[largeluke]

Actually Elo does hit a maximum, because a perfect player doesn't beat an imperfect player 100% of the time: sometimes an imperfect player gets lucky and plays a perfect game.

A number of people have made conjectures on the Elo of perfect chess play, using extrapolations from data how chess programs scale. I'm not sure what the latest analysis is (things may have changed with the strength of neural network chess), but iirc they usually estimate something like 1000 Elo over current programs.

[O__________O]

ELO does not have a maximum limit, chess does; already said this in my comment prior to your response. Also clearly stated “over significant number of matches” - not just a single match.

Perfect chess play would not set the maximum ELO, that’s not how ELO works. ELO simply ranks players that play. If a prefect chess engine existed and continued to play and there was at least one other chess engine that improved by beating its prior best version, its ELO and the prefect players ELO would continue to rise. Long, long way to go to fill the ELO ratings between current state of the art and the prefect all knowing player that’s aware of all 10^120 possible matches.