Author: José de Jesús García Ruvalcaba
Date: 07:48:02 05/31/02
Go up one level in this thread
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. > >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. 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. > >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). > The following two facts have definitely caused rating inflation: 1. For a long period of time the winner of a tournament did not lose rating points, even if she/he scored under the expectations. I do not know how many points were globally added to the list, but I think they were a lot. 2. FIDE gave once a gift of 100 rating points to almost all the women in the rating list (I think the only exceptions were Judith and Zsuzsa Polgar). Here I am sure there were a lot rating points in total. The following factors can produce rating inflation or deflation, but I believe it is mostly inflation: 1. The k factor is 15 for players rated up to 2400 and 10 for higher rated players. This can cause global lose or gain of rating points in tournaments where there are both players above and below 2400. I think it is mostly gain due to the abundance of young, talented players which improve very quickly and which are underrated for some tournaments. 2. Players who drop the list (they become inactive or die) take their rating points with them. They could have won or lost rating points since they became their first rating. Let's call a "succesful player" somebody who wins rating points after becoming a rating, and a "unsuccesful player" somebody who loses rating points. Unsuccesful players are much more likely to quickly become inactive, in the meantime only (or mostly) giving rating points up, they cause inflation. Of course succesful players also become eventually inactive causing deflation, but since they tend to remain a lot longer (and they are way less than the unsuccesful ones), the global effect is smaller. José. >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. > >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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