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Subject: Re: Tournament: no of rounds?

Author: Chris Whittington

Date: 06:43:28 11/05/97

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On November 05, 1997 at 09:34:46, Andreas Mader wrote:

>On November 05, 1997 at 07:45:44, Chris Whittington wrote:
>
>>
>>On November 05, 1997 at 07:10:19, Bas Hamstra wrote:
>>
>>>[Chance best program wins tournament]
>>>
>>>>>1) With the number of rounds at the WMCC, what was the actual probablity
>>>>>that the best chess program would win the tournament?
>>>>
>>>>Well, I suppose that depends on how much better the best chess program
>>>>is compared to all the others...  Let's say that the best program is
>>>>72 points better (this converts to a 60% chance to win each game) than
>>>>the other 33 entries.  A quick back of the envelope calculation with
>>>>lots of simplifying assumptions shows that the chance of the stronger
>>>>program winning the tournament is about 10%, nothing like the 80%
>>>>you'd like.
>>
>>
>>Urrrgghhhhhh. What is this maths ? From Alice in Wonderland ?
>>
>>Methinks the general problem is that of chasing the holy grail of the
>>'strongest' program. Maybe there is no such thing ? If you find it it
>>runs away and becomes another version ?
>>
>>>
>>>Thank you. I suspect in your calculation the winner must win all games?
>>>That isn't necesarrily the case of course, but it gives an indication.
>>>Anyway I'd appreciate it if you would e-mail me the calculation. Hm, 10%
>>>would be no less than a lottery indeed.
>>
>>This is silly. Obviously Junior is a strong program. You can probably
>>say that Ananse is a weak program.
>>
>>What do you want, everything pinned down to 50 decimal places ? This is
>>KK mathematical logic, only allowed on rgcc :)
>>
>>Chris Whittington
>>
>
>Hehehe!
>
>Maybe my password for CCC will be canceled by Chris for this

It needs a committee to cancel passwords. You have input into this
committee :)

> but I wrote
>a little program (with many simplifications, too) and 'played' 100.000
>times a 11 round tournament with 33 equally strong programs and one with
>a 60 per cent win probability.

Well there's the error. In the real event the other programs don't have
an equal probability. Ananse appears to have a 0% win probability.


> In the end the 'stronger' program has the
>most points in 28.5 per cent of all the tournaments (many times together
>with at least one other program).

Not surprising, they are all equally strong programs.

>
>What I have to do now is to evaluate all 34 programs with certain
>probabilities and write a swiss tournament manager to make this
>simulation even better and to please Chris.... :)

Thanks. you can entitle the paper "Andreas in Wonderland" and put it in
as a dissertatiion for a doctorate award :)

Should get one (60% probability) if the other papers by the usual
culprits are anything to go by :)

>
>Andreas
>
>"Nobody will ask in a few years if a program played 'nice games' in
>Paris, but maybe someone will ask for the winner."

This is true. All that is left in the end is crass materialism :(

Chris Whittington





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