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Subject: Re: Computer Chess Nihilism

Author: Steve Maughan

Date: 12:34:38 07/30/02

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Daniel,

>>What sort of comments?  About statistical significance?
>
>Yup :)

It's good that people here are aware that a few games are not *usually* enough
to establish the best program.  However I fear that there is a danger of
computer chess nihilism where any series of games are poo-pood as statistically
insignificant.  Note that if the score had been 37 v 23 one could say with 95%
accuracy that one program was better than another (no doubt 95% is not good
enough for some people!).  Also note that a score of say 35 v 25 shows that one
program is *probably* better than the other.  The point of the series of games
was to quickly establish if Tao or Pepito had improved significantly - the
conclusion being that they were still *about* the same strength.

Regards,

Steve Maughan



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