Chess rating list – anchored on Rebel 6 UCI – Pentium 90

TOP 20:

      
   # PLAYER                               : RATING  ERROR   POINTS  PLAYED    (%)
   1 Stockfish 18-dev 12-11-2025          :   3878     12   1684.5    2708   62.2%
   2 Stockfish 17.1                       :   3866     11   7501.0   11610   64.6%
   3 PlentyChess 7.0                      :   3845     12   1901.5    3540   53.7%
   4 Obsidian 16.14                       :   3840     13   1473.0    2660   55.4%
   5 Reckless 0.8                         :   3839     12   1727.5    3420   50.5%
   6 Alexandria 8.1.0                     :   3814     12   1300.0    2660   48.9%
   7 Clover 9.1                           :   3801     12   1137.0    2280   49.9%
   8 Lc0 0.31.2 BT3-7464000 1650m         :   3798     25    172.5     360   47.9%
   9 Berserk 13                           :   3789     10   6484.0   12648   51.3%
  10 Caissa 1.23                          :   3787     15    721.0    1520   47.4%
  11 Viridithas 18.0.0                    :   3786     16    748.0    1520   49.2%
  12 Integral 7.0                         :   3785     13   1829.5    3800   48.1%
  13 Horsie 1.1                           :   3775     13    998.0    2280   43.8%
  14 Stormphrax 7.0                       :   3766     15    665.0    1520   43.8%
  15 Halogen 15                           :   3749     16    621.0    1520   40.9%
  16 RubiChess 20240817                   :   3742     13   1145.0    2660   43.0%
  17 Titan 1.1                            :   3734     13   1201.5    2660   45.2%
  18 KomodoDragon 1.0                     :   3699     13    978.0    2660   36.8%
  19 Seer 2.8.0                           :   3695     13   1010.5    2660   38.0%
  20 Koivisto 9.0                         :   3688     12   1742.0    3540   49.2%

Updates:

Added Stockfish 18-dev 12-11-2025 (with new TI net), Stormphrax 7.0, Halogen 15. Tested again Stockfish 14 and 14.1.

Click here for the complete rating list:

Rating list – November 2025

The rating list – updated as of 23/11/2025 – 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…).
  • Several electronic chessboards have been added whose strength in terms of Elo obtained through matches with humans is fairly well known. 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).

 

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