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Subject: Re: Perfect Chess Is Approximately ELO 4000

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 13:05:58 02/27/02

Go up one level in this thread


On February 26, 2002 at 14:35:32, Uri Blass wrote:

>On February 26, 2002 at 13:16:48, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On February 26, 2002 at 10:56:12, Sune Fischer wrote:
>>
>>>On February 26, 2002 at 09:09:17, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>On February 26, 2002 at 06:11:05, Graham Laight wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>If two players were above ELO level 4000 (approx), they would always draw.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>What is this assumption based on?  Certainly not scientific research.  IE
>>>>who has proven that the game is a draw.
>>>>
>>>>And the question was about _one_ "perfect player".  Not two.  If there is just
>>>>one, his rating will continually rise over time and since he never loses, it
>>>>has no real upper bound.
>>>
>>>It is not enough that he never loses, drawing is also losing points, and so
>>>would give him a finite rating.
>>>The question is, do you need to play perfect to draw the perfect player?
>>>
>>
>>
>>I would assume yes to your question, assuming that he always wins from the
>>white side and a non-perfect player can't win from the white side because
>>of the mistakes.
>>
>>But it is too philosophical to waste much mental energy on.
>>
>>:)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>>>This is derived by extrapolating from the following graph, which is drawn by a
>>>>>former secretary of the USCF:
>>>>>
>>>>>http://math.bu.edu/people/mg/ratings/Draws.jpg
>>>>>
>>>>>-g
>>>>
>>>>That has nothing to do with "perfect play".  It is assuming the game is
>>>>drawn, which is not a given.
>>>
>>>Doesn't matter if it is drawn or a win, the perfect player can only be certain
>>>of a win if he has white and the chess is a win for white, or vice versa with
>>>black.
>>>I suppose we could ask a different question, if chess is a win for white and the
>>>perfect player is allowed always to play white, will he still have a finite
>>>rating? Probably not...!
>>>However, that is not *fair*, he should play both sides, so it is hard to prove
>>>he would always score a 100%.
>>
>>
>>true.  It depends on the mistake(s) made by the imperfect player.  I am
>>simply assuming someone that plays "perfect" wins every game because making
>>a mistake as white to turn the win into a draw probably still requires perfect
>>play to avoid one more mistake that turns it into a loss.
>>
>>Would be nice to have 32-piece EGTBs and we could answer this easily.  :)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>What if he playes an almost perfect player, one that only makes a mistake in 1
>>>in a million moves? Clearly that guy will have a finite rating, and he should
>>>stand a good chance against the perfect player, probably scoring close to 50% =>
>>>the perfect player will also get a finite rating.
>>>
>>>
>>>-S.
>>
>>If the perfect player doesn't win every game then yes, he has a finite
>>rating.  I agree.  The only issue is whether he wins all or not...
>
>The perfect player is not going to win every game if he plas enough games.
>
>even the strategy to xhoose a random move is going to socre more than 0% against
>the perfect player.

Do the math.  at any point in the game, the "random player" will have about
40 moves to choose from, and for this case I assume exactly one is "perfect".
That means he has a probability of .025 of choosing the "perfect" move in a
random fashion.  Compute .025^50 (assuming a game lasts 50 moves for
simplicity).  You get roughly 7 e-81.  I don't believe that a real human
can play enough games to give the "random player" any chance at all for a
draw, much less playing perfectly enough for a win.  The human simply won't
live long enough to play enough games at one game per day.

The random player has no chance.




>
>The difference in elo in order to win a match 2*10^1000-1 is certainly finite
>and I believe that choosing a random move is going to be enough for better score
>because I believe that it is possible to get at least a draw in less than 500
>moves and the probability to be lucky and choose every one of them is more  than
>1/100 in every move because I believe that the number of moves in every ply is
>going to be less than 100 when the opponent choose the perfect strategy.

See above.  If a human could live forever, the random player would eventually
win a game.  But the human doesn't, and the random player has no chance
whatever to win.




>
>It suggest the following question
>suppose that A has rating 0(I believe that the player who choose random move
>will have rating that is lower than 0).
>
>suppose B wins against A 2*10^1000-1
>
>What is going to be the rating of B based on the elo formula?
>This rating is probably an upper bound for the rating of the perfect player
>if you assume that the perfect player plays only against A.
>
>Uri



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