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Douala

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Blacksilver Group Douala, Cameroon 4°03′N 9°42′E WAT

We build software our markets want and we run it ourselves.

Blacksilver Group starts software companies in Douala, Cameroon, and runs them. Each one takes on work that still runs on tools designed for somewhere else, or never built at all. This page shows them at work, and says where every figure comes from.

See the companiesRead the operating log

Operating

Operating signals
SignalReadingSource
Douala WAT
LatestOcheso Agents is live · RECORD
In testingOur second company · since 9 Aug 2026RECORD

LIVE: checked by our server, with the time shown. RECORD: dated, from our own records. SPECIMEN: invented inputs, run through our real code.

01At work

Two companies, shown at work.

Ocheso is live. Our second company is in internal testing. Each panel below runs one real piece of what the company does, and labels what is real.

ochesoa Blacksilver companyLive · since 21 Oct 2026
www.ocheso.com

Ocheso runs skill-game tournaments online.

Organisers open entries by link, by code or by approval, and choose a Swiss, round robin, knockout or arena. Ocheso pairs every round, runs each game’s clock on its server, and keeps the standings. Chess and checkers for now.

What the pairing weighs, heaviest first

  1. No rematches. Two players meet again only if nothing else is possible.

  2. No colour clash. Two players who must both have White, or both Black, don’t meet.

  3. Close scores. The smallest score difference, weighed by its square.

  4. Colour preferences. Milder wishes for White or Black, where they can be met.

  5. Top half against bottom half. Within a score group.

A Swiss, pairing itself

Round 4 · the best of 105 possible pairings, by Ocheso’s weights

  1. B1S04 (White)vS01 (Black)½–½S04 2½, S01 3 · S04 due White, S01 due Black
  2. B2S06 (White)vS03 (Black)0–1S06 1½, S03 2 · Both due Black; S03 had White last, so takes Black
  3. B3S09 (White)vS05 (Black)0–1Both on 1½ · S09 due White, S05 must have Black
  4. B4S07 (White)vS08 (Black)1–0Both on 1 · S07 must have White
  5. ByeS02—+1Bye: the lowest-placed player without one. Worth a point.
Standings after round 4
#PlayerPts
1S013½
2S043
3S033
4S052½
5S022
6S072
7S061½
8S091½
9S081

SPECIMENOcheso’s pairing code as of 22 Oct 2026; invented players

Nine invented players and invented results. The pairings, the byes and the standings come from the code Ocheso runs.

All four rounds, as tables
Round 1 · seeded: top half meets bottom half
BoardWhiteBlackResultWhy
1S01S051–0Seeded: top half meets bottom half.
2S06S02½–½Seeded: top half meets bottom half.
3S03S071–0Seeded: top half meets bottom half.
4S08S040–1Seeded: top half meets bottom half.
ByeS09—+1Bye: the lowest-placed player without one. Worth a point.
Round 2 · the best of 105 possible pairings, by Ocheso’s weights
BoardWhiteBlackResultWhy
1S02S010–1S02 ½, S01 1 · S02 due White, S01 due Black
2S09S03½–½Both on 1 · S03 due Black
3S04S061–0S04 1, S06 ½ · S04 due White, S06 due Black
4S05S071–0Both on 0 · Both due White; S05 had Black last, so takes White
ByeS08—+1Bye: the lowest-placed player without one. Worth a point.
Round 3 · the best of 105 possible pairings, by Ocheso’s weights
BoardWhiteBlackResultWhy
1S01S091–0S01 2, S09 1½ · S01 due White, S09 due Black
2S03S04½–½S03 1½, S04 2 · S03 due White, S04 due Black
3S05S02½–½S05 1, S02 ½ · Both due Black; S02 had White last, so takes Black
4S06S081–0S06 ½, S08 1 · S06 due White, S08 due Black
ByeS07—+1Bye: the lowest-placed player without one. Worth a point.
Round 4 · the best of 105 possible pairings, by Ocheso’s weights
BoardWhiteBlackResultWhy
1S04S01½–½S04 2½, S01 3 · S04 due White, S01 due Black
2S06S030–1S06 1½, S03 2 · Both due Black; S03 had White last, so takes Black
3S09S050–1Both on 1½ · S09 due White, S05 must have Black
4S07S081–0Both on 1 · S07 must have White
ByeS02—+1Bye: the lowest-placed player without one. Worth a point.
Final standings, after round 4
RankPlayerRatingPointsBuchholzSB
1S0121403½97.5
2S041912395.75
3S031980385.75
4S0518462½94.5
5S02205527.52
6S07170426.51
7S0617811½92
8S0915601½91.5
9S08163316.50

Ties are broken by Buchholz, then Sonneborn–Berger (SB): Ocheso’s default order.

Also from Ocheso: Ocheso Agents. Human-like chess opponents that other platforms hire through an API: twelve player types to start from, any rating from 100 to 2,600, and Stockfish 19 built in.

RECORDlive since 22 Oct 2026ocheso.com/agents
Name at launcha Blacksilver companyInternal testing · since 9 Aug 2026

What does it cost in Bamenda?

Our second company is built to keep a record of what goods cost across Cameroon, and what people look for: from local online shops, classified listings, search trends, WFP food-price data and our own visits to markets. It isn’t open to the public yet.

Only one source we found covers all three cities: WFP’s food prices, monthly and six to eight weeks late. For everything else, someone has to go and look.

Where rice is cheaper

Imported rice, retail · XAF per kg

Imported rice, retail, XAF per kg, as our panel showed it on 9 Aug 2026. The readings are from different months.
CityXAF/kg
Douala440
Buea507
Bamenda700
RECORD9 Aug 2026

The latest WFP reading for each city, as our panel showed it on 9 August 2026. The three readings are from different months, and the panel says so next to them.

02The foundation

What every company inherits.

A Blacksilver company doesn’t start from nothing. Four layers come from the group. The name on top is its own.

The Blacksilver foundationFour shared layers, operations, stack, standards and family, with Ocheso (live) and a second company (in internal testing) built on top, and room for the next.01 OPERATIONS02 STACK03 STANDARDS04 FAMILYNEXT
  1. 04

    Family

    Its own name, with ours beneath it.

    OchesoOcheso’s site carries ‘a Blacksilver company’ and links back here.

  2. 03

    Standards

    Six written standards, each with a receipt.

    The groupBoth companies deny access by default: the database decides, and nothing is public unless a rule says so.

  3. 02

    Stack

    Widely used tools, placed carefully.

    The groupIn both companies, the code runs in the same region as its database: Ocheso’s in Dublin and Ireland, our second company’s in Frankfurt.

  4. 01

    Operations

    We run what we ship.

    OchesoBefore we called Ocheso live, we walked through it on the live system with two real accounts: create, publish, a wrong entry code refused, approval, play.

How a Blacksilver company is built

03The log

What shipped, and when.

Every entry is dated, and every one happened. When nothing ships, nothing is added.

    2. Ocheso

      The API, split in two.

      Tournaments no longer load chess engines they don’t use. First request after a deploy: 8.4 s to 1.3 s.

    4. Ocheso

      Stockfish 19 ships inside the API.

      The official release, held to a fixed checksum. Nothing downloads while a request waits.

    5. Ocheso

      The agent brain, ported decision for decision.

      TypeScript to Python: 8,048 recorded decisions replayed, every one identical.

    6. Ocheso

      Live play for chess and checkers.

      The server checks every move against the rules and runs the clock. Swiss, round robin, knockout and arena pairings.

The full operating log

04Journal

Notes from the work.

Longer stories from building and running our companies: what we measured, what we changed, and what we got wrong.

No. 02

How we name a company

A Blacksilver company leads with its own name and carries ours beneath it. Here is how a name earns that place, using the one we’ve already chosen.

, 3 min

No. 01

The Atlantic was most of our latency

Ocheso’s API ran in Washington while its database lived in Ireland. Moving the code beside its data more than halved the time an agent takes to answer a move. Splitting the API in two took the slowest first request from 8.4 seconds to 1.3.

, 3 min

Every issue

Issues
Numbered and dated, newest first.
Sources
Listed at the end of each one.
Corrections
If we get something wrong, we correct the issue and say what changed.
All issuesRSS

Our mission

To build the software our markets want, and to run it ourselves.

Read the journalVisit Ocheso