..
It is ohhh so easy to shoot-down an idea which may not be perfect in
practice!




But the idea of objectively measuring, not merely final results of games, but
overall accuracy of moves, is a legitimate one.

I would caution against, say, using the endgame tablebases to judge the
accuracy of a player's execution of the final phase, for example. Humans are
not always interested in following the fastest winning line, and any attempt to
judge them which incorporates such an assumption is faulty.
As for the openings, even the strongest chess computers of today rely upon
"book," making them fallible. And again, humans may on occasion,
*deliberately* choose what they know to be inferior moves, for the distinct
purpose of exploration of the unknown, or exploitation of a particular
opponent's perceived weaknesses. Or perhaps, even to keep their "best" lines
hidden, to be used another day, or against a more dangerous rival.
As for the middlegame, or simply tactics, where no book or tablebase can
provide the "correct" answers, a computer may very well be able to rate the
caliber of individual moves, and sum them up even better than the actual
outcome of any particular game or few games.

The chief advantage of such measurements would, of course, be the ability to
objectively compare the play of players from different generations. If say,
Mongredien, required two pawns up and a hundred moves to force a win against
poor defense, while Kasparov consistently wins against poor defense with no
advantage whatever, then we may have learned something about the relative
strengths of these two players. If Mongredien misses two-move combo's half the
time, while Kasparov misses them just two percent of the time, we may be able
to affix a meaningful description of this difference; similar to the ratings of
actual games, which have the problem that many, many players did not play
enough against their contemporaries to validate results.



Unlike the flying ceebee and terrybean, I am unafraid of such an *objective*
approach to my own games. I do not consider my actual results to have been the
result of luck, and I think an objective evaluation like this of my individual
moves would only serve to confirm, rather than call into doubt, my miserable
actual results OTB. :-) But again I must stress, that a few of my inferior
moves were selected *deliberately*, and so should not count against me the same
as my oversights.




1.h4! (tick, tick)