TOP 20:
# PLAYER : RATING ERROR POINTS PLAYED (%) 1 Stockfish 17 : 3864 16 4811.0 7610 63.2% 2 Obsidian 14 : 3809 18 1443.0 2660 54.2% 3 Berserk 13 : 3795 17 2956.5 5700 51.9% 4 PlentyChess 4.0.0 : 3790 19 713.0 1520 46.9% 5 Alexandria 7.0.0 : 3766 15 2109.5 4180 50.5% 6 Caissa 1.20 : 3762 15 2084.5 4177 49.9% 7 Integral 6.0 : 3752 19 860.0 1900 45.3% 8 Titan 1.1 : 3745 19 1041.5 2280 45.7% 9 Clover 8.0.2 : 3743 16 1622.5 3420 47.4% 10 RubiChess 20240112 : 3731 16 1584.0 3789 41.8% 11 KomodoDragon 1.0 : 3720 17 760.0 1900 40.0% 12 Seer 2.8.0 : 3713 23 114.5 380 30.1% 13 Koivisto 9.0 : 3697 17 1673.5 3420 48.9% 14 Rebel 16.3 : 3688 20 209.0 770 27.1% 15 Slowchess 2.8 : 3612 37 219.0 340 64.4% 16 Minic 3.30 : 3504 22 659.0 1412 46.7% 17 Black Marlin 7 : 3471 20 681.0 1792 38.0% 18 Arasan 23.3 NNUE : 3471 29 129.5 340 38.1% 19 Fire 8.1 : 3459 21 321.5 612 52.5% 20 Igel 3.05 : 3452 20 798.0 1496 53.3%
Updates: The rating list calculation method has been revised.
It now also takes into account some electronic chessboards emulated through CB-Emu. Obsidian 14, PlentyChess 4.0.0, Integral 6.0, Titan 1.1, KomodoDragon 1.0 have been added to the top positions, and TSCP 1.81, Virutor Chess 1.12, Sargon 1.01 calculated at 3-ply, Belofte 2.1.8.1, Nanook 0.17 to the bottom positions.
Click here for the complete rating list:
The rating list – updated as of 23/01/2025 – is calculated with Ordo and was obtained under the following assumptions.
- The Elo rating of Rebel 6 UCI (1994) is fixed at 2450 points, which serves as an “anchor” for all others. This score is the average value of the results obtained by the original version of the engine in various matches against human GMs in the early 90s, derived from various official or unofficial sources (Talkchess.com, Rebel13.nl, computerchessuk.com, various forums…).
- Compared to the previous version of the rating list, the second anchor, Fritz Brains in Bahrain (emulated from Deep Fritz 8), has been removed, as it distorted the true value of the engines too much.
- Several electronic chessboards have been added whose strength in terms of Elo obtained through matches with humans is fairly well known: TASC R40, TASC R30 and Novag Constellation. In this way, the rating list should provide engine scores that are more easily comparable with human ones. The electronic chessboards were emulated with CB-Emu, and made to play against several UCI and Winboard engines of similar strength.
- The time per game was set to 40/120′ repeated, reparameterized to the processing speed of a Pentium 90. The execution speed of the latter was emulated, and through various benchmarks done in the past on real P90 machines, I tried to obtain a value as close as possible to reality. Consequently, on modern PCs the actual time per game was 40/125” or 40/130” (seconds) depending on the PC used for the test, comparable to other blitz tests found on the net. For some engines, such as Chess Titans, it was not possible to define a game time; for this reason, I have indicated the characteristics of the CPU on which it was tested.
- The opening suite consists of 190 different positions, repeated for each engine (each engine played the same opening both as white and black). For older engines, not equipped with a UCI or XBoard interface (such as the 1988 version of BattleChess), I manually reproduced the various moves suggested by the programs. Also for these engines, as for all the others, the playing time was reparameterized to the performance of a Pentium 90. For this reason, the games of these engines are few compared to the total, and based on random selections of the 190 openings. The opening suite can be downloaded here.
- All the chess engines used are freely available on the net, with the exception of commercial programs that I purchased years ago, and are limited to using only one CPU core.
- In the “Top 10”, I have not included past versions of Stockfish, nor engines derived from it (such as Shashchess). In the complete rating list, I have also included past versions of Stockfish for comparison.
- The main goal of this rating list, made for my exclusive enjoyment, was both to determine the playing level of modern engines compared to past ones, but also to evaluate the actual playing strength of many programs that I loved in my youth (the aforementioned Battlechess, for example).