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Subject: Re: Go programming

Author: Peter McKenzie

Date: 16:33:07 02/13/04

Go up one level in this thread


On February 13, 2004 at 11:48:05, Roy Eassa wrote:

>On February 13, 2004 at 11:21:51, Alberto Rezza wrote:
>
>>>How many players in the world are at least good level amateurs in go?
>>
>>It depends. If "good level amateur" is something like 1-dan (on the european
>>rating) then there must be at least one million players in the world who are
>>this strong or stronger.
>>
>>However, go and chess are too different, and it's very difficult to compare
>>their rankings. I think some people have tried to get equivalent ramkings by
>>comparing the probabilities of winning for a given rank difference in the two
>>games, but the results are not very meaningful: it turns out that there are,
>>from beginner to world champion, many more "steps" or levels to progress in go
>>than in chess; so if you fix an equivalence like, for instance, 100 Elo points
>>for every go stone, you get a much lower probability to win with a "one level"
>>advantage in go than in chess.
>>
>>Another approach is to compare population sizes: there are many more chess
>>players than go players - the go players are only about 30 million, mostly in
>>China, Korea and Japan. From a much bigger pool you should also get better top
>>players, so the chess GM's should really be compared to the very top go masters,
>>the 9-dan professionals. This might put a 1-dan pro at about 2350 Elo, and a
>>1-dan amateur near 1700 Elo.
>>
>>The problem is that this is not consistent with the "feeling" reported by people
>>who are strong in both games: for example, a friend of mine who was about 2000
>>Elo in chess, and also a 1-kyu (euro) amateur go player, told me he believed he
>>was definitely stronger in go than in chess.
>>
>>Personally, I think 2000 Elo in chess would be slightly better than 1-kyu in go,
>>but then again I am not a chess player... (beginner at chess, 1-dan in go).
>>
>>Alberto
>
>
>Awhile back I started using this rule of thumb: take your AMATEUR (does not work
>for pro) kyu ranking in Go, multiply by 33 1/3, and subtract that from 1800
>(perhaps it should be 1900?), and you'll get an approxmiate equivalent of a USCF
>rating.

Sounds pretty good to me.

>
>It's far from perfect, but in general it works better for me than not having any
>approxmiate formula to use.



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