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Subject: Re: Tragedy

Author: stuart taylor

Date: 18:56:28 11/04/00

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On November 04, 2000 at 21:14:38, Christophe Theron wrote:

>On November 04, 2000 at 15:05:54, Uri Blass wrote:
>
>>On November 04, 2000 at 14:10:47, walter irvin wrote:
>>
>>>On November 04, 2000 at 13:43:44, Bruce Moreland wrote:
>>>
>>>>On November 04, 2000 at 12:03:29, Daniel Chancey wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>I was trying to find out how CMSilver fares against the best of the best.
>>>>>Clearly it isn't doing well.
>>>>>
>>>>>Castle2000
>>>>
>>>>It might not be doing well, but it could have been an accident.  Your matches
>>>>are short enough that if it had won like two more games in the "blowout" match
>>>>you wouldn't be so sure.
>>>>
>>>>You have another blowout match going on now though, so it's looking a little
>>>>more likely that the version isn't as good as the others in self-play.
>>>>
>>>>The way you are doing matches you can probably score three ways - draw, win,
>>>>blowout.  If you start making decisions based upon this you can make a mistake
>>>>if the matches are too short to prove that the score is real.  Even a long match
>>>>can't prove that the score is real, if the score is close.
>>>>
>>>>It's possible to take the score of a match, and turn it into a statement such as
>>>>"There is an 85% chance that version A is at least 20 Elo points better than
>>>>version B."
>>>>
>>>>If that appeals to you, you may want to learn something about statistics.  I
>>>>would tell you how to do it, but I don't know how.  If chess didn't have any
>>>>draws it would be easier to do.
>>>>
>>>>bruce
>>>thats easy  just dont count draws .play till some one wins a certain number of
>>>games .then you can say well      A wins 75 games  B wins 25   ect
>>
>>It is not so simple because of some reasons:
>>
>>1)If you want to say that version A is at least 20 Elo better than version B
>>then you have to count draws because 20-0 with no draws suggest that A is at
>>least 20 elo better than B when 20-0 with 1000 draws suggest that A is not at
>>least 20 Elo better than B
>>
>>2)The probability to win with white is not the same as the probability to win
>>with black.
>>
>>3)Learning can change things and it is possible that version A is at least 20
>>elo better than B after 10000 games but before playing it is worse than B.
>>
>>Uri
>
>
>
>All fine and to the point, but still playing a 10 games match to decide which
>version is better is plain bullshit. Sorry, I had to say it...
>
>That's what Daniel should learn from statistics, even if we use rough
>approximations.
>
>Daniel, you could check this by yourself. Try it, you will see that the result
>is shoking. I have made the experiment myself, and it has changed my point of
>view about chess matches (and I would even say it changed my point of view about
>chess in general, and also about soccer, tennis and many other things).
>
>Here is what you should do: take the SAME program (or same PERSONALITY in your
>case), and let them play a 10 games match against each other. The time controls
>don't matter. Take blitz or 40/120, or anything you like.
>
>Write down the result after 10 games, or better: publish it here. We can all
>learn from your experiment, so I think it is a good idea to publish it.
>
>Then run the match again. Without changing anything. Just the same match with
>the same engines. And tell us what happens.
>
>You could think this is a stupid experiment. A program against itself should
>always score 50%, so what are we going to learn from the experiment?
>
>Do it, report about it, and tell us what you can learn from it.
>
>
>
>    Christophe

I wish a few people would have read my post from about a week ago, or more,
about great idea for chess championship/tournament.
  I think it would test many things in a most economical and accurate way, and
give room for great insights into the programs.
   I had very little response. Was everyone on vacation? And I see it WAS a
subject that interests people.
I could summarize it again.
S.Taylor



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