Author: Graham Laight
Date: 02:07:32 11/21/03
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Everybody knows that as chess computers improve, the proportion of draws in their games becomes higher. The same is true of humans: the following graph suggests that at Elo 3600, all games will be drawn: http://math.bu.edu/people/mg/ratings/Draws.jpg . I also think that a player who plays at Elo 3600 would be unbeatable - no matter how good his opponent was. For a 3600 player, obtaining a draw would, IMO, be almost as easy as it would be for me to obtain a draw against Kasparov with only a king against a king and a knight. In this situation, Kasparov's extra skill and knowledge of the game (and his extra piece) would count for nothing. If what I'm saying is right (and I personally think that it is), then there's a serious problem ahead for the Elo rating system: the system measures chess skill by a player's likelihood of beating another player. However - if the computer that can see 50 ply ahead is unable to beat the machine that can only see 25 ply ahead, then, according to the Elo rating system, it would have the same Elo rating! Is this right, or is this wrong? If it is right, then the Elo rating system has an upper bound of approximately 3600. After this, even "solving" chess by computing out all the possible games will not give you an improvement in play, because the Elo 3600 will still almost always obtain a draw against you. -g
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