Author: Uri Blass
Date: 06:47:08 11/10/00
Go up one level in this thread
On November 10, 2000 at 09:03:52, José de Jesús García Ruvalcaba wrote: >On November 09, 2000 at 12:47:42, Christophe Theron wrote: > >> >> >>The difference is that the SSDF plays LONG tournaments which are more reliable >>than the short WMCCC for example. >> > >Sorry but I do not see any proper tournament in SSDF, only long mathces (20 or >40 games). There are several weak points in SSDF testing, a major one is that >there is no recipe or formula to give opponents to the new entries (as in a >tournament, be it short or long). I do not insist on the these weak points >because I do not mean to be discouraging or overly critic to SSDF, I only want >to point that your "reliability" argument in favor of SSDF is not fully >convincing. > >> >>So there is a difference, but it does not favor the short tournaments in my >>opinion. >> > >Again, I respect your opinion, and I think you will have far more "followers" >than me. > >> >>Then you should value more the SSDF games than the tournament games. >> > >OK, more problems with SSDF: >-several (most?) games are not public. If a tester is too lazy to send a pgn >score, she/he may be too lazy to even play the games. >-operator mistakes have been found, and most likely there are more mistakes. >-It is too easy for a tester to cheat (for example, playing 22 games and then >removing two losses for its favorite program, reporting a 20-game match). I >believe almost all the testers are honest. >-SSDF rating list gives very wide margins of error, which actually prevent >anybody from knowing certainly which is "best". >-As I have said before, the selection of opponents is quite arbitrary. Harald >Faber has said that he can make any top program number one by correctly choosing >the opponents, and I believe him. > >> >>The author will not be with you in your home and help YOUR copy of the program >>to play better. >> > >Very true! I might be influenced by the simple fact that I do not have a >computer, and obviously I also do not have any chess program either. > >> >>Generally, you know, the author is not provided in the program's >>package. >> > >And I personally would not like to get one (unless Katja Riemann or Claudia >Schiffer write a chess engine, even if it plays weak chess). > >> >>If you want the best program you can run on YOUR computer, the SSDF tells you >>much better than tournament games. >> > >I have pointed several problems with SSDF testing, but I do not want to insist >on them (I am not against SSDF or against private testing at all). >I only hope that by now it is clear where I am standing, what the differences >between your position and mine are, and that the readers from this thread are at >least amused. I agree with you about problems with the ssdf results but inspite of it I trust more the ssdf than results of short tournaments because there are also results of more testers like Chessfun and Enrique that suggest that fritz6a is very strong and it encourages me to trust the ssdf results. I may believe less to the ssdf if I see different results in public games of Chessfun and Enrique. Uri
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