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Subject: Re: chessmaster 8000 (or any program)and handicaping to set elo

Author: John Merlino

Date: 11:40:21 02/10/01

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On February 10, 2001 at 05:46:55, Brian Kostick wrote:

>On February 09, 2001 at 22:42:23, John Merlino wrote:
>
>>Chessmaster takes four factors into account:
>>
>>1) An estimate of the base USCF rating of the engine on default settings on the
>>minimum spec machine (Pentium II-233).
>>2) A determination of the processor speed at runtime (done every time the
>>program starts up, which is why you can get different ratings for the same
>>personalities). This equates into a "bonus ELO" which is applied to varying
>>degrees to all ratings. This variation is based on....
>>3) How close the personality's strength is to 100. The farther away it is from
>>100, the less of the bonus it gets.
>>4) Additionally, personalities that have a fixed search depth get NO CPU speed
>>bonus. This would seem incorrect, because some personalities could have a fixed
>>depth of 20, and it would appear that a max depth of 20 would take a long time
>>to reach. However, the only personalities that DO have a fixed search depth less
>>than the maximum all have a depth of 6 or less, which is reached very quickly.
>>Therefore, these personalities get no bonus.
>>
>>Of course, it's all just an estimation. In my opinion, the formula of (each
>>doubling of CPU speed = 70 ELO points) is probably not as valid as it was 3 or 4
>>years ago when it was first introduced to the development team. Maybe it's more
>>like 40-50 now, if that. But, the team has seen no reason to change it, yet....
>>
>>jm
>
>John,
>     Just for conversations sake... That published formula is/was:
>[Base Rating] + 70 * ln([Your CPU Speed] / [Base CPU Speed]) / ln(2)
>
> and [Base CPU Speed] was given as 90(mhz). Is it correct to say that it was
>raised to 233 somewhere along the line?
>
>Thanks,
>bk

The reason it was raised is because the minimum spec machine was raised. In
Chessmaster 6000, it was a Pentium 90. In CM8000, it's a PII-233.

jm




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