Strength of Chess Genius

[Tumbledown]

I am using Chess Genius. Can anyone tell me what the levels equate to in playing strength? I am on response time five seconds and finding the machine gives me a tough game, though I have hitherto been considered a strong club player.

[Theo]

Would be helpful to know, which Genius you are using.

There are several versions of Chess Genius for mobile phones and tablets, there is early DOS Chess Genius which you would need DOSBox to run, there is Genius for the Millenium Chess System (MCS) and there is of course a pretty rare and expensive Mephisto Genius 68030 module for Mephisto boards.

[Monsieur Plastique]

I am using Chess Genius. Can anyone tell me what the levels equate to in playing strength? I am on response time five seconds and finding the machine gives me a tough game, though I have hitherto been considered a strong club player.

Chess Genius tends not to scale well in relative terms as hardware gets faster. An equivalent statement would be that there is less difference between quick response times and very slow response times compared to other engines such as Fritz, etc.

I've mucked around with Chess Genius on an iPad 2 and without having performed any formal tests, my guestimate is that it is playing at least around 2200 at 5 seconds per move, if the human opponent is playing at a classical time control (ie 40 in 2). If, however, the human is using the same time as Chess Genius then I doubt many GMs would even beat the iPad these days.

Whilst I am weaker than you (probably somewhere around the 1700s), the strength of the Chess Genius engine even at extremely fast time controls (me thinking at 40 in 2) is simply way beyond my ability even at my absolute best. I would not even win against Chess Genius at the 1 second per move level. And looking at the search depths it gets to even on an iPad at 1 second per move, given that it has always been a "large" knowledge based program, it's already probably at least as strong given 1 second thought as the best of the old Lang dedicated machines from the late 80s (say 32 bit Portorose, etc) on their tournament levels.

Infact that would be quite an interesting match to play. iPad on a few seconds per move versus an old Mephisto on tournament.

[Tumbledown]

Bonjour Monsieur Plastique,

Many thanks for your illuminating comments concerning the strength of Chess Genius. I started it at ten seconds response time and was beaten
Repeatedly. I did not fare much better ot five seconds response time, which is not surprising if the strength at that level is indeed in the Elo 2200 range. I am now about to try at one second response time, which from your observations I am guessing will be around the Elo 2000 level.

I gave up playing chewss forty years ago because it was taking up too much of my time. At that point I was rated by Chess, Sutton Coldfield (the organiser of many postal tournaments) as a very strong club player. No doubt I have now acquired a thick layer of rust, but even if I hadn’t, I would have little expectation of beating Genius at the level on which I am now about to embark.

Many thanks again for your most helpful words.

Best wishes - Tumbledown

[Tumbledown]

Dear Theo,

Please excuse this delayed reply - a bungle on my part. I don't know which version of Chess Genius I am using but assume it is a recent one because it came on the new Aristotle tablet computer. I am about to try the machine at instant and one-second response times. It drubbed me at both ten-second and five-second times, so we shall see. Thanks for your contribution.

All the best,
Tumbledown

[vonderlasa]

Many programs on the ipad play very well. For fun, I tried the "Play Magnus" app at age 11 vs. the Mephisto Mondial XL 68000 at 30 seconds a move. The Magnus app replies instantly at the age 11 setting, but it crushed the Mephisto quickly. It would have been really ugly at a stronger setting or with a stronger ipad program like Hiarcs or Stockfish.

[Cyberchess]

Many programs on the ipad play very well. For fun, I tried the "Play Magnus" app at age 11 vs. the Mephisto Mondial XL 68000 at 30 seconds a move. The Magnus app replies instantly at the age 11 setting, but it crushed the Mephisto quickly. It would have been really ugly at a stronger setting or with a stronger ipad program like Hiarcs or Stockfish.

Greetings from a jealous Android user. I’d sure like to be able to run the “Play Magnus” app on my smartphone. It would be fun to play Magnus as he was in the embryonic state and try to sneak in a back-rank mate while his cerebral cortex was still in the formative stage.

Hoping this app will be ported over soon… Regards,
John