Author: Russell Reagan
Date: 10:30:18 12/15/03
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On December 15, 2003 at 06:27:07, O. Veli wrote: Hi, thanks for your comments. > After this round, you have a clear winner but we are not sure that he/she/it >is the best player. The more round you play after this round is to make sure >that you find the strongest player but this also has a limit. > > For example A beat B in the 4th round, so A is at 4 points and B is 3. > > i) Let us assume that B is stronger than A, and had bad luck in their game. If >the tournament were to end here, you have an undeserved winner. If the >tournament were to last up to 4 more rounds, the B player (being the strongest >player he/she/it is) will win the remaining games, whereas player A may lose >some points. B has a chance to win the tournament if we continue. > > ii) Let us assume that A is the stronger player. He/she/it will continue >winning the remaining games whereas B may lose some points. Than A will win the >tournament and we are statistically more sure that he/she/it is deserved winner >and not a lucky strong player. IMO, this is why we play the games and why we don't just crown the person with the highest rating the champion before the event. If engine A beats engine B, even though engine B might be stronger if we played a few thousand games, engine A deserves to win. I think a lot of people forget that the rules are established before the event, and that you win by being the best player within those rules. For instance consider those reality T.V. shows where they stick a dozen or so people on an island and vote one person off each week, and the last remaining person wins a million dollars or something. There are only a handful of rules (don't physically harm someone, and you can't conspire to share the prize with another participant). Other than that, there are no rules. Inevitably, one participant is considered to be a poor sport by the end of the show (they lied to a lot of people, for instance), and people think that person doesn't deserve to win. I disagree. I think that person simply played the game smarter than the others. He or she recognized that there were no rules, while others did not. It is the same with any sport. If a football team wins a tournament by defeating other "better" teams, then they deserve to win, because they were the best team for those few days. Same with chess. I don't think the point of a lot of tournaments is to determine who is actually better in the long run. That is usually impossible, unless you have candidate tournaments and matches, followed by a longer match like the FIDE used to do.
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