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Subject: Re: an idea for an experiment about checking the meaning of rating in ICC

Author: Russell Reagan

Date: 10:54:53 07/24/03

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On July 24, 2003 at 09:25:22, Uri Blass wrote:

>The point is that the difference in rating between players should tell me
>information about the difference in playing strength between them.
>
>If X gets 2400 at standard time control and Y gets 2100 at standard time control
>but X gets 3000 at blitz when Y gets 2300 at blitz then something is wrong in
>the rating if X and Y play the same at all time controls(by using fixed time per
>move and not pondering I make sure that the strength of X and Y is not dependent
>on the time control).

I don't think this is a valid conclusion. It is possible that engine Y was
created by its author to only play blitz. Or maybe it has a simple eval like
piece square tables, and so it can get to 2100 at standard time control and only
2300 at blitz. Maybe engine X has a lot more knowledge, so it plays
significantly better at blitz. I could say "maybe this..." to a hundred other
things. There are too many unknowns to be able to say for sure that the ratings
are meaningless.

To show that your conclusion cannot always be true, imagine an engine that tries
to play the worst move. At 0.1 second per move, it will choose _better_ moves
than at 60 seconds per move, because as it uses more time, it will be able to
find worse moves.



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