Author: Rolf Tueschen
Date: 12:49:40 02/26/03
For seven years now I reflected the question in CCC and formerly RGCC (see the archives here and in GOOGLE) why it is so difficult to understand the critic of the usual Elo-rankinglists in FIDE and of course in SSDF. A recent message made it necessary to explain some basics. Someone wrote me that chess programmers knew statistics because creating a chess program and perfectioning & tuning is most of all a question of stats. Since the same sender is in opposition against my critic of the actual lists I decided that a direct lesson is the best for the benefit of the readers. I will explain without technical formules, because it is about the very basic stuff, and that is difficult enough to understand. Alien teminology does always sound smart but the reader is condemned to become a true believer or an upset disbeliever. So for the first time I try to explain here what normally people only learn at uiversities and that also only if they study philosophy or the methodology of science, or if they are very smart ad understand the basics in natural sciences and mathematics. NB that you can well study the latter fields and still must not understand such questions, which I'll try to explain as easy as possible. The forword is longer than the whole explanation methinks. To me it was interesting when I read about the Elo formula for the first time in the 70s that the authors [I think it was in the Swiss Schachwoche] gave a lot of tables, so that you could understand the sense of Elo's ranking list. The most interesting table was the one about the winning chances. I never read Elo in the original so I do't know the introduction he gave for his formulas. Doesn't matter, because I don't write against him but only against the false application of his formula. If he did NOT make a similar introduction with basically the same what I try to explain now, then of course it's already Arpad Elo's mistake. Anyway, there is no reason to continue mistakes. I think Elo had a good idea (some others had the same idea earlier in different countries) to find a formula for the performance of the chessplayers on the base of their tournament results. Elo was also interested in the calculation of numbers for the historic chess players, he tried to make their records comparable. Here I make a trivial statement, but this is now the basic reason for our misunderstandings in the debates about Elonumbers. SSDF-Elo or FIDE, all the same. The history of chess has happened in the past. The players had to chance to influence their Elo numbers. They simply played chess better or worse, which is all in order with the distribution of chess strength, which looks like a pyramide. At the top very few players and then the more you go down (weaker chess) the more chessplayers will be there. At the base you have the biggest quantity with the beginners. Today we have a totally different situation. In short, we have no longer a system of tournament chess which is based on the explained distribution of chess strength, but we have a system where already the participation of the players is connected with their Elo rating. Perhaps you might say that this is uninteresting. But then you have less experience in social sciences where it is known since long that the participation of humans leads to interactions between human goals and the applied technology. Example: Kasparov would never play the International Dutch Championships. Just try to find out for yourself what the reasons could be. On the contrary Kasparov with the actually highest Elo ranking number will prefer to play a tournament like Linares. Where 5 big numbered names help to ignore the bad number of the local hero. Because Kasparov would never play a tournament where he loses points although he wins the tournament. Look, if Kasparov played the city championships of Hollywood, Kasparov would LOSE points! Elo points. Because the opponents have 2300 at best. All IMO, just an example. The Linares effect is calle "imbreeding". With such an effect the top players could lift - if they wanted - each 2500 GM into the 2700 regions. That is what happened with Judit Polgar. When it's really about winning she loses against Elo weaker players, but in the invitational tournaments she alsohas wins against high top ranked players. Don't ask me for the explanation of the psychology... I think you have understood that the moment the Elo ranking as such is part of the goal it can be misused. That is the trivial consequence of the Law of human participation and awareness of the rules. Science has researched many methods to exclude exactly that influence (through interaction) and it's always a tricky game to hold the human research objects innocent. The moment the innocence is gone the results are directly affected. Notice that the "imbreeding" factor is active on all levels. In chess it is always better to play in a pool of equal and better ranked players. And if you as player look onto your rating, Elo or whatever, you know that you cannot "win" if you win against worse players. Or you have no chance and must win with 100%. But as it is this is difficult in chess. Fischer's boost was mainly a consequence of his 6:0 results against Larsen and Taimanov. Against Petrosjan and Spassky he also won but not that big. Still his 2725 was a sensation at the time. Believe me one thing, without the imbreeding factor Kasparov would not be above 2800. And he is surely not 100 points "better" than Fischer. To me Fischer is the best of all times. But I digress. To give a first summary: If big numbers have the right to choose their prefered player buddies (see Linares) there is no longer real competition, there is a distribution of Elo points and money, called chess tournament. So Elo's formula does no longer measure the performances out of real competition, but the formula itself is misused to the benefit of big players. Now (since we are in computerchess) what is happening in the actual SSDF? You know the answer already. You take the 8 or 10 top players from Linares, of course now the top programs (that are by definition always the newest progs of the last two years), then you let them play against each other. Imbreeding leads to always higher Elo numbers - by definition. [Just recetly we were informed that the company ChessBase obviously has not sent their new Fritz8 because in its first version they feared a loss of Elo points. Since the SSDF tests the progs being sent to them, the imbreeding factor is working in a very clean way.] In a couple of years the Elo SSDF must reach 2900 and higher. By the (clean) imbreeding alone. That SSDF Elo has nothing to do with chess strength is proven when 2150 players beat the 2700 progs fair and straight which would be impossible in human chess. [In human chess, even you won by chance a game, you would lose all the rest, because the GM would more and more understand how to beat you at 2150.] On the other hand the high Elo of the machines is supported by marketing results in show events between top players who get at least 800 000 US $$ beforehand just for showing up, no matter of the result! The result then is often a draw. That is statistically the optimal result that does hurt the sides the less possible. Marketing optimals! And since Elo defined draws the way that the "higher rated" player "gave" you "his" Elo number the marketing result leads to extremely high Elo numbers for the market product. Which is then supported by experts in CC fora where they tell the audience that XY played as [NOT like!!] a super GM... If you have understood then it's ok, but if you have questions, please ask, because I cannot open such lessons on weekly base. Either now or perhaps in some years again. So it's now or never... Rolf Tueschen
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