Author: Drexel,Michael
Date: 02:23:45 11/21/03
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On November 21, 2003 at 05:07:32, Graham Laight wrote: >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? It is clearly wrong. A computer that can only see 25 ply ahead will almost always lose to a computer that can see 50 ply ahead. Until the game isn't solved, a computer could always lose a game theoretical. In some seemingly equal positions there might exist a forced mate in 1000 ply or more. Michael > >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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