Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 10:59:23 12/25/00
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On December 25, 2000 at 10:07:16, Walter Koroljow wrote: >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. Yes, and we can talk about the Super Bowl, the championship of American football, which will be watched to such a degree that city sewer systems are tested through a series of simultaneous flushes during commercials. It's only one game. And we have the World Cup, which comes down to one game. And we have Olympic gold medals in many sports. A lifetime of training in order to reduce the chance that you will fall on your butt at one specific moment. If you make it without falling, you win gold. If you bobble once, you spend the rest of your life talking about how it was an honor merely to compete. >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. This is certainly true though. You can talk about one of those championship matches as if it means something. I don't have a problem with this new format, but the actual championship match has a hard time being regarded as epic. There is not enough time for a comeback. >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. The problem with that match wasn't that it was too long or too short, the problem is that it was a "friendly" that some people are trying to turn into a world championship. It was an exhibition. It was taken seriously, but it was still an exhibition. You can't lose your title in an exhibition match. The public perceived that the title had been lost, and therefore the machine retired. bruce >Cheers, > >Walter
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