The First Pixel

The Sesse Super Computer runs automated analysis on interesting high-level chess events, in real-time, such as the World Championships.

Super Computer Hardware

While its computing power varies, on December 29, 2021, during the 2021 World Chess Championship, Sesse was the following:

• remoteglot © 2007–2020 Steinar H. Gunderson
• Chess analysis: Stockfish 041221-asn-mpi
  • Main analysis: 336 x 2.0GHz Intel Ice Lake SP (OpenMPI)
  • Multi-PV analysis: 16 x 4.2GHz AMD Zen 3
• Hardware provided: NTNU-IIK
• Moves provided: Lichess
• Hosting: Studentersamfundet i Trondhjem
• JavaScript chessboard: chessboard.js & chess.js
• Ding sound: Aiwha (CC-BY-3.0)
• 7-man Lomonosov tablebase lookup: ChessOK

That’s 336 computing cores!  Each running at 2.0 GHz.

Starting Chess Position

Interestingly, during the FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championship in Warshaw 2021, while waiting for a blitz match between Magnus Carlsen and Klementy Sychev, the computer analyzed the starting position:

It analyzed this for 1 hour 24 minutes, computing 328,179,236 nodes per second (recall that Deep Blue, with its 256 custom build chess chips, could compute 200,000,000 per second during the middle game), for a total of 1,660,504,563,547 nodes (that’s 1.6 trillion nodes!), to a depth of 70 ply (75 selective):

Analysis snapshot was taken at Wednesday, ‎December ‎29, ‎2021, ‏‎11:31 AM AST.

Principal Variation

Analysis from the 336 x 2.0GHz Intel Ice Lake SP (OpenMPI):

Score: +0.25
PV: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Nxe4 5. Re1 Nd6 6. Nxe5 Be7 7. Bf1 Nxe5 8. Rxe5 O-O 9 d4 Bf6 10. Re1 Re8 11. Bf4 Rxe1 12. Qxe1 Ne8 13 c3 d5 14. Bd3 g6 15. Nd2 Ng7 16. Qe2 Be6 17. Nf3 Bg4 18. h3 Bxf3 19. Qxf3 Ne6 20. Be3 Bg5 21. Re1 c6 22. g3 Bxe3 23. Rxe3 Qd7 24. Qe2 Re8 25. a4 Qd8 26. Kg2 h5 27. a5 Ng7 28. Rxe8+ Nxe8 29. Qe5 Kf8 30. b4

This position results at the end of the principal variation:

Alternate First Moves

The following are all 20 potential first chess moves, using Multi-PV analysis, computed using the lower powered 16 x 4.2GHz AMD Zen 3, which reaches depth 49 and 50.

Interestingly, f4 is not the worst move.  However, it is the first of the negative scores, along with b4, h4, Nh3, Na3, f3, g4.  I guess weakening your King, and moving Knights to the board edges really are bad ideas!

Positive:
e4 +0.41 d50 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Nxe4 5. Re1 Nd6 6. Nxe5 Nxe5 (…)
g3 +0.23 d50 1. g3 c5 2. c4 Nc6 3. Bg2 g6 4. e3 Bg7 5. Nc3 e6 6. Nge2 Nge7 (…)
d4 +0.22 d50 1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 d5 3. e3 e6 4. Nf3 Bd6 5. Bxd6 Qxd6 6. c4 c5 (…)
c4 +0.17 d50 1. c4 Nf6 2. d4 e6 3. g3 Bb4+ 4. Bd2 Be7 5. Bg2 d5 6. Nf3 O-O (…)
Nf3 +0.15 d50 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. d4 e6 3. c4 d5 4. g3 Bb4+ 5. Bd2 Be7 6. Qc2 O-O (…)
e3 +0.12 d50 1. e3 Nf6 2. d4 d5 3. Nf3 e6 4. Bd3 Be7 5. b3 O-O 6. Bb2 b6 (…)

Draw:
Nc3 0.00 d49 1. Nc3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. Bf4 e6 4. Nb5 Na6 5. e3 Be7 6. Nf3 O-O (…)
a3 0.00 d50 1. a3 c5 2. e4 g6 3. Nf3 Bg7 4. h3 d6 5. Bb5+ Bd7 6. Bxd7+ Qxd7 (…)
a4 0.00 d49 1. a4 Nf6 2. d4 e6 3 Nf3 c5 4 e3 Nc6 5. Bd3 d5 6. O-O Bd6 (…)
b3 0.00 d50 1. b3 e5 2. Bb2 Nc6 3 e3 Nf6 4 Nf3 e4 5. Nd4 h5 6 c4 Rh6 (…)
c3 0.00 d50 1. c3 e5 2. d4 e4 3 c4 c6 4 Nc3 d5 5 a3 Be7 6 cxd5 cxd5 (…)
d3 0.00 d49 1. d3 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. g3 Nc6 4. d4 Bf5 5. Bg2 e6 6. O-O Nb4 (…)
h3 0.00 d50 1. h3 e5 2. e4 Nf6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. a3 Ba5 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Bet d6 (…)

Negative:
f4 -0.16 d49 1. f4 d5 2. Nf3 c5 3. g3 Nc6 4. Bg2 e6 5. O-O Be7 6. d3 Nf6 (…)
b4 -0.36 d49 1. b4 e5 2. Bb2 Bxb4 3. Bxe5 Nf6 4. c3 Be7 5. d4 d5 6. Bxf6 Bxf6 (…)
h4 -0.40 d49 1. h4 e5 2. c4 Nf6 3. d3 Bc5 4. e3 Bb6 5. Be2 d6 6. b4 c6 (…)
Nh3 -0.49 d49 1. Nh3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. Ng5 c5 4. e3 g6 5. dxc5 Qa5+ 6. c3 Qxc5 (…)
Na3 -0.69 d49 1. Na3 e5 2. Nc4 Nc6 3. e4 Nf6 4. d3 d5 5. exd5 Nxd5 6. Nf3 f6 (…)
f3 -0.74 d49 1. f3 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. e3 d5 4. Bb5 Nf6 5. Nge2 Bd7 6. d3 a6 (…)
g4 -1.51 d49 1. g4 d5 2. e3 Nc6 3 d4 e5 4. Nc3 Be6 5. dxe5 Nxe5 6. h3 h5 (…)