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Subject: Re: Why I Believe That The Elo System Will Soon Stop Working

Author: Drexel,Michael

Date: 07:59:41 11/21/03

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On November 21, 2003 at 09:32:23, Uri Blass wrote:

>On November 21, 2003 at 05:23:45, Drexel,Michael wrote:
>
>>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.
>
>
>I disagree with both of you.

Not really

>
>A computer that can only search 25 ply with the regular extensions is going to
>lose part of the games against a computer that is searching 50 plies.

I assume it would lose more than 50% of the games, provided both engines get
always relatively early out of book.

>
>It is depenent on the opening choice and there are a lot of openings that
>practically lead to draw if both sides search deep enough.
>
>Even if the opening is good enough to play for a win there may be still a draw
>if the side that searches 50 plies only searches for the best move(it is the way
>computers usually work).

By the time the computers are able to search 50 plies, we will probably also
have programs that are able to benefit from weaknesses of the opponent.

Michael

>
>In that case it is not going to look for traps so it may go for a simple drawn
>position and not go for another equal position that it may win.
>
>Uri



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