Mittens (chess engine)

FIDE World FR Chess Championship 2019 - Nepomniachtchi v So. Top chess players have an Elo rating above 3000, but most if not all of the GM players have an Elo below Mittens (true Elo is 3500)

Mittens is a type of bot made for chess, called a chess engine. It has a low Elo rating of 1, while still being remarkably strong. This discrepancy is due to the people who made the bot lying. The creator of mittens is Chess.com (a popular chess organization and website). They wanted to cause surprise and get a psychological advantage over the opponents Mittens faces. This makes it different to other engines.

While the bot has a displayed rating is 1, its true strength is thought to be in the range of 3200-3500 Elo, potentially even higher.

Mittens (chess Engine) Media

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  Anatoly Karpov 2017 april (cropped)

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  Hikaru Nakamura played a match against Mittens that ended in a draw after 166 moves

Other websites

• Mittens (chess engine) on Twitter
• Hamilton College interview with Will Whalen