How to measure strength of my own chess engine? I'm wondering how can I estimate ELO ranking of my own written engine. I figure out that I have to connect my engine with some well known engine (via UCI protocol?) to be able to play automatically many games. My first thought was to adjust ELO ranking of well known engine to finally have draw, eg. If I the result of 1000 games match between my program and other is about 500 - 500 then I'll know that my program has the same strength. The problem is that, as far as I know, we are not able to set any engine to play on particular ELO level. Do you have any other idea how to measure own engine ELO rating?
Implement UCI or Winboard protocol (just enough to play games).  Download some engines (e.g. via CCRL) stronger than your estimate and run a Gauntlet tournament in Arena/Winboard/Cutechess etc.  Hundreds of games at least.  Feed the resulting PGN output file into Ordo and it'll give you an ELO (for the time control you used).  Try different time controls etc if needed - depends on your target competitors.    

https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/UCI

http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/

http://www.playwitharena.com/

http://hgm.nubati.net/

https://github.com/cutechess/cutechess

https://sites.google.com/site/gaviotachessengine/ordo

For an initial quick ELO you could use Ferdinand Mosca's tool that makes an estimate based on your engine's performance with the Strategic Test Suite EPDs.

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=56653

https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Strategic+Test+Suite