Assume it's somehow possible to program one, and have it play against the top players and engines. What rating would it have? 9999+?
In practice it would be a couple hundred points above the strongest player available to it, simply on the grounds that beyond a certain point, the diminishing returns to increase ELO are essentially zero.
There may be a hard upper limit simply based on the fact that the overwhelming majority of lines are draws... it may be with perfect play that every game is a draw. In such case, I don't think that the ELO would be infinite.
There may be a hard upper limit simply based on the fact that the overwhelming majority of lines are draws... it may be with perfect play that every game is a draw. In such case, I don't think that the ELO would be infinite.
after 600 points difference the rating would no longer increase. Then it could have the 4000 limit, considering 3400 of the stockfish.
This is indeed an interesting question... I'm going to use my imagination to expand upon it. For starters I am going to assume that chess in a 32 piece tablebase is a draw with either color. I can't prove this, it could be forced mate in move 2,582 with perfect play... who knows. I just believe it's a draw.
Let's imagine that we are not alone in the universe. An alien ship has been watching our planet. The year is 2219, and it's 200 years in the future. Our computers and chess programs have indeed kept getting better over this time frame. The Aliens have observed the rules of chess. They have far more advanced computers than even our 200+ years in the future computers. So advanced with quantum calculations that they are capable of making a 32 piece tablebase.
Humans at this time have managed to get chess computers rated up to a very solid 5,500 rating which has access to an impressive 12 piece tablebase...
The aliens land a ship and send out a mechanical chess-playing machine-like "The Turk" of the past. They then offer us entry into the galactic federation of planets... Which will give us amazingly wonderful technology and protection from the evil bug aliens forever... which are goign to land on earth in 100 years and kill us all if we fail... if we are able to draw their perfect chess-playing machine that randomly plays the best move every time with a Random number generator assuming more than 1 move is equal to best... And we don't get access to the code of this machine... but we are allowed to play it as often as we want as many times as we want... And we make a bunch of supercomputers to play it around the clock... Such supercomputers have a team of the top grandmasters and computer engineers working along with them to strengthen them even more... And we got 100 years to get 10 draws in a row to become a part of their federation...
I think over that 100 years that this perfect tablebase will give an absolute stomping to this 5500 rated engine... Murder it every single time... Like bad... However it's still growing in strength and now has the opportunity to learn from a perfect chess player... This would exponentially expand it's skills over time... it learns... it still plays other engines... and it grows stronger and stronger... No longer is it growing at a rate of a paltry 10 or so rating points per year... It's growing much much faster now at about 100 rating points per year!
After the first decade of training against this perfect table base this engine has reached 6500 strength! Still it gets murdered...
after 30 years it reaches 8500 strength! and it manages it's very first drawn game against the behemoth alien tablebase... However it was a lucky draw and there are thousands and thousands of mroe games before it's second... Development has slowed down... It's hard to find more draws for a bit, but then it manages to get about 1 draw in every 10 or 15 games at around 8600 rating... It's so close... we got like 50 years left but it just can't get any better our engine can't improve fast enough... Finally after 95 years or so our Engine has passed a rating of 9000! ITS OVER 9000!!!!!!!!! Then it is managing to get about 1 draw every 2 or 3 games... Still we play it many many many games in a row... at 1 draw every 2-3 games it's possible to string together 10 draws...
I'd guess that a tablebase of 32 pieces has a rating over 9000. It's gotta be over 9000.
Let's imagine that we are not alone in the universe. An alien ship has been watching our planet. The year is 2219, and it's 200 years in the future. Our computers and chess programs have indeed kept getting better over this time frame. The Aliens have observed the rules of chess. They have far more advanced computers than even our 200+ years in the future computers. So advanced with quantum calculations that they are capable of making a 32 piece tablebase.
Humans at this time have managed to get chess computers rated up to a very solid 5,500 rating which has access to an impressive 12 piece tablebase...
The aliens land a ship and send out a mechanical chess-playing machine-like "The Turk" of the past. They then offer us entry into the galactic federation of planets... Which will give us amazingly wonderful technology and protection from the evil bug aliens forever... which are goign to land on earth in 100 years and kill us all if we fail... if we are able to draw their perfect chess-playing machine that randomly plays the best move every time with a Random number generator assuming more than 1 move is equal to best... And we don't get access to the code of this machine... but we are allowed to play it as often as we want as many times as we want... And we make a bunch of supercomputers to play it around the clock... Such supercomputers have a team of the top grandmasters and computer engineers working along with them to strengthen them even more... And we got 100 years to get 10 draws in a row to become a part of their federation...
I think over that 100 years that this perfect tablebase will give an absolute stomping to this 5500 rated engine... Murder it every single time... Like bad... However it's still growing in strength and now has the opportunity to learn from a perfect chess player... This would exponentially expand it's skills over time... it learns... it still plays other engines... and it grows stronger and stronger... No longer is it growing at a rate of a paltry 10 or so rating points per year... It's growing much much faster now at about 100 rating points per year!
After the first decade of training against this perfect table base this engine has reached 6500 strength! Still it gets murdered...
after 30 years it reaches 8500 strength! and it manages it's very first drawn game against the behemoth alien tablebase... However it was a lucky draw and there are thousands and thousands of mroe games before it's second... Development has slowed down... It's hard to find more draws for a bit, but then it manages to get about 1 draw in every 10 or 15 games at around 8600 rating... It's so close... we got like 50 years left but it just can't get any better our engine can't improve fast enough... Finally after 95 years or so our Engine has passed a rating of 9000! ITS OVER 9000!!!!!!!!! Then it is managing to get about 1 draw every 2 or 3 games... Still we play it many many many games in a row... at 1 draw every 2-3 games it's possible to string together 10 draws...
I'd guess that a tablebase of 32 pieces has a rating over 9000. It's gotta be over 9000.
The usual answer: Elo rating is not an absolute number. It depends on the pool of players.
There is no theoretical maximum (if player pool size can be assumed finite but unbounded), but for a given player pool size there will be a maximum achievable rating.
There is no theoretical maximum (if player pool size can be assumed finite but unbounded), but for a given player pool size there will be a maximum achievable rating.
Playing a random move that keeps the current state of the game (draw or win) is a strategy that never loses with a 32-men TB, but which is extremely weak, because it's extremely easy for the opponent to keep the draw.
#4, the chess draw margin is way too big for the challenge to be as difficult as you describe. When playing from the start position with the use of advanced opening books, and playing safe lines for the draw, you'd inevitably manage to get draws against that alien machine even if the alien machine actualy didn't play a random drawing move but a challenging drawing move.
#4, the chess draw margin is way too big for the challenge to be as difficult as you describe. When playing from the start position with the use of advanced opening books, and playing safe lines for the draw, you'd inevitably manage to get draws against that alien machine even if the alien machine actualy didn't play a random drawing move but a challenging drawing move.
Your opponent's rating, if very low will be rounded up to your rating minus 400.
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