What the Elo of an engine 1800 Elo?

[phhnguyen]

A friend asked me to help to set up a chess system for her daughter to practice. The little girl has Elo about 1800 thus with Stockfish engine I set the option UCI_Elo to 1800 and turn on UCI_LimitStrength! Easy! All done!

I have known those options (UCI_Elo, UCI_LimitStrength) can reduce the strength of Stockfish for lower rank players. But that was the first time I was curious how correct that the feature/options are, if the little girl could be too easy or too hard to tire/beat the engine that theoretically has the same Elo with her!

Today I decided to verify quickly that feature, on one computer, with some different versions of Stockfish. The tournament is 600 games, 20+1, using Gaviota PGN opening book.

The result is the below:



The game number of the tournament is not large but I guess we could get some ideas.

For me, a bit funny is that an 1800 Elo engine could actually be significantly stronger than another 1800 Elo, the gap could be over 100 Elo. Thus the question is: who is a real 1800-Elo player? None of them? All are above or below 1800?

I have been still wondering how to create exactly an 1800-Elo chess system for my little friend!

[Brunetti]

I have been still wondering how to create exactly an 1800-Elo chess system for my little friend!

You may download 10 or so different engines choosing from those in the range 1500-1800 CCRL, for example, giving her a pool of different players with different styles and strengths. In fast time controls (I suppose that the young girl won't play 4-hour classical games) the human player underperforms, so in my opinion such a range is valid. I'm not a fan of artificially inflated strong programs, I don't think they give a satisfactory experience to the player, but I could be wrong

Alex

[purechess]

1800 is just a number. Which SF translates to Skill Level "0....20"

Start with Skill Level 3 and go up so that it feels right for a 1800 player.

For human opponents I would recommend Lc0 with maia weights (with nodes=1) or tinygyal weights (nodes=1...2500)

[Chessqueen]

I have been still wondering how to create exactly an 1800-Elo chess system for my little friend!

You may download 10 or so different engines choosing from those in the range 1500-1800 CCRL, for example, giving her a pool of different players with different styles and strengths. In fast time controls (I suppose that the young girl won't play 4-hour classical games) the human player underperforms, so in my opinion such a range is valid. I'm not a fan of artificially inflated strong programs, I don't think they give a satisfactory experience to the player, but I could be wrong

Alex

I would say in the range from 1575 to 1600 since the CCRL is not near equal to FIDE human ratings, it is usually 150 rating to 200 rating more than compared to human. The best program to equalize human UCI_ELO is Komodo Dragon 2.6 at the moment. Where if you set UCI_ELO to 2040 it would be equal to a CCRL 1815 rated engine, but closer to a human FIDE rating, therefore an 1815 CCRL CCRL engine is more like a 20030 thru 2040 FIDE rated player in T/C of 15 Minute 10 10 second bonus.

[pgn][Event "Computer chess game"]
[Site "MININT-UB2PIMJ"]
[Date "2021.12.31"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Dragon-2.6-64bit-avx2"]
[Black "RataAeroespacial-win"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[BlackElo "1815"]
[ECO "A00"]
[Opening "Dunst (Sleipner-Heinrichsen-Van Geet) Opening"]
[Time "11:44:03"]
[Variation "1...d5 2.e4 d4"]
[WhiteElo "2040"]
[TimeControl "900+10"]
[Termination "normal"]
[PlyCount "209"]
[WhiteType "program"]
[BlackType "program"]

1. Nc3 d5 2. e4 d4 3. Na4 Nf6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Qe2 Nf6 6. Ne5 Nc6 7. Nxc6
bxc6 8. Nc5 Qd5 9. Nb3 e5 10. c3 dxc3 11. bxc3 a5 12. d4 e4 13. f3 Ba6 14.
c4 a4 15. cxd5 Bxe2 16. Bxe2 axb3 17. a4 exf3 18. Bxf3 cxd5 19. O-O c5 20.
Re1+ Kd8 21. Bg5 Rb8 22. Rad1 cxd4 23. Rb1 h6 24. Bxf6+ gxf6 25. Bxd5 b2
26. Rf1 Bc5 27. Rxf6 d3+ 28. Kf1 d2 29. Ke2 Bb4 30. Kd3 Rc8 31. Rc6 Ke7 32.
Ke2 Kd7 33. Rxc8 Rxc8 34. Bb3 Bc3 35. Bxf7 Kd8 36. Bd5 Rc7 37. Bf3 Rc4 38.
Kd3 Rc5 39. g4 Kd7 40. h4 Kc7 41. g5 hxg5 42. hxg5 Kb6 43. a5+ Kxa5 44. g6
Kb4 45. Rg1 Rg5 46. Rf1 Rg3 47. Kc2 Rxf3 48. Rb1 Rf2 49. Rd1 Re2 50. g7 Kc5
51. g8=Q Re3 52. Qb3 Bd4 53. Qb8 Re1 54. Kxd2 Rxd1+ 55. Kxd1 Bf6 56. Kc2
Kd5 57. Qg8+ Kd6 58. Qg6 Ke6 59. Kb1 Ke7 60. Qf5 Kf7 61. Qe4 Kg7 62. Qe6
Kg6 63. Qd5 Kh6 64. Qf5 Kg7 65. Qh5 Kf8 66. Qh7 Ke8 67. Kc2 Kf8 68. Qd7 Kg8
69. Kb1 Kf8 70. Qh7 Ke8 71. Qc7 Kf8 72. Qa7 Ke8 73. Kc2 Kf8 74. Qb7 Kg8 75.
Qg2+ Kh7 76. Qg3 Kh6 77. Qg4 Kh7 78. Qf5+ Kg7 79. Qh5 Kf8 80. Qf3 Kf7 81.
Qg3 Ke6 82. Qb3+ Kf5 83. Qf7 Kg5 84. Qb3 Kg6 85. Qb5 Kh7 86. Qf5+ Kg7 87.
Kb3 Kf7 88. Ka2 Kg7 89. Qf3 Kg6 90. Qe4+ Kg5 91. Kb3 Bd4 92. Ka2 Bf6 93.
Kb1 Kh6 94. Qg4 Kh7 95. Kc2 Kh6 96. Qg8 Kh5 97. Kb1 Kh6 98. Ka2 Kh5 99. Qg2
Kh6 100. Qg8 Kh5 101. Kb1 Kh6 102. Qd5 Kg6 103. Ka2 Kg7 104. Qf5 Kf7 105.
Qe4 {50 moves rule} 1/2-1/2[/pgn]