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Subject: Re: chess computer ratings

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 07:01:10 09/24/01

Go up one level in this thread


On September 23, 2001 at 12:26:44, José Carlos wrote:

>On September 23, 2001 at 11:51:02, Mike S. wrote:
>
>>On September 23, 2001 at 11:13:14, José Carlos wrote:
>>
>>>(...) Besides, I belive the "scale" (if we can
>>>use this term) is smaler in human world than in comp-comp world, meaning that a
>>>small difference between two versions of a program (or two different programs,
>>>of course) can appear over and over in games, translating into more and more
>>>rating points.
>>
>>This would be the case only if it's not just a small, but also a decisive
>>difference, furthermore many programs have position learning.
>
>  I disagree. Humans are irregular. They can be happy and attack wildly or be
>sad and lose badly against a weaker opponent, etc. Computers are regular. They
>always do the same mistakes and the same good moves. Position learning is not
>enough to prevent this behaviour. You'd need a many Gigs positions file to hide
>a weak point of a program.
>  Additionally, the "human world" contains many thousands of players, while the
>comp-comp world is much smaller. I believe that the bigger the pool is, the
>smaller the scale.
>  Just my opinion, anyway.
>
>  José C.
>



I totally disagree with that last statement.  If you and I play, and you
win 3 of every four games, then our ratings should end up about 200 points
different no matter whether you and I are the only two players in the rating
pool, or we are in a pool with a million people.

I believe that the rating improvement for hardware speed advances is simply
smaller for human opponents because against humans, there is a judgement
component (knowledge) and a search component.  Speed influences the search
component _only_.  Against computers, that is important.  Against humans, it
is only 50% of the problem...



>>But there's another aspect of this type of speed/strength estimation: The faster
>>program can't be +60 elo (or whatever the value is) stronger at every move in a
>>game. Actually, many moves will be the same on 400 MHz and on 800 MHz, if this
>>is the only difference of the conditions. In some positions, moves will be
>>different but not necessarily stronger (i.e., if there is a number of moves
>>within a narrow margin of evaluations). Btw. I've heard experiments have been
>>made, showing that approx. 16% of moves are different if the search is one ply
>>deeper.
>>
>>So I think there is a very small number of moves, maybe only one or two per
>>game, where the higher speed is decisive for the result. Humans are certainly
>>more flexible in time consumption, and probably can adapt better to that than
>>programs. Furthermore, the higher speed affects only parts of a programs
>>performance. Opening book, egtbs, and parts of what can be described as
>>knowledge (in human terms) of the program, is the same at all cpu speeds and
>>time settings.
>>
>>Regards,
>>M.Scheidl



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