Author: Dave Gomboc
Date: 18:07:15 06/09/99
Go up one level in this thread
On June 09, 1999 at 20:48:42, Tony Essman wrote: ><snip> > >>The maximum ELO is obtained by playing against a common houseplant, which >always forfeits on time. My ELO in this pool is quite impressive. >>;-) > > > I was intrigued by just what the Elo of a common house plant would be, so I >decided to put it to the test in a tournament. It would be unfair to pit it >against humans, or computers, though, and since I only have one house plant, I >used a potato for the other participant. I figure it could be a plant if I >didn't eat it. > > Anyway, I ran the tournament as a double round-robin with game in 90. 45/2 >would take way too long, and I can't wait very well for stuff I'm interested in >(reading about it also takes too long). > > The house plant had white in the first round, and then the colors >alternated each round. Maybe some other format would have been better -- I don't >know I'm not a tournament director, but hey, I'm not a mathematician either! > > Well here were the parings: > > +---------+-----------------------+-------+ > | Player | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | Total | > |---------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-------+ > | Plant | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | > |---------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-------+ > | Potato | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | > +---------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-------+ > > Dann was right! Vegetables can't seem to get the thread of the game and >lose on time, and pretty consistently. On the plus side, though, there weren't >any boring draws. > > But, we can still calculate the ratings (I think). I've never really done >it before, but I understand the general concept of how ratings work, and I've >never let not knowing something keep me from wading in. And, I think most folks >will overlook one or two inaccuracies. Hey, chess players are most reasonable >people I have ever met. > > Well, both the plant and the potato have never been rated before, so I >assigned them a "provisional" rating. I used the mean for ratings, which I >guessed to be about 1500 (sue me if I'm wrong). > > I don't really know how Elo's are calculated, but that's not really >important -- one rating system is probably as good as another. I did search the >web to try and find out how, but all I got was, ahem, alternate sites. It was >pretty discouraging, and I've already mentioned how impatient I am, so I used >this formula that I once read in a FAQ: > > "*** For the first 20 games (provisional rating): *** > > Take the rating of the opponent +400 if the player wins. Take the > rating of the opponent -400 if the player loses. Take the rating of the > opponent if the game is a draw. > > Average these numbers. (If unrated players play other unrated players, > this requires several iterations of the above.) " > > Here are the calculations, and may I say right up front -- I used a >calculator to check all the numbers, so don't be flaming me! > >Round 1: >-------- >Rating_potato = 1500 + 400 = 1900 >Rating_plant = 1500 - 400 = 1100 > >Round 2: >-------- >Rating_potato = 1900 - 400 = 1500 >Rating_plant = 1100 + 400 = 1500 > >Round 3: >-------- >Rating_potato = 1500 + 400 = 1900 >Rating_plant = 1500 - 400 = 1100 > >Round 4: >-------- >Rating_potato = 1900 - 400 = 1500 >Rating_plant = 1100 + 400 = 1500 > >Provisional Rating_potato = 1900 + 1500 + 1900 + 1500 / 4 = 1700 >Provisional Rating_plant = 1100 + 1500 + 1100 + 1500 / 4 = 1300 > > Well, there you have it. A potato is quite a bit stronger than a house >plant, although I would like to stress these ratings are only provisional. > > I gained a great deal of insight into ratings and how they work as a result >of this experiment, and I hope it proves equally valuable to others. For one >thing, I'm hoping for more blacks in all my future tournaments, and I'm going to >treat potatoes with much more respect! > >Cheers... > >Tony. Provisional ratings are calculated on the entire event simultaneously. So, you should have gotten 1500 for both ratings, sorry. :-) Dave
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