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Subject: Re: Spike 1.0 Mainz is too strong for Zappa 1.1 so far 16 to 10

Author: Drexel,Michael

Date: 15:48:39 09/01/05

Go up one level in this thread


On September 01, 2005 at 16:18:37, Peter Berger wrote:

>On September 01, 2005 at 14:39:12, Drexel,Michael wrote:
>
>>The whole discussion is completely irrelevant anyway.
>
>I disagree to speak the famous words :) .
>
>>The strength of a chess player can certainly not be determined by playing only
>>one opponent.
>
>It is certainly relevant to be able to conclude who is the better player in a
>match and to what level of significance this statement can be made.

That´s fine but you certainly can´t conclude which engine is stronger.
You can only conclude which engine has better chances to win a match.

You know that it is almost always possible to tune an engine to score better
against a specific opponent. Usually doesn´t make the engine stronger overall,
often it is even weaker afterwards.

>It isn't the only interesting question, but you have to start somewhere.
>
>Also there are some corollaries that are interesting again, like what
>conclusions you can draw from the results of two opponents vs an engine of known
>strength etc.
>
>>
>>Suppose you play a 100000 games match between two engines and the winner scores
>>55%. Still you can´t conclude it is the stronger engine if we apply common
>>definition of "Strength".
>>
>>Michael
>
>There is no such common definition IMHO. Clearly in a world with only two
>chessengines or in an a match between two engines ( done like say in the finals
>of a classical human worldchampionship ) you'd think it is very relevant.

We don´t live in such a world.
It is at least necessary to match them against a bunch of available engines
before one should conclude anything.

Kramnik has beaten Kasparov in the only match but he was never regarded to be
stronger than Kasparov since his tournament results were worse overall.
Why should it be different in computer chess?

>Suppose Fritz, Shredder, Junior and Zappa were of same strenth. There are two
>versions of newcomer Woga ( multiply number of games with some huge number to
>have an impressive amount of games)
>
>Woga1:
>
>4.5-5.5 vs Fritz
>5.0-5.0 vs Shredder
>4.5-5.5 vs Junior
>10-0    vs Zappa
>
>Woga2:
>
>6-4 vs Fritz
>6-4 vs Shredder
>6-4 vs Junior
>6-4 vs Zappa
>
>Who is the better player in your opinion? Is there a "common sense" answer?
>
>Peter

Considering the small number of games I would never be able to answer this
question...

>450-550 vs Fritz
>500-500 vs Shredder
>450-550 vs Junior
>1000-0  vs Zappa
>
>Woga2:
>
>600-400 vs Fritz
>600-400 vs Shredder
>600-400 vs Junior
>600-400 vs Zappa

...but in this case they would be about equal.

You probably would conclude after the first match (against Zappa) Woga 1 is
much better and stop testing.
:)

Michael



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