Author: Amir Ban
Date: 01:53:18 05/31/02
Go up one level in this thread
On May 30, 2002 at 20:16:47, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On May 30, 2002 at 17:59:35, Amir Ban wrote: > >>On May 30, 2002 at 13:34:25, Robert Hyatt wrote: >> >>>On May 30, 2002 at 13:19:45, Dann Corbit wrote: >>> >>>>On May 30, 2002 at 13:15:59, Jerry Jones wrote: >>>> >>>>>Does anybody know what the highest official ELO rating according to FIDE is that >>>>>was ever attained by a human, Kasparov that is. >>>>>Is it possible that a few years ago his rating was a few points higher ? >>>>>If Kasparov had declined to play Deep Blue, would this have influenced his >>>>>rating ? >>>> >>>>You can add one million points to his ELO rating if you like. Or subtract them. >>>> Just be sure to do it to everyone else and it is perfectly valid. >>>> >>>>ELO figures are only valuable as differences within a pool of players who have >>>>had many competitions against each other. The absolute numbers mean absolutely >>>>nothing. >>> >>> >>>This is a continual problem. :) 32 degrees F means one thing. 32 degrees C >>>means another thing. 32 degrees K means another thing. No way to compare >>>today's 2850 rating to the ratings of players 40 years ago. >> >>It is perfectly sensible to compare ratings of 40 years ago and even more to >>today's. That's because at no point in time did the pool of players change, with >>an old group completely replaced by another. The ratings are measured against >>the field, which changes continuously, and provides continuity of the ratings. > >statisitically this is not true. First, there is the spectre of rating >inflation caused by various problems. It has been seen in USCF more than >once, on the chess servers, etc. It also happens within FIDE. > >Second, taking two populations and producing ratings for them works well. If >you try to say that the two populations are "joined" because a few from one >group played a few from the other group, statistically that claim is invalid. > >You can't just have a few "common people". You need them _all_ to be common >to both pools to be able to compare the ratings. > This is a reductio ad absurdum, as it follows that ratings in Germany cannot be compared to ratings in France, and the whole rating notion is not useful. >> >>So, even if Kasparov and Fischer never met (certainly Kasparov 2001 never met >>Fischer 1972), they had many common opponents, whose ratings where themselves >>determined by common opponents, etc. > > >Actually they didn't. Since they weren't playing in the same "era" the age >of those "common opponents" was a classic variable that influences the rating >difference. > > >> There's no more reason to assume that >>ratings in time are incomparable than to assume that ratings in the US and in >>Europe are incomparable, for, although most games are in one region, there are >>enough interregional games to give the ratings worldwide meaning. > >Again, you can believe what you want, but sampling theory finds problems >with this sort of sampling approach. Particularly when one geographic region >has a higher than usual number of top GM players, while another region does >not. That causes significant rating variances... > You can also believe what you want ... > > >> >>There are random fluctuations in the rating standard, because it's all >>statistics, but the numbers are large, and I'm not aware of anything that would >>cause ratings to systematically drift in any direction (actually this can be >>simulated effectively, by creating a random population of players and slowly >>change the pool over time and see if averages drift). > >This has been done. It does... it depends on where you start off "brand new >players". > > >> >>Most strong players agree that the level of play is higher than 30 years ago, >>and that's a good enough reason why today top ratings are higher. > >Wrong. If the level is uniformly higher, then the ratings should be _unchanged_ >since everybody is equally better. And the difference between two ratings is >used to predict outcomes, not the absolute value of a single rating. > There's nothing to keep ratings constant if the field improves. A new and stronger generation of players would get higher ratings vs. the older generation, and as the older generation gradually drops out of competition, averages go up. Amir >> >>Fischer, Alekhine, Capablanca are of course classics, but so are Johnnie >>Weissmuller and Jessie Owens, who would be today's also-rans. It is tempting to >>say that this is because today our clocks run slower than in their time, but >>they don't. >> >>Amir
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