Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Is there a rating inflation?

Author: Sune Fischer

Date: 06:43:17 05/31/02

Go up one level in this thread


On May 30, 2002 at 22:23:05, Dann Corbit wrote:

>>I like to remind you of the fact that another factor of inflation is exactly the
>>opposite. If very few strong players play against each other repeatedly, the Elo
>>score is mounting. However against weaker players a top player can't win much
>>points. So the level will tend to decrease in that case for the best. Ah, you
>>meant that for the rest down under the rating will increase nevertheless. Yes, I
>>agree. :)
>
>However, the top players almost never play against the worst players.  So the
>net effect is that points slowly perk towards the top and away from the bottom.

I fail to see how this argument has mathematical support.
Sure if you have pool of players that have none or only very poor connetion to
the outside world, then their rating will eventually become rather uncorrelated,
naturally.
But if they from time to time play weaker players, then a connection is created
and correlation established again.
It doens't matter if the other players are 200 weaker, rating formula should
adjust the ratings according to the scores.

If you have two large pools with players (e.g. Europe and Asia), and just a
fraction e.g. 10% play eachother, then that should calibrate the scale pretty
well, of course it doesn't get anywhere near 10% so it doesn't work in practise.

But you don't have to play round-robin to get a good rating scale, that's the
point of the whole system.

-S.



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.