Author: Uri Blass
Date: 08:55:51 12/25/00
Go up one level in this thread
On December 25, 2000 at 10:08:44, Amir Ban wrote: >On December 24, 2000 at 13:11:49, Christophe Theron wrote: > >>On December 24, 2000 at 09:09:27, Jeroen Noomen wrote: >> >>>My congratulations to Vishy Anand, for winning the >>>FIDE World Championship 2000! >>> >>>3,5-0,5 in the final against Shirov, that leaves no >>>discussion whatsoever. Anand was the best, remained >>>unbeaten and scored a clear victory in the final. >>>Well done! >>> >>>Jeroen >> >> >>I am still absolutely amazed that a World Championship can be decided this way. >> >>A score of 3.5-0.5 is not statistically significant, not even with a low >>confidence. >> >>It is now clear, at least amongst the experienced computers chess operators, >>that such a result means NOTHING. >> >>I think that the computer chess community is on some topics much more advanced >>than the human chess community. For example the human chess community has >>adopted the ELO rating system, but still ignores most of the basic rules of this >>system (margin of error, level of confidence). The computer chess community is >>aware of these rules, and you can find these parameters published in the SSDF >>rating list for example. >> >> >> >> Christophe > >Chess games are not random events. > >You failed to do the math: 3.5-0.5 *is* significant, with about 95% confidence. I do not know how do you get the 95% confidence. You should define the assumptions that you make in order to find if it is significant with 95% confidence. There is also a problem in deciding if the result is significant. If you do a small change in the program then 7-0 result can be not significant from your point of view. 7-0 is very rare result between equal players but if you know that the change in the program is small before testing then the probability that the weaker side won 7-0 when you know that one side won 7-0 is not small enough. Let assume that the probability for the weaker side to win a game is 0.3 when the probability for the stronger side to win a game is 0.35 the probability of the weaker side to win 7 games when you know that one side won is 0.3^7/(0.3^7+0.35^7)=0.2536... and it means that there is a probability of more than 25% that you did a bad change inspite of the 7-0 result I ignored the fact that the probability of white is not the same as the probability of black to do it more simple. > >I noticed another statistic which *is* significant: It's always the bad results >that are not significant. The good ones are accepted without question. > >Amir A good result for one side is a bad result for the second side so if the bad results are not significant then it also means that the good results are not significant. Uri
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