Elo tag for cutechess

[Pvt. Ryan]

Hi everyone. I was wondering if there's a way to include the Elo rating in the batch file. Thank you.

[Halifax]

Sorry to be a broken record, but I was curious about this, too, so I asked ChatGPT. This is the output:

*****

Yes, it is possible to assign ratings to engines before they are tested in CuteChess CLI. This can be useful if you want to start a tournament with engines that already have established ratings based on their previous performance, or if you want to test new engines against a set of established opponents with known ratings.

Here's how you can assign ratings to engines in CuteChess CLI:

1. Create a file to store the engine ratings. You can use a plain text file with a simple format, such as:

```
engine1 2800
engine2 2700
engine3 2600
```

This file lists the names of the engines and their corresponding ratings.

2. In the CuteChess CLI configuration file, add the following option:

```
ratingfile=ratings.txt
```

This option tells CuteChess CLI to read the engine ratings from the file "ratings.txt".

3. When you run a tournament, CuteChess CLI will use the ratings from the file to determine the expected score of each engine. The actual scores from the tournament will be used to update the ratings in the file for the next tournament.

Note that the initial ratings in the file are only used for the first tournament. After the first tournament, the ratings will be updated based on the actual scores from the games played in the tournament.

Also, keep in mind that the rating system used by CuteChess CLI is based on the Glicko-2 algorithm, which takes into account the uncertainty in the ratings and the strength of the opponents. Therefore, the actual rating of an engine can fluctuate based on its performance in the tournament and the performance of the other engines in the tournament.

[Pvt. Ryan]

Sorry to be a broken record, but I was curious about this, too, so I asked ChatGPT. This is the output:

*****

Yes, it is possible to assign ratings to engines before they are tested in CuteChess CLI. This can be useful if you want to start a tournament with engines that already have established ratings based on their previous performance, or if you want to test new engines against a set of established opponents with known ratings.

Here's how you can assign ratings to engines in CuteChess CLI:

1. Create a file to store the engine ratings. You can use a plain text file with a simple format, such as:

```
engine1 2800
engine2 2700
engine3 2600
```

This file lists the names of the engines and their corresponding ratings.

2. In the CuteChess CLI configuration file, add the following option:

```
ratingfile=ratings.txt
```

This option tells CuteChess CLI to read the engine ratings from the file "ratings.txt".

3. When you run a tournament, CuteChess CLI will use the ratings from the file to determine the expected score of each engine. The actual scores from the tournament will be used to update the ratings in the file for the next tournament.

Note that the initial ratings in the file are only used for the first tournament. After the first tournament, the ratings will be updated based on the actual scores from the games played in the tournament.

Also, keep in mind that the rating system used by CuteChess CLI is based on the Glicko-2 algorithm, which takes into account the uncertainty in the ratings and the strength of the opponents. Therefore, the actual rating of an engine can fluctuate based on its performance in the tournament and the performance of the other engines in the tournament.

Cheers. I'm always curious about ChatGPT.

[JoAnnP38]

Are we sure that ChatGPT isn't just lying? Here is a response to my question:

How do I specify the starting Elo ratings of engines in cutechess-cli?

To specify the starting Elo ratings of engines in cutechess-cli, you can use the -elo option followed by a comma-separated list of Elo ratings for each engine. For example, if you want to set the starting Elo rating of engine A to 2000 and engine B to 2200, you can use the following command:

cutechess-cli -engine cmd=engine_A -engine cmd=engine_B -games 2 -rounds 2 -pgnout output.pgn -elo 2000,2200

This will run two games between engine A and engine B with two rounds each and save the output in a PGN file called output.pgn. The starting Elo rating of engine A will be set to 2000 and that of engine B will be set to 2200.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.

[Pvt. Ryan]

I'll try to experiment with the options.

[JoAnnP38]

I think it is instructive to pay attention how answers generated by ChatGPT are being treated by stackoverflow.

[Halifax]

My apologies. Won't happen again.