80% of players will lose? If that's the easiest level, why would I play
there then? I'm likely to never win and that isn't fun and it wont make me
better.

I also want to clarify something. I'm not suggesting the program is 'dumbed
down' or to reverse work that has been done.

*Anyone* can write a chess program that loses, I could write a chess program
that just randomly chooses valid positions for a random piece and moves it.
I would probably win against that. But that, also, would not be 'fun'.

You can have fun by both winning and losing.

Losing all the time = not fun.
Winning all the time because opponent is useless = not fun

Losing but seeing your mistakes and how you can improve to maybe win next
time = fun
Winning because you played well, and so did your opponent = fun.

Simply, the game needs to be able to be adjusted so that it gives a good
game to all players. If it always beats someone they need an option to make
it play at their level, conversely, if someone always beats it they need a
way for it to play at their level. And even the worst chess player isn't
stupid and they will see when the computer "isn't trying" when they win.

It's one of the reasons Chess AI is a difficult thing to do, imho.

ave