Author: Don Dailey
Date: 08:04:46 06/05/98
Go up one level in this thread
On June 05, 1998 at 10:47:37, Steven Schwartz wrote: >On June 05, 1998 at 00:01:08, Fernando Villegas wrote: > >>Hi Steve: >>Interesting history you have told to us, but now I would like to know, >>for the sake of my journalistic curiosity, how it was you or your lawyer >>convinced people in the jury about such a technical issue like Elo >>rating of a machine? How did you convinced them Fidelity was cheating? >>How you explained this thing a lot of chessic people does not know well? >>Fernando > > >In the United States a person is considered innocent until >proven guilty (although it does not ALWAYS appear that way). >Since Fidelity was doing the suing, it was their obligation >to furnish proof that our "Over 1700" claim was 1) wrong and >2) purposely wrong (malicious). > >You are absolutely right. Talking to a jury about ELO points >is the equivalent of watching grass grow. And added to that, >was the fact that ELO is not an exact science AND their claim >of 2000 fell within the parameters our guarantee of "Over 1700". >I spent many weeks with my attorneys teaching them what the rating >system was all about. > >Fidelity spent days in the courtroom showing that right after our >"Over 1700" claim their sales went down below what they has projected, >but since we had access to their records, we could see that it had >absolutely nothing to do with our ad. How could a magazine with >a subscription of 50,000 cause damage of 1.5 million especially >since they filed only about a month after the ad appeared? Basically, >in order for the claim to be true, EVERY member of the U.S. Chess >Federation would have had to have the intention of buying this chess >computer, and our ad would have to had convinced EVERY one of them >to change his mind. We sold A LOT of SC 9s and I am sure the Federation >did as well. The most popular question we had to answer was, "Are >you selling a slower/weaker machine than the Federation?" Of course, we >were selling the identical machine but people were puzzled by the >difference in rating estimates. > > >The strangest fact of all was that we received a warning from >Fidelity about 10 days BEFORE the magazine was about to be >released that if the ad appeared, it would likely cause them >a great amount of damage. How did they know what was in the >magazine BEFORE it was released??? Obviously someone at the >Chess Federation told them. The USCF was apparently concerned >that our "Over 1700" rating would conflict with their own >ads for the Sensory Challenger 9 which were following Fidelity's >2000 rating line. And that would hurt their SC 9 sales. Keep >in mind that this machine sold for about $180 and was stronger >than machines that sold for twice that much!! > >About that time, the SC 9 was entered into an Open tournament in >Florida by Fidelity. However, they were running it at 8 MHz >instead of the 3 MHz that the commercial version ran at (at least >those are the numbers that I remember now). They, of course, did >not make this information public, but we had a couple of people >at the tournament who surrepticiously tested the machine that >was playing there. These people also reported the daily results >to us. On the day that we first placed the "Over 1700" ad, the >machine had completed perhaps 6 rounds and had a provisional rating >of about 1880. We deducted the points for the speed differential >and came up with "Over 1700". The computer actually finished the >tournament with a 2000 rating (so Fidelity should have known at >that point that their 2000 rating for the 3 MHz version was incorrect). My memory is that a lot of people were suspicious of the fact that they finished at exactly 2000. There was some discussion about the USCF using a different and more liberal calculation to insure the rating was not in the high 1900's. Do you remember this discussion? I didn't take it too seriously because I did not have any facts, but found the disucssion interesting. - Don >We had never been sued before (and only once since - by the company >that sued TASC over patent infringement involving the Smartboard - >a story for another post) and even though I knew we were 100% in the >right, I was VERY concerned because anything can happen in a jury >trial (just look at O.J.). My faith in the legal system was restored. >The judge was a tyrant. He allowed no nonsense. The jury did its job. >I was very pleased! > >I was always very skeptical of the Fidelity/Federation connection >and I believe that the suit was meant to stop us from selling the >SC 9 to the betterment of the Federation. In fact, if we had gone >along with Fidelity's 2000 rating, we would be claiming now that >the Diamond II or Milano Pro or Atlanta are playing 2700 chess. > >I will say it again... exaggerated ratings are for companies with >short term goals. >- Steve >P.S. Don't get me started on the Federation's decision >to allow Action Chess official ratings.
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