Author: KarinsDad
Date: 10:31:26 03/18/99
Go up one level in this thread
On March 18, 1999 at 11:47:35, James Robertson wrote: >On March 18, 1999 at 10:32:03, Pat King wrote: > >>On March 18, 1999 at 09:21:01, Albert Silver wrote: >> >>>On March 18, 1999 at 05:30:33, Charles Unruh wrote: >>> >>>> If Kasparov beat GM Ashley 6 games in a row what would it say about his chess? >>>> If Yermo beat H7 6 times in a row what would it say about it's chess? >>>> H7 needs to play a 2500 GM. Why? Because we(most of us speculate the comps >>>>are around 2500-2550 no one(few) expect that progs are 2600+ >>> >>>If the program does indeed play at 2500 then it should hardly lose 6-0 but more >>>like 4-2. >> >>It's expected score may be 4-2, but a 6-0 loss would not be significant. Just as >>if I flip a coin 6 times, and get heads 4 or 5 times instead of 3 times, I >>cannot draw a conclusion about the "fairness" of the coin. The sample size is >>just too small. > >I agree that the sample space is small, but it is not _that_ small. The odds of >getting 6-0 for flipping a coin is 2 ^ 6, or 1 in 64. But in chess we have >draws; 3 ^ 6 is 1 in 729, or 0.13%. And at the GM level I would wager that draws >occur more than 1/3 of the time between evenly rating players. > >Even though the ratings are uneven, they change the odds only tiny amount; For >instance, Yermolinsky should win 0.679% of the points, since he is 130 points >higher (assuming Hiarcs 7 is 2500). That increases the odds he will win all 6 >games by less than 1/2 of a percent. > >James > Hi James, Actually, I would say that the chances of Yermo going 6-0 is much smaller than your calculations indicate. The reason is that if he is leading the match 3-0 (a prerequisite for winning it 6-0), he may not have the motivation to force wins in the last 3 games. He could lose up to 2 of them and still win the match. So, unless there is some major financial or personal (some people are really competitive) motivation for him to win the last 3 games, he may quickly ask or try for a draw in at least one of them. So, at some point, there would be a diminishing return on working hard for wins when draws (or even loses) would suffice. Also, due to the "apparent" playing strength of Hiarcs7, I doubt Yermo will even go 3-0 in order to make that decision in the first place. For example, if Yermo is winning 1-0 or 2-0, there is a good chance he would try for a draw in game 2 or 3 if the position looked drawish as opposed to trying to force a win which may not be there. In a position that he does not feel he is winning (i.e. it is equal or he is behind), he will probably not play aggressively for a win, but he may play aggressively for a draw. This is the real reason that most GMs have such a high draw percentage. They often play conservatively (unlike Kasparov) when the position looks equal in order to not lose drawn games (and of course, the mistakes made by their opponents at that level are very small and harder to detect). KarinsDad :) > >> >>A more even match with an expected outcome of 3-3 MIGHT let one say something >>definitive in the event of a 6-0 rout.
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