maybe for very low ratings it's plausible?
1 elo per byte might happen in a tiny range
but at a useful strength it would break fast, that's what i think
What's the snallest possible program that accepts a chess board state and prints any legal move? True randomness may only have a couple hundred ELO, but then, that's pretty big for golf
The program that resigns every time unfortunately does a lot worse than random. But it depends on the population it's pitted against - it should at least pick up a few points against copies of itself.
Perhaps playing 1. e4 2. Bc4 3. Qh5 4. Qf7 (and resigning or offering a draw if some move isn't legal) would minmax this further
The problem isn't really well defined. Elo rating is assumed to be determinable independent of what opponents you face, so scoring 50% against opponents rated 1800 gives you the same information as scoring 26% against opponents rated 2000. In practice that's obviously not completely true, and for degenerate examples like the ones we are discussing it completely falls apart.
