Several rating lists showing the strength level of chess programs are available since more than 20 years.
Chess enthousiasts were always interested to discover how strong chess programs are playing and what is their progress in time towards "machines playing better than humans". Thus, this insane testing hobby did never stop even after a machine defeated the human world chess champion in 1997.
One of the oldest groups of testers is Sweedish SSDF, the first organization to issue computer ratings in 80's. They still continue the same way today and publish two updates in a year.
I like SSDF because:
* It's a multiplatform list including chess computers, PC programs and also mobile apps.
* They are unique in implementing tournament time controls, not blitz or bullet. Very time consuming and only possible by using a network of test machines.
Other dedicated testing networks, such as CCRL, provide regular updates and precise results too, but their scope is mainly focused to test Winboard and UCI compatible chess engines only. Even though this portion represent the strongest programs available, one can not find any information about how strong plays a given free iphone chess program in CCRL. Only Winboard/UCI engines which require a GUI to work, in other words, not any standalone program or device you may wish to compare.
Having seen very few info about the playing level of Android chess apps and engines can be found, i've been thinking it's time to do something serious and recover missing data by someone interested in AI development, statistics, programming techniques and hardware technologies.
Who would be crazy enough to spend a lot of spare time and allocate some hardware to generate and maintain a different kind of rating list, focused on mobile programs and engines?
Then i looked in the mirror. I looked like a lil' bit crazy that day.
Then there comes the Chesstroid chess ranking very soon, after 3 months of initial study and preparation.
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