Author: Rolf Tueschen
Date: 05:04:54 12/07/05
If we think about a testing design we dream of as much data we could get because we know that statistical significance has something to do with HIGH numbers of trials, games or data. Please believe me that I dont want to bash all sorts of activities in the testing hobby. This is just a plea to care and to be attentive of what one is doing. Say you (general you) have three, just these three, top engines and 500 engines on the free market with different strength. Could you just do the testing the way it's done on CEGT? I have serious doubts. Look at this: say these three top acts are incredibly stronger in chess strength than all th other 500 (which is apparently NOT the case in CEGT!) then what you are testing in such little 20 or so games matches? Are you really testing chess strength? I dont think so. In my view the following is tested. How well the top engines solve the different technical problems during tournament play. Just see the 14 SHREDDER losses in the 300 rating. Compare it with FRITZ. I dont want to be boring with mathematical calculations but let me say it in speech. The more opponents of relatively weaker strength you match with three or say five top programs, the more irrelevant technical details or also chess depending singularities (exceptions in the game) sum up and influence your ranking. You must decide what you want to get. You are not interested in the testing of the top programs. You want to get a ranking of the many free engines or amateurs at least. Isnt it? I say that you cant compare these many with the top three. You could better test without them. Because the assumption is a delusion that you now by using the comparison with the top very few you get a reasonable "Elo" or whatever you call it for the "little" engines. Believing into such a mechanism is the same error type the SSDF people made for years. You remember. They once "calibrated" their tests with some (!) few (!) games against IM or Swedish masters. At the stoneage times of CC. And then later they somehow wriggled around with this calibration to give a reasonably looking Elo figure. On the base of the games of these masters against MEPHISTO I dont know more. Such a testing is absolutely nonsense. In other words. You never know exactly what you are really testing. Here in CEGT it would be way better if you tested among the 500 amateurs. Then you will get a ranking over time. But to test how a new engine like Rybka would do against SHREDDER or FRITZ or CHESSMASTER, you must create a different testing. For that question it only is disturbing noise to watch all the results of these 500 engines. Please ask if something is not understandable. I wrote this to prevent that later after enormous attempts the whole results would be criticised. That would be a pity for all the very motivated fans of our hobby CC. So please ask before you go on tangents because you think that I am nuts with my critic.
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