Author: Rolf Tueschen
Date: 03:00:27 01/21/03
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On January 20, 2003 at 21:20:35, Dann Corbit wrote: >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. Maybe I can also be of help here in that debate. I see a general mistake in the argumentation. You say that possibley two progs are 10 Elo point seperated. And you want to argue that in such a case the "real and superior strength" could NEVER be found. Whereas if the difference is 100 Elo points that should be possible to discover. You even reason that never means a trillion of games. Now where is the fallacy? Very simple. And I think it proves beyond a doubt that you are NOT a statistician and you never were, at least not on universitarian level, which is not bad in itself after all, so please don't take this as an insult. You take the 10 points - for spooky reasons - as eternal value. But that is wrong! Because the points are already a result of former games and 10 points might speak into the direction zero or into the direction 100. But exactly this would be discovered if we had more games. So also here, as in your coin analogy, you are completely misleaden. I'm sorry, Dann. Regards, Rolf Tueschen
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