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Subject: Re: 9 rounds will not always give you the "best" program

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 15:34:21 01/20/03

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On January 20, 2003 at 18:08:45, Sune Fischer wrote:

>On January 20, 2003 at 17:27:44, Dann Corbit wrote:
>
>>>>No contest can truly tell us which program is strongest.  Not even a trillion
>>>>rounds of round-robin.
>>>I disagree again.  I believe a trillion rounds will show which program is
>>>strongest.
>>
>>You're wrong.
>>
>
>No he is right.
>There is a saying in statistics (IIRC correctly) "null events don't happen".
>
>Basicly it means things that are very very improbable are impossible.
>
>You would never see TSCP beat Fritz more than 50% of the time if you did a
>trillion games. No one has done more than a trillion games yet, we all know
>fritz is stronger, why is that? ;)

Until the number of games reaches infinity, there will always be uncertainty.

Because there is some degree of randomness in the programs, I'm not even sure
that there *is* an answer to the question:
"Which is stronger, Chess Tiger or Fritz?"

For programs with hundreds of ELO difference, you can be fairly certain
relatively quickly.  For programs of about the same strength, you will never
know the answer.



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