, KRkn and the iconic 'hard endgame' KQkr, and included maximal depths (to conversion), lists of maximal-depth positions and optimal moves. Here, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of this achievement and put his results in a broader context.