Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 18:20:35 01/20/03
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On January 20, 2003 at 21:18:48, Dann Corbit wrote: >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. P.S. There is nothing wrong with knowing we cannot find an answer with certainty. There is something wrong with pretending that we can.
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