Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 13:23:39 11/24/03
Go up one level in this thread
On November 24, 2003 at 14:28:44, Rémi Coulom wrote: >On November 24, 2003 at 14:07:27, Robert Hyatt wrote: > ><snip> >>Draws count. That's why the Elo formula specifically includes draws in the >>calculation... > >I considered only the problem of estimating the likelihood that one player is >better than the other. Not the estimation of the difference in strength. Fine, but remember my example. Two _identical_ players. Me and a clone of me. We play 500 draws, then I get sick and my clone wins 6 games. I recover and we play another 500 draws. Is my clone better? Elo says "no". Or "barely". IE we may be separated by .01 rating point after that second set of 500 draws. Concluding my clone is "better" is simply wrong here. If everything were uniform, and games are 100% independent events, maybe that works. But humans don't play 1006 independent games. We get sick or distracted or whatever. The 1000 draws cover that case if you don't ignore them. > ><snip> >>If all you care about is "who is better" then omitting the draws makes >>some kind of sense, but it doesn't give any idea _how_ much better one >>is than the other. > >So we agree. I did not care at all about how much better one is than the other. > >Rémi I'm not sure we agree yet. See my example above. Is my clone better? I think not. I would be much more convinced if my clone won N in a row, rather than drawing a huge number, then winning M, then drawing a huge number again.
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.