Author: Sune Fischer
Date: 15:53:47 02/19/03
Go up one level in this thread
On February 19, 2003 at 18:25:53, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>>they may improve _faster_ but the overall chess population won't improve. It >>>_can't_. >> >>Why not? > >Because if _everybody_ improves, ratings can _not_ change, since ratings are >based >solely on the probability of X beating Y. :) So what you are saying is, that although the strength on average has gone up, the Elo rating shouldn't, by construction? I have to say I'm not sure about that, in practise you have a flux in and out of players, it is never a constant pool so you can't expect to conserve average. >I don't follow. Players don't start at 1000. They might be _seeded_ as if they >are 1000 >in a tournament, but their initial rating is the rating of their first opponent, >based on the >result. And this continues for the first 20 or 24 games... Not where I come from, here we get seeded, and if there is no prior knowledge of your strength, then you get 1000. At least that was the way it was when I started. >>inflation comes through the bonus points scored by those moving >>up the ranks and the fact that there are no good ways to balance things, no >>absoluteness in the scale so it tends to drift (up _or_ down). > >That was my point... Except it _never_ drifts down unless there is an overall >downward >manual correction. The current systems only drift up. That can't be so, the opposite must be the case and the idea is very simple. Players enter as weak and low rated, and exit (when they die?) as higher rated, well presumably very few end up worse than were they started. So the pool loses rating and the average goes down. You need to pump points into the system to keep it going at the same level. > But if everyone would >get off the >"2850 means XXX is the best player ever" and only use it to say that "XXX is 50 >points >better than the next best player" things would be a lot saner, because the >former is wrong, >while the latter is perfectly accurate. We can't compare ratings over time, but since all the GMs acknowledge Kasparov to be the greates ever, it is only natural if he also has the highest rating ever. I don't see any real hard evidence the scale is drifting unwarrented, then again there is no reason why it should remain the same, but whether it has gone up or down I can't say. I believe average strength has increased a little bit, so even if the scale has "drifted" a bit upwards I wouldn't call it inflation but rather a natural adjustment. :) -S.
This page took 0.01 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.