Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 16:29:02 02/24/99
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On February 24, 1999 at 19:20:28, David Eppstein wrote: >On February 24, 1999 at 18:04:34, Vincent Diepeveen wrote: >>On February 24, 1999 at 17:08:41, Dann Corbit wrote: >>>Another interesting prize-winning category might be ELO per dollar. This would >>>probably be very interesting to the end-consumer. >> >>Better is prizewinning category for elo per node. > >It makes no sense mathematically to divide Elo by anything, >even ignoring the question of whether you can define a "node". > >The zero-point of the various Elo systems (USCF, FIDE, SSDF, etc) >is completely arbitrary -- you would get essentially the same system if you >subtracted say 1500 from everyone's number, which would change your proposed >ratios dramatically. The only thing it makes sense to do with Elo scores is to >look at the difference between two of them, which should be (some function of) >the expected outcome of games between the two players. > >So, I have to say, elo per anything is a really stupid basis for awarding any >kind of prize. Especially, since most of the programs in these competitions are >going to have an Elo within 100 or so of each other, what you are really >awarding is "minimum price" or "minimum number of nodes". We already know how >to do that without playing any tournament games. I disagree. While ELO per node will simply award the prize to slow searchers and penalize the fast searchers, this sort of measure (ELO/Dollar) will allow people who have to come with wimpy machines a shot at something. IIRC, last year some people were competing against 767MHz alphas using K200's. Seem fair to you? It would be a measure of some sort for the price/performance mark. And it is not strictly a measure of the price of the machine. If that were true, then two different programs would perform identically on identical hardware. This is clearly not the case, as a glance at any extended contest or the SSDF results will show you.
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