"David Richerby" wrote in message
...
Mike Murray wrote:
"J.D. Walker" wrote:
How would the following work out?

White win = +1
Black win = +1.11
White draw = .45
Black Draw = .50

Looks good. As a side benefit, I'd guess that it would cut back the
number of times tie-breakers would need to be applied.

Hmm. Now I think about it, wouldn't it actually be better to use a
tie-break, at least for matches? If the match is drawn under conven-
tional 1-1/2-0 scoring, declare the match to be won by the player who
won the greater number of games with black or, if that's still a tie,
by the player who did X or, ... And then award the match to the
champion if it's still tied after some reasonable list of tie-break
criteria.

My reasoning is that any system of differentially scoring wins and
draws for black and white implicitly defines some sort of tie-break
system for `tied' matches but one has to sit down and work out what
the system is. (For example, in the original proposal of 1 for a win,
0.45 for a white draw and 0.55 for a black draw, the system was the
rather counter-intuitive and probably unintended `The player with the
most wins as white wins the match'.) Rather than try to come up with
a scoring system that implicitly defines some tie-break criteria,
wouldn't it be easier to just explicitly define the tie-break?


Even though I have favored alternate scoring, I don't
think it makes much sense in matches. I also think unplayed
tie-breaks are artificial. To me, the most sensible approach
is to go to single game sudden death. To eliminate the advantage
of going first, have each player bid time on his clock in order
to have the first White, highest bidder wins. I also think that
at some time in the sudden death period, one can go to a
two-games-per-day schedule - this is routine in the chess
world, and games now are shorter than they have been
historically, so it's no hardship. This way the expected
extension of a tied match will be a few days or so- no unusual
logistical problems are created.

The problem isn't in designing a fair match with no
ties. The problem is that the champion, whoever he
is, doesn't *want* a fair match. He wants his
substantial champion's advantage. So that's the real
problem.