Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 23:57:21 01/28/00
Go up one level in this thread
On January 29, 2000 at 01:20:37, Dann Corbit wrote:
>On January 29, 2000 at 01:15:20, Christophe Theron wrote:
>[snip]
>>Actually my point was not about the 80% confidence.
>>
>>My point was about being serious about match results and knowing when you can
>>take them seriously and when you shouldn't.
>>
>>We see plenty of results posted, but it sounds like nobody cares about their
>>real meaning.
>
>Aye, and there's the rub. Did you notice the SSDF result that started out 7-0
>and ended up 7.5-7.5? I guarantee if we saw a contest like that and the 7-0
>result were posted here as a partial score, the spades would be out to bury the
>second program. "Stick a fork in prygram Y!! It's done! Hooray for program X,
>the new bone-crushing victor!"
A 7-0 intermediate result that turns out to be the opposite with more games is
likely to happen, as likely as the confidence percentage tells...
So I have no problem to be wrong from time to time. I just need to know (or to
choose) how often I'll be wrong.
>I see it almost every time a contest starts out lopsided. I think we agree
>strongly that it is mathematics that tell the truth. Our hearts lie to us. Our
>eyes lie to us. Our brains lie to us. But mathematics is a truthful queen that
>tells it like it really is. Even when it's not what we want to hear.
Right.
"Computer chess" is a name that sounds really like a scientific one, but
computer chess enthusiasts are sometimes (often) not scientific minds at all.
I don't understand why some peoples are afraid of those numbers and of what they
really say. It removes nothing from the beauty of the game, and following a game
between two opponents is still very exciting.
So what?
Christophe
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.