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Subject: Re: An interesting commentary by GM Gulko

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 11:54:22 03/20/02

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On March 20, 2002 at 14:07:18, Sune Fischer wrote:

>On March 20, 2002 at 13:58:35, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote:
>
>>On March 20, 2002 at 13:50:47, Sune Fischer wrote:
>>
>>>It is not the limit, chess is finite so you can never reach an infinite elo
>>>because you simply can't win them all.
>>
>>This was refuted earlier in the thread, i.e. in the case
>>of deterministic players.  (like chessprograms!)
>
>Not really, see there was a trap built into it :)
>They are in fact playing the _same_ game over and over, so it should only counts
>as one I think :)

If you could beat someone with a simple "fool's mate" style kingside attack each
and every time, would it count as only one win, or a win for every time you
executed the attack?[1]

>Anyway, thought about the limited set, and I figure, that if A beats B 2 out of
>2 games, and B has a rating of 1500, then we should give A a rating that would
>give A a 50% chance of scoring 2 of 2 against B, this is all we can really say
>since we have no idea of how the third game will end. This means A should have
>probability 0.7071 of a win. I don't have the formula in front of me, but it's
>probably something like 1650.

You have to have a very large number of games to make any sort of meaningful
predictions.  You can (of course) have any ELO figure you want for either/both
players in this simple system.  For instance, if the lower ranked player is 100
ELO below the stronger one, and you want the stronger one's rating to be 'x',
then just set the weaker player to x-100.  It's completely arbitrary.  Only the
differences matter.

>But hey, I'm not a mathematician, so I could be wrong :)

[1] I like to use this technique to teach little kids how to play chess.  Beat
them with it over and over, explaining the reason exactly why I am moving each
piece.  After a dozen games or so, they will be able to defend because they will
figure out how to stop it.[2]  The side benefit is that they can defeat their 6
year old friends quite a few times before they catch on and it makes them feel
pretty smart.  Of course, it is a truly awful opening, and I have problably
damaged them for life by teaching it to them[3]

[2] Usually, they figure it out by trying to attack me with it.  As I explain
why I am moving the pieces to defend, they get the idea.  Once in a while they
figure it out from first principles.

[3] But think of what happened to Fischer and Morphy.  I may have saved them
from a life of bizarre brain dysfunction



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