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Subject: Re: Who is better? Some statistics...

Author: Peter Fendrich

Date: 03:08:58 06/11/01

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On June 11, 2001 at 05:08:00, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>In line of some of the results posted here, I'd like to
>make some people aware of the existance of the 'Whoisbetter'
>utility.
>
>It is a program by Steve Maughan (http://home.clara.net/maughan/)
>that can aid you in determining whether a certain result has
>any statistical meaning.
>
>It's a bit unfortunate there is little explication of the used
>mathematics :( It only says it is based on the binominal distriubtion.
>If anyone has an idea on how it could work, please post, as
>I will begin working on a similar program but based on other
>mathematics soon.
>
>A little table for those who can't run Windows programs:
>The winning program must at least have the 'required' score
>to be able to say it is better with standard statistical
>significancy.
>
>Played games        Required score
>-----------------------------------
>    5                    5 -  0
>   10                    8 -  2
>   15                   11 -  4
>   20                   14 -  6
>   30                   20 - 10
>   50                   31 - 19
>  100                   59 - 41
>  200                  113 - 89
>
>So for example, if you play a match between 2 programs and
>one scores 7-3, you _can't_ say that the winner is stronger.
>
>Well, you can, but there are people that are selling rings that
>make you live forever, which are proven to work based on the
>same kind of highly reliable science.
>
>--
>GCP


I've made a program like that but it's based on the trinomial distribution which
should be more accurate for chess results. The draw case makes a difference.
The purpose of the program is to be able of say something about match results
with a small number of games if something is possible to say. Small numbers are
small numbers and there are no magic formulas to overcome that! Games with only
one opponent is biased against only that opponent. No magic formulas for that
either! This is just life...

Anyone interested can get the program from me with a "popular" explanation about
the used theories.

//Peter





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