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

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 18:18:48 01/20/03

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On January 20, 2003 at 17:47:05, Frank Phillips wrote:
>On January 20, 2003 at 16:51:00, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>No contest can truly tell us which program is strongest.  Not even a trillion
>>rounds of round-robin.
>
>So how many?  Or can we never know anything?  And what does it therefore mean to
>be strongest?

When the programs are very close (as is the case in reality) we will never know
the answer.

The farther apart the programs are, the more easily we can be certain.  For
instance, I am utterly convinced the deep fritz is stronger than TSCP.  I am not
convinced that it is stronger than Chess Tiger.

If there is a 1000 ELO difference between two programs, we will find out very
quickly.

If there is a 100 ELO difference, it becomes more difficult, but a huge number
of games will give us a very convincing result.

If there is a 10 ELO difference, it will be impossible to tell, as the
randomness in play will be a greater difference than the difference in true
strength.



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