Author: José de Jesús García Ruvalcaba
Date: 13:47:34 09/17/98
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On September 17, 1998 at 15:47:54, John Coffey wrote: >I have strong opinions about this topic. Let us assume that dropping the >search by 1 ply equals 1 rating class, or cutting the number of nodes in >half drops the strength by 80 to 100 points. If that is the case then it >should be possible to weaken most programs down to near 0 strength. But the >fact is that most programs have a lower limit that they will not go below >unless you adjust other factors such as the value of the pieces or the "blunder >range." > >If and when I write my chess program (starting next month), I intend to have >a feature where one could set the rating at any level from 0 to whatever the >upper limit is. The limiting factor will be the number of positions that >the program can look at, and other factors such as "blunder range" should not >be necessary. > >John Coffey But what does mean "zero strength"? If you mean rating, then it is by no means the weakest you can achieve. In fact, Elo ratings have meaning only for a group of players, and the meaning comes from the *rating differences* among the players. You can add (or substract) any arbitrary figure to *all* the ratings in a particular list, and the *list* is still valid (because the rating differences will be the same). For the same reason you can not compare ratings from different lists. I admit that a rating of zero, under any of the lists currently published, is far weaker than anybody would ever need.
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