Author: KarinsDad
Date: 19:40:25 01/29/99
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On January 29, 1999 at 21:45:54, Dann Corbit wrote: >Now, about computers -- how is it that an 1800 program might beat a 2500 >program? Sounds pretty absurd does it not? >There are a large number of possibilities. For instance, a flaw in an opening >book might cause Mr. 2500 to start off at -6 when it falls out of book. Or a >bug in the evaluation function might cause a stupid move. Or someone might get >on the time shared machine and cause the 2500 program to swap to disk for 30 >seconds at some crucial time point. Now, you might think that the bug can be >fixed. And certainly it can. But as long as we are developing new ideas new >bugs will spring up. And you might think that we can fix the opening book, and >indeed, we can tag bad moves as we find them, but with so many possible moves we >will never find them all. And you might think that "well, when I swapped to >disk, that game did not really count." But on the ICC database it counts the >same as a game against ferret on the hottest available hardware. > >IOW ECC.9:11 Dann, You are quibbling. Stating that a computer who suddenly lost ability due to people using it could lose and hence lose points is silly. This is like saying that a player could get poisoned in the middle of the game and lose accordingly. This would not generally happen today in a tournament for a computer (even if it might on ICC). And yes, a bad opening book could get you in trouble. But why would any writer of a program not use the program to examine every leaf node in the opening book. Even at 1 minute per leaf node on a 100,000 leaf book (probably at least a 150,000 node book or more with transpositions) would result in 100,000 minutes or about 70 days. You could probably even get away with 2 seconds a move or 2+ days to get rid of any glaring mistakes. It would be remiss to not do so. It would be like not testing. Stating that the up and coming players would be the ones to win is quibbling as well. There are only a few really good up and coming players that can beat someone 1000 points higher. Especially not 1 player in 400. Why? Because even if that up and coming player was really 650 in reality lower, he should still only win against the higher player 1 time in 50 (according to the formula, but a lot less in my opinion). Very rare. If an up and coming 1800 ELO player is really playing at 2100 strength, then he is a 2100 player, regardless of his rating. So you can get a high percentage of up and coming 1800 players beating 2200 players since their strength is really 2100, but that same set of 1800 players would NEVER win against the 2800 (i.e. Kasparov level) player at tournament times. Certainly not 1 time in 400 (or 1 time in 55 as per the real 700 point difference). Do you see now why I think the formula is skewed at larger ranges? Granted, if you took a statistical look at the USCFs database, you would probably find that the majority of wins by extremely lower rated players are based on up and coming players (or losses by down and going out players) and there would be next to 0 wins at a 700 delta, not 1 in 55. There are a lot of players mis-rated when they first come in as well. If there was a better way to estimate a player right away (or at any point within their career), then statistically, they would skew the results less. But I guess the bottom line is, until we can look at the statistics for a LOT of games (say millions), you and I will only be speculating. KarinsDad :)
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