Author: Walter Koroljow
Date: 07:07:16 12/25/00
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On December 25, 2000 at 01:05:06, Bruce Moreland wrote: >On December 24, 2000 at 17:44:30, Roger D Davis wrote: > >>They should play a set number of games, say 5 or ten. At the end of that >>tournament, if the results are not statistically significant, they should play >>on until the results ARE statistically significant. If you look at all past >>world champions, it appears that there have seldom been enough games played to >>make a statistically significant champion. Sad, but true. The world championship >>is rather like Junior 6 v. Shredder and one program coming out on top by one >>game. We all know that proves nothing. >> >>I do not mind there being someone called "world champion," but I think there >>should also be a "statistically significant champion." Only the statistically >>significant champion can be the real champion. >> >>Roger > >This would work great if one of them were much stronger than the other. But >they aren't, they are close together. You might be years trying to get >statistical significance. I can't think of another sport where any effort is >made to attain statistical significance. Quite the contrary. You can find many >championships that are decided on the basis of one match. > >bruce And yet statistical significance has value in the eyes of the public. In bicycling the "world champion" is the one who has won a one-day race, albeit a hard one. He has some prestige, but it doesn't begin to compare with the prestige of the winner of the Tour de France (several weeks) or, for that matter of the winners of the tours of Italy or Spain, both long multi-day affairs. And then consider Fischer winning as he did against Spassky versus what would have happened if he had won a very short match, or even worse, a blitz match. I think what happened was a lot more impressive. However, perhaps this idea should be limited to the "knowledgeable" public. After all, the general public seems (I don't know of any definitive study on the subject) to have taken the "insignificant" Kasparov-Deep Blue match seriously. Cheers, Walter
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