Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 18:48:40 12/22/99
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On December 22, 1999 at 19:03:34, Graham Laight wrote: >On December 22, 1999 at 15:07:42, Albert Silver wrote: > >>>At the end of the day, good chess is good chess. A machine that can beat more >>>computers is also likely to beat more humans. >>> >> >>That's really the core of the issue, and I don't agree with it. I used to, but >>as I grew stronger in chess, I changed my mind. It isn't because I am way up >>there, but because I can better appreciate the difference between myself and an >>IM for example. The point is 80-90% of computer chess is dependent on tactics, > >As computers continiue to get stronger, strong chess players are going to have >to accept that there's more than one way to play good chess. Daniel King >suggested this in his book about the GK/DB 1997 rematch in New York. > >>and let's say up to a strength of 2100-2200, this is also very true for human >>players, but then a new important factor comes in and the balance swings >>completely. Most IMs and GMs rely on their positional play, and this weighs in >>more and more as a rule the stronger they get. This is not the case of computer >>programs. Not by a long shot. And since no program is sufficiently strong >>positionally to properly compensate inferior tactics with superior positional >>play, the tactical wizards consistently top the lists. > >This doesn't quite seem to add up to me. More and more frequently, we are >reading about GMs succumbing to computers at tournament time controls. DB v GK >was a good example. In the last Aegon tournament (1997), the computers beat the >humans overall. If the limit of tactical strength has been reached by computers, >and if computers do not have mastery of positional factors, then what's going >on? > >I'm still not happy that I agree with yours and Bob's assertion that SSDF rate >the computers too highly. It's true that there is a tendency for new programs to >come in with very high Elo ratings, and then shrink back with the passage of >time, but these guys are very experienced at what they're doing. They admit that >there's a margin of error, but, over a long period of time, haven't they been >around about the right order of magnitude with their ratings? > >If you don't believe that Tiger is significantly over 2600 Fide, then in the >recent past, something has gone very wrong in the SSDF team. The problem is well-documented. if one pool has nothing but monkeys, and the other nothing but chess geniuses, you will still have 1200 humans and monkeys, and you will have 2800 humans and monkeys. And the ratings won't have a thing to do with each other. Because there is no cross- pollenation of the rating pools. I have watched Tiger play. It _absolutely_ is not a 2700 FIDE player. Nor is any other program IMHO. > >>Finally, A beats B, and B beats C, does not mean that A beats C. To find out if >>A beats C, pit it against C and find out. > >Here, you appear to be saying that the Elo rating system does not actually work. I interpreted him to mean across rating pools. And computer vs computer compared to computer vs human. Elo works _within_ a rating pool of players. But not across two rating pools that never compete with each other. Ratings inside each pool will accurately predict performance vs others in that pool, but it won't predict anything about competition across the pool boundary. In human chess, If A beats B, and B beats C, then most likely, A will also beat C. In computers this transitivity doesn't always happen. > >According to your last sentence, two players who have obtained Elo ratings >would, in reality, have no idea how well they would do against each other unless >they actually played one another! > >So - in the real world, an Elo rating provides you with no information about how >good a chessplayer is... > >-g > >> Albert Silver
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