user23372: I do realise that a similar question might have been asked before; however, all intel about the topic that I have managed to gather to date seems to be outdated: almost everywhere I search, it is said that PlayMagnus age 10's estimated elo is 1500-1700, but I believe him to be much stronger than that. My Rapid elo on chess.com is 1850, but in order to beat him, I need to concentrate intensely, and even then I'm more likely to draw or lose than win. There is no doubt in my mind that the bot is stronger than me - I would estimate by about 200-300 elo points.
To this end, here is the question: am I simply significantly overrated, or is age 10 Magnus' true elo actually higher than what is commonly cited?

user924: It's impossible to answer. It doesn't have a true Elo.
There is hardly such a thing as "True Elo", because there are many different ratings and they can't be directly compared. But the most widely recognized, the FIDE rating, is based on rated tournament games. People are focused, have a lot of time, and they play other such people.
The rating you mentioned is your chess.com rapid rating. Chess.com uses a different rating system with different parameters, a different starting ratings, and a different pool of players. And it's for rapid, on an online site, where people usually aren't as focused as they are in a tournament game (and that differs a lot between players). It's not a "True Elo" either and it can't be directly compared to other ratings like FIDE.
Worse, computers, when they are tweaked to play at a lower strength than the default, don't become weaker in the same way that humans do. They are either given an extremely short amount of time, or they are sometimes forced to randomly play a worse move. Their resulting strength may still depend on your phone's CPU speed. It's very hard to say to what kind of human strength the resulting engine would correspond.
In short, if they manage to roughly come within a few hundred points of what they're aiming at, then I would consider that good.

user26806: The magnus 10 bot is so horribly coded I am not even joking. I have been playing chess for 4 years and I was able to beat age 9 within the first year but magnus age 10 I can only beat if I'm incredibly careful and play as if it's a tournament game.
The bot makes almost all perfect moves until it has a +5 advantage after which it plays inaccurately but still not bad enough for you to get a good lead. Sometimes it will have a mate in 3 but it will play crazy moves that do literally nothing but keep your king trapped. This is supposed to simulate a certain elo but it does it horribly.
I'll play a game with it rn and I'll send a link of the game's analysis.
Magnus age 10 bot is at least 2000 rated in terms of chess com elo.

user825: It's important to note the PlayMagnus app is running the Glaurung chess engine. The Glaurung chess engine is the forerunner of Stockfish. It's roughly about the same level as Shredder/Junior (link), both former winners in the computer chess championships. Very far away from the modern Stockfish but also far stronger than your chess.com's rating. You won't stand a chance unless the engine artificially plays bad chess. Unfortunately, there is no good way to make an engine play weaker while human-style chess. Lot's of different techniques, but nothing is satisfactory.
However, the PlayMagnus group has professional chess programmers working full-time to tune the engine for each age group. While I don't know their internal benchmark, the fact that they're pushing the app out means they're satisfied with the performance. Magnus Carlsen at age 10 was about ELO 2000 (from Wikipedia), so that'd be the target ELO. A tuned-down engine will not be playing consistently at human-level ELO 2000, but it should be closed given after so many years of professional development.
A very roughly ELO 2000+ (computer engines tend to biased up) is what you should expect. That's consistent with your observations.

23372: <p>I do realise that a similar question might have been asked before; however, all intel about the topic that I have managed to gather to date seems to be outdated: almost everywhere I search, it is said that PlayMagnus age 10's estimated elo is 1500-1700, but I believe him to be much stronger than that. My Rapid elo on chess.com is 1850, but in order to beat him, I need to concentrate intensely, and even then I'm more likely to draw or lose than win. There is no doubt in my mind that the bot is stronger than me - I would estimate by about 200-300 elo points.</p>
<p>To this end, here is the question: am I simply significantly overrated, or is age 10 Magnus' true elo actually higher than what is commonly cited?</p>
 924: <p>It's impossible to answer. It doesn't have a true Elo.</p>
<p>There is hardly such a thing as &quot;True Elo&quot;, because there are many different ratings and they can't be directly compared. But the most widely recognized, the FIDE rating, is based on <em>rated tournament games.</em> People are focused, have a lot of time, and they play other such people.</p>
<p>The rating you mentioned is your chess.com rapid rating. Chess.com uses a different rating system with different parameters, a different starting ratings, and a different pool of players. And it's for rapid, on an online site, where people usually aren't as focused as they are in a tournament game (and that differs a lot between players). It's not a &quot;True Elo&quot; either and it can't be directly compared to other ratings like FIDE.</p>
<p>Worse, computers, when they are tweaked to play at a lower strength than the default, <em>don't become weaker in the same way that humans do.</em> They are either given an extremely short amount of time, or they are sometimes forced to randomly play a worse move. Their resulting strength may still depend on your phone's CPU speed. It's very hard to say to what kind of human strength the resulting engine would correspond.</p>
<p>In short, if they manage to roughly come within a few hundred points of what they're aiming at, then I would consider that good.</p>
 26806: <p>The magnus 10 bot is so horribly coded I am not even joking. I have been playing chess for 4 years and I was able to beat age 9 within the first year but magnus age 10 I can only beat if I'm incredibly careful and play as if it's a tournament game.</p>
<p>The bot makes almost all perfect moves until it has a +5 advantage after which it plays inaccurately but still not bad enough for you to get a good lead. Sometimes it will have a mate in 3 but it will play crazy moves that do literally nothing but keep your king trapped. This is supposed to simulate a certain elo but it does it horribly.</p>
<p>I'll play a game with it rn and I'll send a link of the game's analysis.</p>
<p>Magnus age 10 bot is at least 2000 rated in terms of chess com elo.</p>
 825: <p>It's important to note the PlayMagnus app is running the Glaurung chess engine. The Glaurung chess engine is the forerunner of Stockfish. It's roughly about the same level as Shredder/Junior (<a href="https://ccrl.chessdom.com/ccrl/4040/cgi/engine_details.cgi?print=Details%20(text)&amp;eng=Glaurung%202.2%2064-bit%204CPU" rel="noreferrer">link</a>), both former winners in the computer chess championships. Very far away from the modern Stockfish but also far stronger than your chess.com's rating. You won't stand a chance unless the engine artificially plays bad chess. Unfortunately, there is no good way to make an engine play weaker while human-style chess. Lot's of different techniques, but nothing is satisfactory.</p>
<p>However, the PlayMagnus group has professional chess programmers working full-time to tune the engine for each age group. While I don't know their internal benchmark, the fact that they're pushing the app out means they're satisfied with the performance. Magnus Carlsen at age 10 was about ELO 2000 (from Wikipedia), so that'd be the target ELO. A tuned-down engine will not be playing consistently at human-level ELO 2000, but it should be closed given after so many years of professional development.</p>
<p>A very roughly ELO 2000+ (computer engines tend to biased up) is what you should expect. That's consistent with your observations.</p>
