On May 16, 6:59 am, (Dr A. N. Walker) wrote:

Once again, you have demonstrated a complete, utter
inability to read my comments *in context*.

Bit prickly aren't we? ...

Nah. I just wanted to make it clear that you have
*repeatedly* misinterpreted words I have written by
taking them out of their proper context. Generally,
this indicates a psychological "need" to distort in
order to accommodate one's peculiar agenda or
to evade valid criticisms and divert the discussion
to some army of straw men.


Look back at my original post. I was (obviously) replying
to this comment by Ray Lopez: [...]

... Indeed you were. But then you asked a very specific
question about Crafty12 and the ranking of WCs, which can only
["in context"] relate to the work of Guid and Bratko that is the
initial topic of this thread.

Not in my opinion it isn't. When I entered this thread,
it consisted of a couple of links to articles which I later
downloaded and read in full. Now, what you are
suggesting is that those articles are not the subject of
this thread, but the original paper upon which these
"summaries" were based was, and that just ain't so.
You might just as well argue that the thread is about
my game at RedHotPawn -- because it was discussed
at some later point. Look back at the links.

So, why don't I go and find that paper and read it in
full like the summaries? Simple: it has already been
shown that a myriad of excuses substitute for any real
desire for *quality* work; hence the choice of a 12 ply
Crafty; and hence the moronic sample size in certain
cases like, say, GM Fischer. In sum, it looks like a
waste of my time (see below).


I gave you the answer: G&B did
consider the situation you describe, and took steps to ensure
that it did not bias their results.

Bully for them. Now, if only they had taken similar
steps regarding adequate sample size, choosing a
chess program of adequate strength, and of course,
allocating sufficient time for such a task as attempting
to decide which of the world champions was the best,
the strongest, the greatest, or even the most accurate.

The fact that we are back to discussing the "G&B"
end of things once again shows that you have missed
the point of what I was actually writing about; it had to
do with positional moves and tactical moves allegedly
being "one and the same thing", you should recall.



As for the G&B methodology, it was never described
in any detail in any of the articles which I read by
following the links earlier in this thread. Clearly, if I had
wished to skewer their "methodology", I would probably
want to know what it was. But having already learned
that the reason for the sloppiness was a shortage of
time and a complete disregard for quality work, I have
no interest in further details regarding the authors'
methodology.

Yet you are willing to "skewer" their methodology to the
extent of "sloppiness" and "complete disregard for quality work"?

Yes, I am. (As far as I can see, any bum off the
street could read their paper, copy their methods,
and by simply setting Crafty to *13 plys*, best their
results in terms of quality).


Even though most, if not all, of the criticisms in this thread
are addressed by the authors in a peer-reviewed paper?

Are their "peers" up to our standards here, I wonder?
I mean, do they know squat about chess? Do they
have the slightest inkling as to what it would take in
order to *accurately* rank the world chess champions
relative to one another? I seriously doubt it.

I recall reading in one of the links a long list of
criticisms, about half of which were unanswerable,
unless you count the list of pathetic excuses given
by a few apologists. I must admit, some of these
had not occurred to me, but they were far from
comprehensive in scope. In any case, I had more
than enough of my own criticisms.


And if you have "no interest in further details", why did you ask about
them in relation to your above question [and then take umbrage at
my answer to it]?

You're not making any logical sense here; I asked
nothing about their methodology; on the contrary, I
already think I have seen enough excuses regarding
them that I can reasonably conclude that the authors
made no serious attempt to accurately rank the world
champions.

For instance, a *serious* attempt might start off by
determining the proper sample size for such a project;
this step was obviously skipped (or worse, bungled).

Secondly, it is important in order to be fair, to not
take any single match against any single opponent, and
try to compare against someone else's results where
they both won and lost, plus faced a variety of
opposition. For instance, you can't fairly compare
Fischer-beating-Spassky to Botvinnik-vs.-all-comers,
because (gasp!) GM Fischer may have been more
accurate in that single match (since he won) than *any*
world champ was in any series of a win plus a loss.
If you do this, you are (quite absurdly) rewarding those
who, instead of letting nature take its course, bow out
order to protect their record from acquiring any tarnish
over time.

Third, if indeed, there is a time issue resulting from
the large number of games, one could arbitrarily chop
GM Steinitz out of the running. How dare I suggest
such a thing? Look at Dr. Elo's rating lists; while GM
Steinitz was a giant figure in the history of chess, his
strength was clearly superseded by others, and if the
goal is to try and measure strength, accuracy, or any
other such aspect of the play, then we can safely rule
him out as the winner; already, such players as Paul
Morphy were excluded, so why not just one more?

Rather than worry ourselves about whether or not
others are going to whine that they cannot duplicate
our exact results, the first order of business should
be to get *meaningful* results ourselves.

For my money, I'll take the strongest chess program
in the world and if necessary, start off by eliminating
GM Steinitz and his predecessors to save time; then
I want each contender to have roughly the same
number of games in the test -- preferably a large
enough sample so that no single game will have much
of an effect on the final outcome. As others have
suggested, it is best to have each match scored
individually, so we can learn where the champions
were at their best and at their worst.

Even so, I am not entirely comfortable with the idea
that even a program rated 2900+ can *accurately* rank
the play of the world champions to the degree necessary.
I would feel more comfortable if the program had a
sizable lead over even the strongest of them, and if
it were known that this lead was not entirely due to its
Titanic *tactical superiority* over all humans.

The thing to remember is this: the match games of
the world champions are slowly increasing in number;
but at the same time, computers are gaining in both
speed and strength at a more rapid pace. No hurry --
do it right. For the sake of maximizing human interest
in the project, you could start off with GMs Fischer and
Tal and report the results as they come in. I like the
idea, but this is not something one can just "whip off",
like a Greco sac.

-- help bot