Answers.Body: <p>The NES Chessmaster has previously faced Stockfish in the &quot;Elo World&quot; competition by Tom Murphy VII, presented at <a href="http://tom7.org/chess/weak.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">SIGBOVIK 2019</a> and on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpXy041BIlA" rel="nofollow noreferrer">YouTube</a>.</p>
  <p>This is a rather unconventional tournament, to say the least. There are no human players in it, and the Elo values are uncalibrated (and probably skewed a bit by the presence of many strange/weak players). Nonetheless, NES Chessmaster and Stockfish are both in it. Stockfish 10 with a think budget of 1 million nodes and opening/endgame databases disabled receives a score of 2644 Elo; NES Chessmaster on &quot;Level 2&quot; receives a score of 989 Elo.</p>
  <p><code>chessmaster.nes_lv2</code> outperforms <code>stockfish1m_32768</code>, a &quot;dilution&quot; of Stockfish that plays the same move as <code>stockfish1m</code> 50% of the time and plays a random legal move 50% of the time, but it underperforms <code>stockfish1m_r16384</code>, which plays Stockfish 75% of the time and a random move 25% of the time.</p>
  <p>If someone were inclined to put NES Chessmaster online as a bot to collect calibrated data, as <a href="https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/40473/what-elo-rating-does-the-chessmaster-2000-have#comment67088_40473">proposed by Minot in comments</a>, a starting point might be <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/tom7misc/svn/HEAD/tree/trunk/chess/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">tom7's harness</a>, found in <code>chessmaster.cc</code> / <code>chessmaster.h</code>, and dependent on the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/tom7misc/svn/HEAD/tree/trunk/fceulib/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">fceulib</a> wrapper for the FCE Ultra NES emulator.</p>
  
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Answers.Text: **Comments have been [moved to chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/145106/discussion-on-answer-by-hobbs-what-elo-rating-does-the-chessmaster-2000-have); please do not continue the discussion here.** Before posting a comment below this one, please review the [purposes of comments](/help/privileges/comment). Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an [answer](/help/how-to-answer), on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Brian Towers
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Answers.UserDisplayName: hobbs
Answers.Body: <p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chessmaster#" rel="nofollow noreferrer">We don't know</a>. The manufacturer believed it have been rated around 2000, but we don't know if this is correct. The computers were very slow and therefore it is impossible to know how well it really played</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2023-04-04T06:37:58.147Z
Answers.Text: What is the logical connection between "the computers were very slow" and "it is impossible to know how well it really played"?
Answers.UserDisplayName: hobbs
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Answers.Text: I don't know, I just asked that. @hobbs
Answers.UserDisplayName: Starship
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Body: <p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=386uUj4lN8Q" rel="noreferrer">A recent agadmator video pitted The Chessmaster (NES) against Stockfish 14 NNUE</a>. What is more impressive to me is that this chess engine, released originally in 1986 and written by David Kittinger in 6502 assembly, was advertised at playing at 2000 Elo, on quite constrained hardware by today's standards. However, according to <a href="http://www.spacious-mind.com/html/c64_emu_-_chessmaster_2000.html" rel="noreferrer">The Spacious Mind</a>, it only plays at 1550-1600 Elo.</p>
  <p>I am looking for calibrated Elo computer tournaments or personal experience with playing Chessmaster 2000 in gauging an accurate Elo rating. The Spacious Mind does not state how its Elo estimate for the software was derived, only that the site pitted various C64 engines against each other in a personal &quot;2009 Commodore 64 Open Championship&quot;.</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2022-12-05T20:15:56.467Z
Comments.Text: If someone could host that engine on Lichess as a BOT, people can play against it and eventually it would have a rating in the Lichess pool (Not a real Elo but you would get an estimate). But I don't know how to do it :)
Comments.UserDisplayName: Minot
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Comments.CreationDate: 2022-12-14T20:12:16.383Z
Comments.Text: @Minot you would need an interface with an emulator since the original program is not based on a protocol like UCI or Xboard
Comments.UserDisplayName: qwr
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Comments.CreationDate: 2023-04-04T06:43:37.057Z
Comments.Text: @qwr this has in fact been done, by tom7 in 2019: http://tom7.org/chess/weak.pdf (see `chessmaster.nes_lv1` and chessmaster.nes_lv2` on pages 8-9.
Comments.UserDisplayName: hobbs
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Comments.CreationDate: 2024-05-10T10:02:46.303Z
Comments.Text: In the days before most people had played computer chess engines, it likely players tended to learn more theory before they learn to always advoid simple errors that looking ahead 2 moves can find.  Hence "never make simple error is likely to have done better  in the 80s then it would now.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Ian Ringrose
Tags: <engines><history><rating><computer-chess><elo>
Title: What Elo rating does The Chessmaster 2000 have?
ThreadText: # What Elo rating does The Chessmaster 2000 have?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2022-08-27)
  
  [A recent agadmator video pitted The Chessmaster (NES) against Stockfish 14 NNUE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=386uUj4lN8Q). What is more impressive to me is that this chess engine, released originally in 1986 and written by David Kittinger in 6502 assembly, was advertised at playing at 2000 Elo, on quite constrained hardware by today's standards. However, according to [The Spacious Mind](http://www.spacious-mind.com/html/c64_emu_-_chessmaster_2000.html), it only plays at 1550-1600 Elo.
  
  I am looking for calibrated Elo computer tournaments or personal experience with playing Chessmaster 2000 in gauging an accurate Elo rating. The Spacious Mind does not state how its Elo estimate for the software was derived, only that the site pitted various C64 engines against each other in a personal "2009 Commodore 64 Open Championship".
  
  **Tags:** engines, history, rating, computer-chess, elo
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: If someone could host that engine on Lichess as a BOT, people can play against it and eventually it would have a rating in the Lichess pool (Not a real Elo but you would get an estimate). But I don't know how to do it :)  
  > **username_0**: @username_1 you would need an interface with an emulator since the original program is not based on a protocol like UCI or Xboard  
  > **username_2**: @username_0 this has in fact been done, by tom7 in 2019: http://tom7.org/chess/weak.pdf (see `chessmaster.nes_lv1` and chessmaster.nes_lv2` on pages 8-9.  
  > **username_3**: In the days before most people had played computer chess engines, it likely players tended to learn more theory before they learn to always advoid simple errors that looking ahead 2 moves can find.  Hence "never make simple error is likely to have done better  in the 80s then it would now.  
  
  ---
  
  ## 2 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_2 on 2023-04-04. Score: 1
  
  The NES Chessmaster has previously faced Stockfish in the "Elo World" competition by Tom Murphy VII, presented at [SIGBOVIK 2019](http://tom7.org/chess/weak.pdf) and on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpXy041BIlA).
  
  This is a rather unconventional tournament, to say the least. There are no human players in it, and the Elo values are uncalibrated (and probably skewed a bit by the presence of many strange/weak players). Nonetheless, NES Chessmaster and Stockfish are both in it. Stockfish 10 with a think budget of 1 million nodes and opening/endgame databases disabled receives a score of 2644 Elo; NES Chessmaster on "Level 2" receives a score of 989 Elo.
  
  `chessmaster.nes_lv2` outperforms `stockfish1m_32768`, a "dilution" of Stockfish that plays the same move as `stockfish1m` 50% of the time and plays a random legal move 50% of the time, but it underperforms `stockfish1m_r16384`, which plays Stockfish 75% of the time and a random move 25% of the time.
  
  If someone were inclined to put NES Chessmaster online as a bot to collect calibrated data, as [proposed by username_1 in comments](https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/40473/what-elo-rating-does-the-chessmaster-2000-have#comment67088_40473), a starting point might be [tom7's harness](https://sourceforge.net/p/tom7misc/svn/HEAD/tree/trunk/chess/), found in `chessmaster.cc` / `chessmaster.h`, and dependent on the [fceulib](https://sourceforge.net/p/tom7misc/svn/HEAD/tree/trunk/fceulib/) wrapper for the FCE Ultra NES emulator.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_4**: **Comments have been [moved to chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/145106/discussion-on-answer-by-username_2-what-elo-rating-does-the-chessmaster-2000-have); please do not continue the discussion here.** Before posting a comment below this one, please review the [purposes of comments](/help/privileges/comment). Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an [answer](/help/how-to-answer), on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_5 on 2023-04-03. Score: 0
  
  [We don't know](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chessmaster#). The manufacturer believed it have been rated around 2000, but we don't know if this is correct. The computers were very slow and therefore it is impossible to know how well it really played
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_2**: What is the logical connection between "the computers were very slow" and "it is impossible to know how well it really played"?  
  > **username_5**: I don't know, I just asked that. @username_2  
  
  ---
  
  