Main Date: 31 Oct 2006 18:59:12 From: Dave (from the UK) Subject: PROOF a beginner has no rating. There have been several arguments on here about determining the rating of an absolute beginner at chess, who knows only the moves. The thread 'Improve your chess in 7 days or less' got its name changed to 'Rip-off of Reinfeld', then into 'beginner rating' etc. Rather than change the name again, I thought I'd start a *new* thread. Values of 0, 500 and 1000 have all been mentioned. See this thread for example. http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rec.games.chess.misc/browse_frm/thread/e386d52f22f002df/bd779ed9a29f868b?lnk=st&q=rip-off+reinfield&rnum=1&hl=en#bd779ed9a29f868b Just to be a devils advocate, here is a PROOF, based on arguments like Heisenberg's uncertainly principal, that the rating of a complete beginner, who only knows the moves, can NEVER be determined. 1) In order to determine with any useful statistical significance the ELO rating of a player, you need to establish that with multiple games. For example, on ICC one gets a provisional rating until one has played 20 games. 2) After playing the number of games necessary to establish the rating with useful statistical significance, the player is no longer a complete beginner. Hence such a rating can NEVER be determined. Comments? -- Dave (from the UK) Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam. It is always of the form: month-year@southminster-branch-line.org.uk Hitting reply will work for a few months only - later set it manually. http://witm.sourceforge.net/ (Web based Mathematica front end)   Date: From: Martin Brown Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating.     Date: 02 Nov 2006 10:12:34 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. Martin Brown wrote: > Kenneth Sloan wrote: >> Martin Brown wrote: >>> One way of determining the original rating of a complete beginner is to >>> accept that they will improve with each game played and then model it. >>> Afterwards you can compute the intercept of their rating vs number of >>> games played at the 0 games played axis to get a fair estimate. >>> >>> My instinct is that you would work hard to find someone with an ELO >>> rating below 500 (who wasn't deliberately playing to lose). >> If you are restricting the population to "adults of normal >> intelligence", then I would agree. However, if you include >> all players, regardless of age or intelligence, I can find at least >> 10 players with deserved ratings << 0000. >> >> and hundreds upon hundreds of players with deserved ratings << 0500 > > I may have been a little optimistic about the weakest player who knows > the basic rules (or perhaps more accurately doesn't break any of them > in a game). Or in beginners chess that no-one has noticed any of them > being broken... > I'm sorry - I wasn't clear. Most of these VERY low rated players do NOT know the rules! Believe it or not, there are thousands of players entering rated tournaments who do NOT know all the rules. And, many of them are children with undeveloped attention spans. And, of course, SOME of these will grow up to be "not so smart" adults. And, some of them are only there because Mommy dropped them off and said she'll be back at 5:00. A motivated adult ice of normal intelligence, who has studied the game enough to know all the rules of play is light-years ahead of such seasoned tournament veterans! "Knowing the rules" is by no means the bottom rung on the ladder. And...oh yes...I think we all know chess players who "know a lot about chess - especially the history and culture". They can perhaps even quote famous games and pontificate on the relative merits of past Champions. But, they can't actually *play* worth a damn. My point is that "knowing much more than the rules" doesn't *necessarily* give you an edge over the board against someone who *only* knows the rules. -- Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@gmail.com Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213 University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473 Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/       Date: 02 Nov 2006 11:42:28 From: Ange1o DePa1ma Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com > wrote > "Knowing the rules" is by no means the bottom rung on the ladder. We needn't have a philosophic debate about what it means to "know the rules." I drew a game I should have won several years ago (against a young man who is probably of IM strength today) because I did had forgotten the rule for time forfeits that requires the winner keep a complete scoresheet. Your original statement, I believe, mentioned a player who knows how the pieces moved, not someone who knows as much about chess legal trivia as an international arbiter. So now that I know you are a director, and have seen 100s and 1000s of sub-1000 players, do you have any data on, say, 900-rated adults vs. 900-rated kids? I'd bet there's no difference (except maybe the kids are improving quickly and the adults are stuck). > > And...oh yes...I think we all know chess players who "know a lot about > chess - especially the history and culture". They can perhaps even > quote famous games and pontificate on the relative merits of past > Champions. But, they can't actually *play* worth a damn. My point is > that "knowing much more than the rules" doesn't *necessarily* give you an > edge over the board against someone who *only* knows the rules. Sadly, this is what I am becoming except I'm forgetting the history, culture, and classic games as well.         Date: 02 Nov 2006 11:40:43 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. Ange1o DePa1ma wrote: > "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com> wrote > >> "Knowing the rules" is by no means the bottom rung on the ladder. > > We needn't have a philosophic debate about what it means to "know the > rules." I drew a game I should have won several years ago (against a young > man who is probably of IM strength today) because I did had forgotten the > rule for time forfeits that requires the winner keep a complete scoresheet. > Your original statement, I believe, mentioned a player who knows how the > pieces moved, not someone who knows as much about chess legal trivia as an > international arbiter. I'm not talking about trivia. I'm talking about en passant, castling, and of course the classic "how the horsey moves", etc. When I say "knows the rules", I mean someone who does not need to think hard, or resort to a cheat sheet, to immediately see all of the legal moves in a position. He need not know the proper procedures for claiming a draw due to repeated positions when the arbiter asks him to seal his next move. If you haven't watched thousands of sub-1000 rated kids playing tournament chess, you may not be able to appreciate hoe HIGHLY you can be rated (that is, how strong a performance you can turn in) without yet reaching the stage of "knowing the rules". On the other hand, it's possible for a player to be absoutely BRILLIANT most of the time - but have gaping holes in his basic competence. > > So now that I know you are a director, and have seen 100s and 1000s of > sub-1000 players, do you have any data on, say, 900-rated adults vs. > 900-rated kids? I'd bet there's no difference (except maybe the kids are > improving quickly and the adults are stuck). Data? No. Observations. Yes. 0900 rated kids are usually excellent tactical players who like to go for quick kills. They are always dangerous, because sometimes their suicide attacks can occasionally succeed. 0900 rated adults simply play 3rd best moves, all game long, with little imagination and no flair. They can beat players who drop pieces faster than they do, but no one else. Given the choice in a "win this game, or die" situation, I'll take the 0900 rated adult as my opponent. All I need to do against him is develop my pieces into the center and wait for him to give me pieces. Against the kid, I actually have to stay awake and not fall for a cheapo. Note that these are comments about players with reasonably STABLE ratings of 0900. There's also the issue of how fast the player is improving. Kids improve in fits and starts (very Piaget-like), and sometimes play in pools that deflate their ratings. So, the 0900 rated kid is even *more* dangerous. He might be underrated because we measured him badly, or he might be underrated because he just learned how to checkmate with only one rook. Yes, indeed, in my experience there are lots of 1000 rated players who cannot mate with KRk. Over and over again I've seen sub-1000 players who have memorized the Morphy Opera House Game, love the Fried Liver Attack, and know the Albin Counter-Gambit 15 moves deep - but cannot mate with KRk. To draw against such a player, you simply have to ward off the cheapos. You can sac a rook to get out of immediate trouble and then wait for them to flounder in the endgame. You can't *win* that way, but you can draw. Even the worst player in the Kindergarten section occasionally scores a draw by sacrificing all of her pieces and then walking into stalemate. Of course, there is also the small problem of *recognizing* stalemate (knowing the rules, again). I've seen tens of games where both players were in check for more than 10 consecutive moves. Unless you've been there, you really don't know the rich texture of sub-1000 chess. -- Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@gmail.com Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213 University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473 Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/           Date: 02 Nov 2006 11:48:31 From: David Kane Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com > wrote in message news:eidaj2$cm7$6@SonOfMaze.dpo.uab.edu... > > Data? No. > > Observations. Yes. > > 0900 rated kids are usually excellent tactical players who like to go > for quick kills. They are always dangerous, because sometimes their > suicide attacks can occasionally succeed. > > 0900 rated adults simply play 3rd best moves, all game long, with little > imagination and no flair. They can beat players who drop pieces faster than > they do, but no one else. > > Given the choice in a "win this game, or die" situation, I'll take the 0900 > rated adult as my opponent. All I need to do against him is develop my pieces > into the center and wait for him to give me pieces. Against the kid, I > actually have to stay awake and not fall for a cheapo. > > Note that these are comments about players with reasonably STABLE ratings of > 0900. There's also the issue of how fast the player is improving. Kids > improve in fits and starts (very Piaget-like), and > sometimes play in pools that deflate their ratings. So, the 0900 rated kid is > even *more* dangerous. He might be underrated because we measured him badly, > or he might be underrated because he just learned > how to checkmate with only one rook. Yes, indeed, in my experience there are > lots of 1000 rated players who cannot mate with KRk. Over and over again I've > seen sub-1000 players who have memorized the Morphy Opera House Game, love the > Fried Liver Attack, and know the Albin Counter-Gambit 15 moves deep - but > cannot mate with KRk. To draw against such a player, you simply have to ward > off the cheapos. You can sac a rook to get out of immediate trouble and then > wait for them to flounder in the endgame. You can't *win* that way, but you > can draw. > Even the worst player in the Kindergarten section occasionally scores a draw > by sacrificing all of her pieces and then walking into stalemate. Of course, > there is also the small problem of *recognizing* stalemate (knowing the rules, > again). I've seen tens of games where both players were in check for more > than 10 consecutive moves. Unless you've been there, you really don't know > the rich texture of sub-1000 chess. > Of course, watching games like that *is* painful. But the mistake is in comparing their play to the play of the adult 1500's at your club . In fact, quite a lot of those sub-1000s are better players than their parents, adult friends etc. I frequently watch kids play with their parents. Guess what - they miss checks, they leave pieces en prise, they miss mates in one etc. The one place where adults do seem to do better is in "solving problems",i.e. things that could be considered more "strategy". How do I win from here? How do I mate with K+Q? But the kids overcome that deficit by seeing the tactics on the board better.   Date: From: Martin Brown Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating.     Date: 02 Nov 2006 10:02:08 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. Martin Brown wrote: > >> Over the last decade I've been acquainted with at least 30 adults and >> children rated below 1000. Maybe 50. > > I don't doubt it. But I think they are rare in competitive chess > tournaments (at least on this side of the pond). I'm surprised that the > US ratings pool is calibrated that low. come to the USCF National Elementary Championships. There, you will find a KINDERGARTEN section (which I directed for many, many years) chock full of players. I'm talking about approximately 100 players (every year) - all with ratings below 1000. I would estimate that, on average, there will be 2 players in the field who literally do not know how ANY of the pieces move. This can be a challenge for the floor directors. It also offers a wealth of opportunity to watch players who are properly rated at 0200, 0150, 0100, and (if only the system would assign such ratings) -0500. Over the last decade, I've directed events with more than 1000 players rated under 1000. -- Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@gmail.com Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213 University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473 Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/     Date: 02 Nov 2006 09:31:15 From: Ange1o DePa1ma Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. "Martin Brown" <   Date: 01 Nov 2006 18:04:45 From: Inconnux Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. > And finally my brother, an intelligent adult, at age 38, after his first > tournament: > > http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlMain.php?12823377 > > All are rated below 1000. Brother Dan and I have played since he was 5. He > knows FAR more than simply how the pieces move. I dont feel so bad now :)   Date: 01 Nov 2006 10:37:20 From: wuolong Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. On 31 Oct 2006, Kenneth Sloan wrote: > One way to assign a rating is to observe the player's results. > > When you can't do that, there are still useful facts about the > player that can improve the quality of your estimate. As a statistician, I can't help jumping into this interesting discussion. A player may have a true intrinsic chess strength, "true rating". When he/she actual plays the 'observed' performance might be lower or higher than the true strength. Thus the idea of modeling the rating as a Normally distributed random variable with mean around the true strength and certain variance. (Elo made the crucial assumption that the variance is the same for everybody which clearly is not true. But we will ignore that for now.) The question is to estimate the true strength, which we can't do without data. (By definition, a player who has just learned the moves hasn't played any games yet. As soon as she/he starts to play, she/he does not qualify as an 'absolute beginner' anymore. As other posters noted, an adult of average intelligence can learn a lot in a couple of games. So we can't estimate the true strength. However we can think about what is our 'prior mean' for this absolute beginner? Elo system translates to expected scores when players match up and that gives us some ideas. The expected score between a 1000 and a 1600 player is 0.03, that is the 1000 player has probability of 0.03 of winning. So the question is, would you be willing to bet, with odds 3:100 that the absolute beginner will win? Personally, I think the odds should be lower than that. The expected score for a 600-800 player against 1600 is about 0.003-0.01. I think that is much more plausible range for a 'beginner who just know the rules'. Cheers, - wuolong   Date: From: Martin Brown Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating.     Date: 01 Nov 2006 15:40:31 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. Martin Brown wrote: > > One way of determining the original rating of a complete beginner is to > accept that they will improve with each game played and then model it. > Afterwards you can compute the intercept of their rating vs number of > games played at the 0 games played axis to get a fair estimate. > > My instinct is that you would work hard to find someone with an ELO > rating below 500 (who wasn't deliberately playing to lose). > > Regards, > Martin Brown > If you are restricting the population to "adults of normal intelligence", then I would agree. However, if you include all players, regardless of age or intelligence, I can find at least 10 players with deserved ratings << 0000. and hundreds upon hundreds of players with deserved ratings << 0500 The question at the moment is: what does your instinct tell you about the AVERAGE beginner who knows the rules. [beware...that might be a trick question...even World Championship Candidates have demonstrated that they don't know all the rules. Do *you* know *all* the rules about 0-0-0? Korchnoi didn't!] -- Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@gmail.com Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213 University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473 Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/     Date: 01 Nov 2006 11:52:26 From: Ange1o DePa1ma Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. "Martin Brown" <       Date: 01 Nov 2006 15:42:55 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. Ange1o DePa1ma wrote: > > It is so obvious that a rating of 1000 is not a rank beginner. I'm > incredulous that some of you insist it is. Is this some sort of "big lie" > post or what? > > > That's right. Everyone who disagrees with you is a liar. You win. -- Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@gmail.com Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213 University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473 Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/         Date: 01 Nov 2006 18:08:10 From: Ange1o DePa1ma Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com > wrote > Ange1o DePa1ma wrote: >> It is so obvious that a rating of 1000 is not a rank beginner. I'm >> incredulous that some of you insist it is. Is this some sort of "big lie" >> post or what? > > That's right. Everyone who disagrees with you is a liar. > > You win. I did not mean that you were a liar -- how could your original statement be a lie when you presented it as an opinion? What I meant was that it's sometimes easier to convince people of something outrageous than something that's only slightly off. If you meant that the rating of one who just knew how pieces moved rules *could* or *might* be 1000 given other adjustments to the rating scale (e.g. Kasparov @ 15,000) then I misunderstood you. If you meant under the existing system, with Kasparov at 2800, then you are clearly wrong. Note, you did not take the "DePalma Challenge." All those individuals were rated >1000, and all were "experienced" to some degree. Angelo   Date: 01 Nov 2006 06:21:12 From: markgravitygood@gmail.com Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. Dave (from the UK) wrote: > There have been several arguments on here about determining the rating > of an absolute beginner at chess, who knows only the moves. > > The thread 'Improve your chess in 7 days or less' got its name changed > to 'Rip-off of Reinfeld', then into 'beginner rating' etc. > > Rather than change the name again, I thought I'd start a *new* thread. > > Values of 0, 500 and 1000 have all been mentioned. > > See this thread for example. > > http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rec.games.chess.misc/browse_frm/thread/e386d52f22f002df/bd779ed9a29f868b?lnk=st&q=rip-off+reinfield&rnum=1&hl=en#bd779ed9a29f868b > > Just to be a devils advocate, here is a PROOF, based on arguments like > Heisenberg's uncertainly principal, that the rating of a complete > beginner, who only knows the moves, can NEVER be determined. > > 1) In order to determine with any useful statistical significance the > ELO rating of a player, you need to establish that with multiple games. > For example, on ICC one gets a provisional rating until one has played > 20 games. > > 2) After playing the number of games necessary to establish the rating > with useful statistical significance, the player is no longer a complete > beginner. > > Hence such a rating can NEVER be determined. > > Comments? > -- > Dave (from the UK) > > Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam. > It is always of the form: month-year@southminster-branch-line.org.uk > Hitting reply will work for a few months only - later set it manually. > > http://witm.sourceforge.net/ (Web based Mathematica front end) Opinion: Ratings are efficient only within the pool of players you are rated against. It makes perfect sense that a player who has played no rating games goes as unrated. You cannot assign an arbitrary value (0, 500, 100, whatever) to a player who has not played any games against the rating pool, as this would skew the ratings eventually. I don't pretend to know the math involved, but this seems painfully obvious to me. This is why you can play 1000 games on 5 different servers and get 5 different ratings, probably not all that close to each other. Also, a player can effectively and consistently play opponents rated below himself and increase (INFLATE) his rating slowly. You run into that scenario all the time on ICC and Playchess. Interesting thread, however. http://chess-training.blogspot.com     Date: 01 Nov 2006 15:35:34 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. markgravitygood@gmail.com wrote: > Opinion: > > Ratings are efficient only within the pool of players you are rated > against. It makes perfect sense that a player who has played no rating > games goes as unrated. You cannot assign an arbitrary value (0, 500, > 100, whatever) to a player who has not played any games against the > rating pool, as this would skew the ratings eventually. Not if you do it right! And...in some (rare) cases, it turns out to be essential to make *some* estimate of the rating to use for an UNR player. Once you find this necessary, it's no longer a question of IF you can assign a rating, but instead HOW MUCH CONFIDENCE you have in that assigned rating. I hope you'll agree that a rating of 1500, with a variance of 10^10, is a reasonably accurate rating (for ALL players!). Not very precise - but reasonably accurate. > > I don't pretend to know the math involved, but this seems painfully > obvious to me. This is why you can play 1000 games on 5 different > servers and get 5 different ratings, probably not all that close to > each other. Also, a player can effectively and consistently play > opponents rated below himself and increase (INFLATE) his rating > slowly. You run into that scenario all the time on ICC and Playchess. > In a well designed rating system, you will NOT inflate your rating by consistently playing low rated players. In fact, we often hear the opposite complaint - that high rated players see their ratings DEflate when forced to play low-rated competition. when you hear both complaints, you are reasonably assured that the world is nicely balanced. > Interesting thread, however. > > http://chess-training.blogspot.com > -- Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@gmail.com Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213 University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473 Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/   Date: 31 Oct 2006 12:31:34 From: Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. Dave (from the UK) wrote: > There have been several arguments on here about determining the rating > of an absolute beginner at chess, who knows only the moves. > > The thread 'Improve your chess in 7 days or less' got its name changed > to 'Rip-off of Reinfeld', then into 'beginner rating' etc. > > Rather than change the name again, I thought I'd start a *new* thread. > > Values of 0, 500 and 1000 have all been mentioned. > > See this thread for example. > > http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rec.games.chess.misc/browse_frm/thread/e386d52f22f002df/bd779ed9a29f868b?lnk=st&q=rip-off+reinfield&rnum=1&hl=en#bd779ed9a29f868b > > Just to be a devils advocate, here is a PROOF, based on arguments like > Heisenberg's uncertainly principal, that the rating of a complete > beginner, who only knows the moves, can NEVER be determined. > > 1) In order to determine with any useful statistical significance the > ELO rating of a player, you need to establish that with multiple games. > For example, on ICC one gets a provisional rating until one has played > 20 games. > > 2) After playing the number of games necessary to establish the rating > with useful statistical significance, the player is no longer a complete > beginner. > > Hence such a rating can NEVER be determined. > > Comments? > -- > Dave (from the UK) > > Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam. > It is always of the form: month-year@southminster-branch-line.org.uk > Hitting reply will work for a few months only - later set it manually. > > http://witm.sourceforge.net/ (Web based Mathematica front end) It's all well and nice to talk about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, but this is the real world. The ELO formula requires that the player must have SOME number applied to it, although it doesn't matter WHAT that number is. And since we're talking about "ratings", we're pretty much talking about ELO (although other formulae exist, they are much less accepted). Just because there's a magic rating of 2000 for Masters and 2500 for GMs, they could easily have been any other numbers. But a player's rating can never be "undefined", unless the ELO formula is replaced by something else that can handle such a starting point. jm     Date: 31 Oct 2006 23:49:50 From: Dave (from the UK) Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. JVMerlino@aol.com wrote: >>Just to be a devils advocate, here is a PROOF, based on arguments like >>Heisenberg's uncertainly principal, that the rating of a complete >>beginner, who only knows the moves, can NEVER be determined. >http://witm.sourceforge.net/ (Web based Mathematica front end) > > > It's all well and nice to talk about Heisenberg's uncertainty > principle, but this is the real world. I would say in the "real world" in the context you mean, the Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle has little practical relevance. The effects of it are too small to worry about. If someone has played 1000 games of chess, the process of measuring their performance by getting them to play 20 games against opponents of a known rating, is probably not going to have much effect on their performance. I don't have a copy of Professor Elo's paper on the subject, but to quote from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELO_rating_system "Élő's central assumption was that the chess performance of each player in each game is a normally distributed random variable. Although a player might perform significantly better or worse from one game to the next, Élő assumed that the mean value of the performances of any given player changes only slowly over time." It is *not* true to say the mean performance of a player changes slowly over time if they have just leaned the moves. Having played 10 games, I suspect they are significantly better having played only 1 game. As such, the process of measurement will have a *very* significant effect on the quantity you are trying to measure. So unlike Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, the effect would be very pronounced in the real world. > The ELO formula requires that > the player must have SOME number applied to it, although it doesn't > matter WHAT that number is. And since we're talking about "ratings", > we're pretty much talking about ELO (although other formulae exist, > they are much less accepted). I believe the assumptions Elo made are simply not valid in the case of an absolute beginner. As such, attaching an ELO number to something where the assumptions are very wrong is not sensible. > Just because there's a magic rating of 2000 for Masters and 2500 for > GMs, they could easily have been any other numbers. Agreed. > But a player's > rating can never be "undefined", unless the ELO formula is replaced by > something else that can handle such a starting point. I can't see how you can measure it. As such, I can't see how it can possibly be defined unless the formula is modified to say "By definition, a beginner has an ELO of 100" or similar. Since the method has no definition and it can't be measured, I doubt there is much point attaching a value to it. -- Dave (from the UK) Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam. It is always of the form: month-year@southminster-branch-line.org.uk Hitting reply will work for a few months only - later set it manually. http://witm.sourceforge.net/ (Web based Mathematica front end)       Date: 31 Oct 2006 16:27:26 From: David Kane Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. "Dave (from the UK)" <see-my-signature@southminster-branch-line.org.uk > wrote in message news:4547e120@212.67.96.135... > > I believe the assumptions Elo made are simply not valid in the case of an > absolute beginner. As such, attaching an ELO number to something where the > assumptions are very wrong is not sensible. > Of course they aren't. But what would be your response if I were to claim in Ken Sloan fashion that an adult of average intelligence who just knows the rules has a rating of 2700? The fact that there is uncertainty to ratings doesn't make the discussion meaningless. By the way, I think in the USCF system the rating formulae change at about 8 games. The USCF rating algorithm assigns beginners a very high K-constant (80, I think, which can be effectively doubled via "bonus" points) So the number of games actually going into a rating is much smaller than the number which defines a "provisional" rating. Someone can correct me, but I don't think provisional ratings are treated differently in the rating algorithm.         Date: 01 Nov 2006 03:01:32 From: Dave (from the UK) Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. David Kane wrote: > "Dave (from the UK)" <see-my-signature@southminster-branch-line.org.uk> wrote in > message news:4547e120@212.67.96.135... > > >>I believe the assumptions Elo made are simply not valid in the case of an >>absolute beginner. As such, attaching an ELO number to something where the >>assumptions are very wrong is not sensible. >> > > > Of course they aren't. So we agree! > But what would be your > response if I were to claim in Ken Sloan > fashion that an adult of average intelligence > who just knows the rules has a rating of 2700? A large number of players who play the game seriously don't have a rating of 2700, so it's fairly easy to disprove that one. Putting an upper bound is fairly easy. Anyone who thinks it would be over 1200 is really got to be mad. > The fact that there is uncertainty to ratings doesn't > make the discussion meaningless. > By the way, I think in the USCF system the rating > formulae change at about 8 games. The USCF rating > algorithm assigns beginners a very high K-constant > (80, I think, which can be effectively doubled via > "bonus" points) I don't know how the USCF method works, but I assume this K-constant you talk of is some measure of the standard deviation (uncertainty) of the rating. For a new member, this will be higher until they are established. > So the number of games actually > going into a rating is much smaller than the number > which defines a "provisional" rating. Someone can > correct me, but I don't think provisional ratings are > treated differently in the rating algorithm. Anyone who is a member of the USCF would have to be reasonably serious about the game, so they would have played many times before. I don't believe someone will learn the rules, then join USCF and play their first ever game in a rated competition. As such, it should be possible to determine a rating reasonably quickly, as they performance is unlikely to change a huge amount from game to game. In contrast, as absolute beginner who only just learned the rules, playing his first few games, should learn a lot very quickly. They should soon learn about the fact knights can fork. So its very likely the large K-constant you talk of in USCF rating systems is not sufficiently large. So I don't believe you can rely on the USCF system in this case. In any case, the USCF system would have been designed for serious chess players - not those who just learned the rules. One *possible* way to establish a rating for absolute beginners might be as follows. Take 1000 beginners and let them play their *first* ever chess game against a low rated player (say 1200 for example). Results of any of their later games are ignored. Each person plays just one game. Statistically, if there is a rating difference of x between two players, the probability of wins and losses can be computed. The 1200 players should beat the beginners in most games, but the percentage might allow you to determine how much stronger the 1200 players and and so assign an average rating for those 1000 people after just one game. That would be VERY doggy, and not very practical to do, but at least it would give you a result from only one game, so they don't have any chance to improve. I can't help feeling the concept of a rating for someone who has just learned the rules is absurd. You can put a lower limit of 0, an upper limit of 1200, but I don't believe you can say anything else really. -- Dave (from the UK) Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam. It is always of the form: month-year@southminster-branch-line.org.uk Hitting reply will work for a few months only - later set it manually. http://witm.sourceforge.net/ (Web based Mathematica front end)           Date: 31 Oct 2006 22:31:46 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. Such complicated thinking on such a simple topic. A rating is nothing more or less than a prediction about future performance. It's a single position on a scale. One way to assign a rating is to observe the player's results. When you can't do that, there are still useful facts about the player that can improve the quality of your estimate. For example, USCF uses the player's AGE to provide an initial rating. One could conceivably use IQ scores, economic class, gender, eye color... anything that might be correlated with rating. Of course, some of these data might be more relevant than others. Many posters in this thread have demonstrated this by using the information that the player is playing in a USCF rated event - and then saying "only players of a certain minimum strength ever play in USCF rated events, so...". This is a perfect example that makes my point. Even if you have ZERO information about the player, it is possible to come up with a "best estimate" of his rating. Of course, the variance associated with this estimate will be very high, but the variance is not infinite. Someone here demonstrated this by saying: "surely it would be stupid to claim that a new player is rated 2700". OK, so...2700 is too high. How about 2000? Still too high... How about -10000 (yes, that would be a perfectly valid rating). That seems a bit low, no? (actually, it's too high for my dog - but might not be too high for a chimpanzee). So, we now have it bracketed to be somewhere in (-100000, 2000). Narrowing that range will depend on the data you have at hand. I still think my estimate is not too far off. Find yourself a random adult of normal intelligence, teach him the moves and enter him in 5 USCF events of 5 rounds each. I claim that a good estimate of his performance in those events is that the performance will be that of a USCF 1000 rated player. Of course, some individuals will do worse than that - but I'm moderately confident that many individuals will perform much better than that. And...some players will continue to perform worse than that, even after they learn the complete history of chess, memorize 5 useless gimmick openings, etc - learning much more than the moves, but not being able to translate that into performance. If your personal estimate is 0800, I won't argue too much. But, if your personal estimate is 0100, I think it's clear that that's much, much too low. By the same token, 1500 is clearly much, much too high. And, of course, there is NO REASON to select 0000 - certainly not because of any notion that 0000 means "no rating points". So...call it (0800, 1200). That's "1000, with a HUGE variance". A practical rating system can, and does, make SOME (but not much) use of this very fuzzy estimate. And, as a result, the ratings generated are just a little bit better than they would be if the system did NOT make use of this estimate. That's all there is to it! -- Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@gmail.com Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213 University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473 Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/             Date: 31 Oct 2006 23:06:33 From: David Kane Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com > wrote in message news:ei97vn$oic$1@SonOfMaze.dpo.uab.edu... > > A practical rating system can, and does, make SOME (but not much) use > of this very fuzzy estimate. And, as a result, the ratings generated > are just a little bit better than they would be if the system did NOT > make use of this estimate. True, the rating system imputes initial ratings to unrated players. In that case it makes very good sense to give unrateds a starting rating that jibes with the rating that that class had historically achieved in their first events. But that is something entirely different than assigning that rating to random adults who know only the rules of chess. 99+% of people who know the rules have never played a single USCF rated game. You cannot hope to reliably extrapolate the performance of the 99% by looking at the 1%.               Date: 01 Nov 2006 11:22:47 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. David Kane wrote: > "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com> wrote in message > news:ei97vn$oic$1@SonOfMaze.dpo.uab.edu... >> A practical rating system can, and does, make SOME (but not much) use >> of this very fuzzy estimate. And, as a result, the ratings generated >> are just a little bit better than they would be if the system did NOT >> make use of this estimate. > > True, the rating system imputes initial ratings > to unrated players. In that case it makes very good sense > to give unrateds a starting rating that jibes with the rating > that that class had historically achieved in their first events. > > But that is something entirely different than assigning that > rating to random adults who know only the rules of chess. > 99+% of people who know the rules have never played > a single USCF rated game. You cannot hope to reliably > extrapolate the performance of the 99% by looking at the > 1%. > > > You're not a statistician, are you? -- Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@gmail.com Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213 University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473 Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/                 Date: 01 Nov 2006 09:32:23 From: David Kane Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com > wrote in message news:eial5d$pkr$4@SonOfMaze.dpo.uab.edu... > David Kane wrote: >> "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com> wrote in message >> news:ei97vn$oic$1@SonOfMaze.dpo.uab.edu... >>> A practical rating system can, and does, make SOME (but not much) use >>> of this very fuzzy estimate. And, as a result, the ratings generated >>> are just a little bit better than they would be if the system did NOT >>> make use of this estimate. >> >> True, the rating system imputes initial ratings >> to unrated players. In that case it makes very good sense >> to give unrateds a starting rating that jibes with the rating >> that that class had historically achieved in their first events. >> >> But that is something entirely different than assigning that >> rating to random adults who know only the rules of chess. >> 99+% of people who know the rules have never played >> a single USCF rated game. You cannot hope to reliably >> extrapolate the performance of the 99% by looking at the >> 1%. >> >> >> > > You're not a statistician, are you? > You are guilty of what I have heard described the lazy scientist syndrome. It's the belief that the data you have on your desk must answer your question. It's much easier to process data in hand than to find the correct data. Yet still invalid.             Date: 01 Nov 2006 05:47:28 From: Dave (from the UK) Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. Kenneth Sloan wrote: > Such complicated thinking on such a simple topic. Maybe. > A rating is nothing more or less than a prediction about future > performance. It's a single position on a scale. Agreed > One way to assign a rating is to observe the player's results. Yes, obviously. > I still think my estimate is not too far off. Find yourself a random > adult of normal intelligence, teach him the moves and enter him in > 5 USCF events of 5 rounds each. I claim that a good estimate of his > performance in those events is that the performance will be that > of a USCF 1000 rated player. That is after 25 games !!! I thought other threads we were talking about someone who had JUST learned the rules. Hence they would not have the experience of playing 25 games. I taught my wifes grandaugther the rules and played a few games with her. It was obvious she was better significantly better after the third game than the first. What was my point that simply by making the measurement of a rating, you are affecting the rating. -- Dave (from the UK) Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam. It is always of the form: month-year@southminster-branch-line.org.uk Hitting reply will work for a few months only - later set it manually. http://witm.sourceforge.net/ (Web based Mathematica front end)               Date: 01 Nov 2006 00:25:41 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. Dave (from the UK) wrote: > Kenneth Sloan wrote: >> Such complicated thinking on such a simple topic. > > Maybe. > >> A rating is nothing more or less than a prediction about future >> performance. It's a single position on a scale. > > Agreed > >> One way to assign a rating is to observe the player's results. > > Yes, obviously. > > >> I still think my estimate is not too far off. Find yourself a random >> adult of normal intelligence, teach him the moves and enter him in >> 5 USCF events of 5 rounds each. I claim that a good estimate of his >> performance in those events is that the performance will be that >> of a USCF 1000 rated player. > > That is after 25 games !!! I thought other threads we were talking about > someone who had JUST learned the rules. Hence they would not have the > experience of playing 25 games. No. The *prediction* is made *before* the games are played. That's what a rating is: a prediction of future performance. -- Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@gmail.com Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213 University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473 Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/           Date: 31 Oct 2006 20:13:03 From: David Kane Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. "Dave (from the UK)" <see-my-signature@southminster-branch-line.org.uk > wrote in message news:45480e0e@212.67.96.135... > David Kane wrote: >> "Dave (from the UK)" <see-my-signature@southminster-branch-line.org.uk> wrote >> in message news:4547e120@212.67.96.135... >> >> >>>I believe the assumptions Elo made are simply not valid in the case of an >>>absolute beginner. As such, attaching an ELO number to something where the >>>assumptions are very wrong is not sensible. >>> >> >> >> Of course they aren't. > > So we agree! > >> But what would be your >> response if I were to claim in Ken Sloan >> fashion that an adult of average intelligence >> who just knows the rules has a rating of 2700? > > A large number of players who play the game seriously don't have a rating of > 2700, so it's fairly easy to disprove that one. Putting an upper bound is > fairly easy. Anyone who thinks it would be over 1200 is really got to be mad. Similarly, those with experience with players in the x00's range, also believe that 1000 is mad. >> The fact that there is uncertainty to ratings doesn't >> make the discussion meaningless. > > >> By the way, I think in the USCF system the rating >> formulae change at about 8 games. The USCF rating >> algorithm assigns beginners a very high K-constant >> (80, I think, which can be effectively doubled via >> "bonus" points) > > I don't know how the USCF method works, but I assume this K-constant you talk > of is some measure of the standard deviation (uncertainty) of the rating. For > a new member, this will be higher until they are established. > >> So the number of games actually >> going into a rating is much smaller than the number >> which defines a "provisional" rating. Someone can >> correct me, but I don't think provisional ratings are >> treated differently in the rating algorithm. > > Anyone who is a member of the USCF would have to be reasonably serious about > the game, so they would have played many times before. I don't believe someone > will learn the rules, then join USCF and play their first ever game in a rated > competition. Not true. For better of for worse, many kids do start playing rated games knowing very little. > As such, it should be possible to determine a rating reasonably quickly, as > they performance is unlikely to change a huge amount from game to game. > If your point is that ratings mean more for some than others, then certainly that is true. > In contrast, as absolute beginner who only just learned the rules, playing his > first few games, should learn a lot very quickly. They should soon learn about > the fact knights can fork. So its very likely the large K-constant you talk of > in USCF rating systems is not sufficiently large. So I don't believe you can > rely on the USCF system in this case. In any case, the USCF system would have > been designed for serious chess players - not those who just learned the > rules. The value of the K-constant is how much a rating can change from a single game. I have no idea whether the USCF method has been proven optimal for all ratings but it covers all ratings. I only brought it up because the number of games that a rating is "provisional" doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the number of games for a rating to equilibrate in the rating formulae (~800/K). > One *possible* way to establish a rating for absolute beginners might be as > follows. > > Take 1000 beginners and let them play their *first* ever chess game against a > low rated player (say 1200 for example). Results of any of their later games > are ignored. Each person plays just one game. > > Statistically, if there is a rating difference of x between two players, the > probability of wins and losses can be computed. The 1200 players should beat > the beginners in most games, but the percentage might allow you to determine > how much stronger the 1200 players and and so assign an average rating for > those 1000 people after just one game. That would be VERY doggy, and not very > practical to do, but at least it would give you a result from only one game, > so they don't have any chance to improve. > > I can't help feeling the concept of a rating for someone who has just learned > the rules is absurd. You can put a lower limit of 0, an upper limit of 1200, > but I don't believe you can say anything else really. > As mentioned elsewhere, 0 has no special significance in the rating system. In fact the minimum rating in the USCF system is 100. 1200 (or 1000, or 800) can be refuted in the same way that 2700 can be refuted - by showing that players with those ratings can beat average intelligence adults. (Whether the adults have strictly just learned the rules is just a detail, unless you are suggesting that player's ratings would *decline* by playing)             Date: 01 Nov 2006 05:07:59 From: Dave (from the UK) Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. David Kane wrote: >>A large number of players who play the game seriously don't have a rating of >>2700, so it's fairly easy to disprove that one. Putting an upper bound is >>fairly easy. Anyone who thinks it would be over 1200 is really got to be mad. > > > Similarly, those with experience with players in the > x00's range, also believe that 1000 is mad. I don't doubt that. If I had said 1000, there might have been some argument about it, so 1200 seemed a sensible upper limit. >>Anyone who is a member of the USCF would have to be reasonably serious about >>the game, so they would have played many times before. I don't believe someone >>will learn the rules, then join USCF and play their first ever game in a rated >>competition. > > > Not true. For better of for worse, many kids do start playing rated > games knowing very little. Having just learned the rules? Which is what I thought we were talking about. I could see that someone might learn the rules of chess from a book or the Internet and not having a human opponent, go onto ICC, FICS or whatever and play their first game. I doubt they would join USCF and play their first game there. I guess there is always the parent who wants his/her child to play chess, so they pay for membership and get them doing it from the beginning. I used to teach maths to someone who did not really want to learn mathematics, but his Dad wanted him to. (I'm not a mathematician BTW). > As mentioned elsewhere, 0 has no special significance in the rating system. Sorry, I thought it did, but I see you are right. > In fact the minimum rating in the USCF system is 100. 1200 (or 1000, or 800) > can be refuted in the same way that 2700 can be refuted - by showing > that players with those ratings can beat average intelligence > adults. (Whether the adults have strictly just learned the rules is > just a detail, unless you are suggesting that player's ratings would > *decline* by playing) I was talking about someone who had JUST LEARNED THE RULES, which is what I believed the other threads were referring to. In that circumstance, by playing several games an average (or even somewhat below average) intelligence human can't fail to learn and so improve. -- Dave (from the UK) Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam. It is always of the form: month-year@southminster-branch-line.org.uk Hitting reply will work for a few months only - later set it manually. http://witm.sourceforge.net/ (Web based Mathematica front end)               Date: 31 Oct 2006 22:42:26 From: David Kane Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. "Dave (from the UK)" <see-my-signature@southminster-branch-line.org.uk > wrote in message news:45482bb0@212.67.96.135... > David Kane wrote: > >>>A large number of players who play the game seriously don't have a rating of >>>2700, so it's fairly easy to disprove that one. Putting an upper bound is >>>fairly easy. Anyone who thinks it would be over 1200 is really got to be mad. >> >> >> Similarly, those with experience with players in the >> x00's range, also believe that 1000 is mad. > > I don't doubt that. If I had said 1000, there might have been some argument > about it, so 1200 seemed a sensible upper limit. > >>>Anyone who is a member of the USCF would have to be reasonably serious about >>>the game, so they would have played many times before. I don't believe >>>someone >>>will learn the rules, then join USCF and play their first ever game in a >>>rated >>>competition. >> >> >> Not true. For better of for worse, many kids do start playing rated >> games knowing very little. > > Having just learned the rules? Which is what I thought we were talking about. You can always quibble about how close to learning the rules someone is. But no doubt tournament-playing kids are far closer to that situation than tournament-playing adults. The mistake Prof. Sloan was making was equating new adult tournament players with average adult players who have just learned the rules. > I could see that someone might learn the rules of chess from a book or the > Internet and not having a human opponent, go onto ICC, FICS or whatever and > play their first game. I doubt they would join USCF and play their first game > there. > > I guess there is always the parent who wants his/her child to play chess, so > they pay for membership and get them doing it from the beginning. I used to > teach maths to someone who did not really want to learn mathematics, but his > Dad wanted him to. (I'm not a mathematician BTW). > >> As mentioned elsewhere, 0 has no special significance in the rating system. > > Sorry, I thought it did, but I see you are right. > >> In fact the minimum rating in the USCF system is 100. 1200 (or 1000, or 800) >> can be refuted in the same way that 2700 can be refuted - by showing >> that players with those ratings can beat average intelligence >> adults. (Whether the adults have strictly just learned the rules is >> just a detail, unless you are suggesting that player's ratings would >> *decline* by playing) > > I was talking about someone who had JUST LEARNED THE RULES, which is what I > believed the other threads were referring to. In that circumstance, by playing > several games an average (or even somewhat below average) intelligence human > can't fail to learn and so improve. > I'm not denying that you have a point. But it only comes into play when we reach the rating that average beginner adults cannot play at. Then we can obsess about how close to "just learned the rules" they are.               Date: 01 Nov 2006 00:44:43 From: Ange1o DePa1ma Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. The "Heisenberg" theory is cute, but it only goes as far as the "measurement affects outcome" idea. Sloan may be right that the scale is arbitrary, and we may employ negative numbers, fractions, or even imaginary numbers if we like. We can make an average rating zero instead of 1500. But in the real world that is an unnecessary complication for a very simple idea. We normally think of achievement in terms of numbers from zero to some higher number, for example: * I own six chess trophies (when I was 11 I had none) * Federer's world tennis association ranking is based on some positive number of points earned in tournaments (at some point he had no points, and no ranking) * I have several hundred ACBL master points (at one time I had zero) What is the sense of using negative numbers here? I never had minus-three chess trophies; I never won minus-two tournaments. Why should my rating be negative? "Dave (from the UK)" <see-my-signature@southminster-branch-line.org.uk > wrote in message news:45482bb0@212.67.96.135... > David Kane wrote: > >>>A large number of players who play the game seriously don't have a rating >>>of >>>2700, so it's fairly easy to disprove that one. Putting an upper bound is >>>fairly easy. Anyone who thinks it would be over 1200 is really got to be >>>mad. >> >> >> Similarly, those with experience with players in the >> x00's range, also believe that 1000 is mad. > > I don't doubt that. If I had said 1000, there might have been some > argument about it, so 1200 seemed a sensible upper limit. > >>>Anyone who is a member of the USCF would have to be reasonably serious >>>about >>>the game, so they would have played many times before. I don't believe >>>someone >>>will learn the rules, then join USCF and play their first ever game in a >>>rated >>>competition. >> >> >> Not true. For better of for worse, many kids do start playing rated >> games knowing very little. > > Having just learned the rules? Which is what I thought we were talking > about. > > I could see that someone might learn the rules of chess from a book or the > Internet and not having a human opponent, go onto ICC, FICS or whatever > and play their first game. I doubt they would join USCF and play their > first game there. > > I guess there is always the parent who wants his/her child to play chess, > so they pay for membership and get them doing it from the beginning. I > used to teach maths to someone who did not really want to learn > mathematics, but his Dad wanted him to. (I'm not a mathematician BTW). > >> As mentioned elsewhere, 0 has no special significance in the rating >> system. > > Sorry, I thought it did, but I see you are right. > >> In fact the minimum rating in the USCF system is 100. 1200 (or 1000, or >> 800) >> can be refuted in the same way that 2700 can be refuted - by showing >> that players with those ratings can beat average intelligence >> adults. (Whether the adults have strictly just learned the rules is >> just a detail, unless you are suggesting that player's ratings would >> *decline* by playing) > > I was talking about someone who had JUST LEARNED THE RULES, which is what > I believed the other threads were referring to. In that circumstance, by > playing several games an average (or even somewhat below average) > intelligence human can't fail to learn and so improve. > > > -- > Dave (from the UK) > > Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam. > It is always of the form: month-year@southminster-branch-line.org.uk > Hitting reply will work for a few months only - later set it manually. > > http://witm.sourceforge.net/ (Web based Mathematica front end)                 Date: 01 Nov 2006 15:22:09 From: Dr A. N. Walker Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. In article <BWidne3J-OJzqNXYUSdV9g@ptd.net >, Ange1o DePa1ma <angelodpnospam@nospam.gmail.com > wrote: >Sloan may be right that the scale is arbitrary, and we may employ negative >numbers, fractions, Many years ago, it occurred to me that we don't always set exam papers of identical strength, and our students certainly aren't all the same, so it made sense to think of the students as "playing against" the exams. Use the Elo system to rate students and exams, and lo! it no longer matters that [in a system with many options] not all the exams are of equal difficulty. We were processing the marks by computer anyway, so it was "easy" to insert a rating step, and then the class lists could just be produced from the list of students in rating order. Equally, those colleagues who year on year produced exams that were too easy or too hard could easily be indentified. The trouble was that some weak students scored very badly even on easy papers; and some excellent ones scored full marks even on a difficult paper. Colleagues, despite [or perhaps because of] being mathematicians, had difficulty with the notion of scoring below 0 or above 100% on a test. In vain did we point out that what mattered was not the individual "games" but the overall performance. It was as though they thought that Kasparov was literally invincible simply because he was the best player around. In such contexts, the scale is far from arbitary; people have views about what 0 and 100 mean [even if they are wrong]. In the end, there was a majority vote to scrap the system [after nearly 30 years and several simple explanatory documents] on the grounds that "no-one understood it". It was replaced by a statistical process that indeed no-one understands, but that was OK because it was statistics and so "proper" mathematics. > or even imaginary numbers if we like. That too was proposed, for "quality" marks -- bonuses for doing complete questions instead of building up part marks, or for thinking of a solution that was better than the "official" one. The idea was zapped, largely because we switched from Algol, which did understand complex numbers, as the programming language for our exam marks, to C/Unix, which didn't. -- Andy Walker, School of MathSci., Univ. of Nott'm, UK. anw@maths.nott.ac.uk                 Date: 01 Nov 2006 00:20:12 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. Ange1o DePa1ma wrote: > The "Heisenberg" theory is cute, but it only goes as far as the "measurement > affects outcome" idea. > > Sloan may be right that the scale is arbitrary, and we may employ negative > numbers, fractions, or even imaginary numbers if we like. We can make an > average rating zero instead of 1500. Wherever did you get that the average rating was 1500? Have you been talking to Dubeck? > > But in the real world that is an unnecessary complication for a very simple > idea. We normally think of achievement in terms of numbers from zero to some > higher number, How you "think about it" has little relationship with what it is! for example: > > * I own six chess trophies (when I was 11 I had none) > * Federer's world tennis association ranking is based on some positive > number of points earned in tournaments (at some point he had no points, and > no ranking) > * I have several hundred ACBL master points (at one time I had zero) > > What is the sense of using negative numbers here? I never had minus-three > chess trophies; I never won minus-two tournaments. Why should my rating be > negative? Ratings are not master points. You don't start at zero and accumulate them Your rating might be -0100 because you lose all your games to players rated 0300...who lose all their games to players rated 0700 (but always beat you). They, in turn, lose to players rated 1100...and so on up the scale. The results of games actually played, by the players who actually play them, determine the RANGE of actual ratings. If the World Champion is rated 2900, and the worst player in the world is 4000 points worse than the World Champion, then we either need to add points to EVERYONE's rating so that the World Champion is over 4000 (and the worst player no longer has a negative rating)...OR...we can leave the ratings of strong players where they have been historically and assign negative ratings to the new wave of truly terrible players now playing chess. USCF does not assign negative ratings (even though some players earned them) - but only because the politicians think that innumerate Americans can't handle the complication of the '-' sign. Alas, they are probably right. One need only read this thread to see that innumeracy reigns. -- Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@gmail.com Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213 University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473 Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/                   Date: 01 Nov 2006 11:34:22 From: Ange1o DePa1ma Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com > wrote >> Sloan may be right that the scale is arbitrary, and we may employ >> negative numbers, fractions, or even imaginary numbers if we like. We can >> make an average rating zero instead of 1500. > > Wherever did you get that the average rating was 1500? > Have you been talking to Dubeck? Jesus, Ken, I was just picking a number out of my hat. 1200. Whatever. > Ratings are not master points. You don't start at zero and accumulate > them > Your rating might be -0100 because you lose all your games to players > rated 0300...who lose all their games to players rated 0700 (but always > beat you). They, in turn, lose to players rated 1100...and so on up the > scale. > > The results of games actually played, by the players who actually play > them, determine the RANGE of actual ratings. If the World Champion is > rated 2900, and the worst player in the world is 4000 points worse than > the World Champion, then we either need to add points to EVERYONE's rating > so that the World Champion is over 4000 (and the worst player > no longer has a negative rating)...OR...we can leave the ratings of > strong players where they have been historically and assign negative > ratings to the new wave of truly terrible players now playing chess. I get the point. I'm not sure if it's mathematically relevant if you simply define a know-nothing rating as zero. I'm not sure what the system gains by going into negative numbers because as soon as you score 1/2 a point out of 100 games against players rated ELO 100, you have a positive rating. It may be closer to zero than to one, but it is positive. > USCF does not assign negative ratings (even though some players earned > them) - but only because the politicians think that innumerate Americans > can't handle the complication of the '-' sign. Alas, they are probably > right. One need only read this thread to see that innumeracy reigns. Americans' stupidity re math notwithstanding, there is no practical reason for a negative rating.                     Date: 01 Nov 2006 11:19:26 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. Ange1o DePa1ma wrote: > "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com> wrote > >>> Sloan may be right that the scale is arbitrary, and we may employ >>> negative numbers, fractions, or even imaginary numbers if we like. We can >>> make an average rating zero instead of 1500. >> Wherever did you get that the average rating was 1500? >> Have you been talking to Dubeck? > > Jesus, Ken, I was just picking a number out of my hat. 1200. Whatever. > The point is: the "average rating" is not an interesting concept when specifying the rating system. It depends more on the demographics (who chooses to play in your system) than on anything else. The reason I complained is that there *are* people out there who believe that the rating system is designed to produce a specific "average rating" (and surprisingly many of these people think that the magic number is 1500). > > I get the point. I'm not sure if it's mathematically relevant if you simply > define a know-nothing rating as zero. It may be 'relevant' - but if so, it's flat out wrong! In any Elo-based system, the only "correct" rating for a player who truly knows nothing is: -infinity. >I'm not sure what the system gains by > going into negative numbers because as soon as you score 1/2 a point out of > 100 games against players rated ELO 100, you have a positive rating. It may > be closer to zero than to one, but it is positive. that's not correct. If you score 0.5-99.5 against 0100 opposition, your proper Elo rating is most definitely NOT positive. Do the math. But, at least it's no longer -infinity! Remember - what matters is the rating DIFFERENCE between you and all those 0100 players who are beating up on you. What rating DIFFERENCE predicts a score of 99.5-0.5 (look it up!). Your new rating after going 0.5-99.5 against 0100 competition is 0100-thatDifference. Which, I assure you, is a negative number. Why, exactly, do you think that your rating would be greater than 0000 after that performance? Because USCF has an Absolute Floor of 0100? That's an administrative twiddle (mostly meant to pacify innumerate folk who believe that ratings must be positive). > > >> USCF does not assign negative ratings (even though some players earned >> them) - but only because the politicians think that innumerate Americans >> can't handle the complication of the '-' sign. Alas, they are probably >> right. One need only read this thread to see that innumeracy reigns. > > Americans' stupidity re math notwithstanding, there is no practical reason > for a negative rating. Do you know the real reason that the USCF minimum rating is 0100, and not 0000? You wouldn't believe me if I told you - it's too silly for words. In any event, there is indeed a "practical reason for a negative rating". That reason is: the negative rating more accuratly predicts the future performance of that player (e.g., that player will score 0.5 out of 100 against 0100 competition). USCF has decided that this valid reason is counterbalanced by other reasons (that's how you run a real system - you end up compromising). But...you'd really laugh if you heard the *real* reason that the minimum USCF rating is 0100. HINT: it's closely related to the reason that the minimum USCF rating used to be (many years ago) 1000. > > -- Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@gmail.com Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213 University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473 Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/                       Date: 01 Nov 2006 17:58:24 From: Ange1o DePa1ma Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com > wrote > USCF has decided that this valid reason is counterbalanced by other > reasons (that's how you run a real system - you end up compromising). > But...you'd really laugh if you heard the *real* reason that the minimum > USCF rating is 0100. > > HINT: it's closely related to the reason that the minimum USCF rating used > to be (many years ago) 1000. Because there are 100 years in a century?                         Date: 01 Nov 2006 19:50:19 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. Ange1o DePa1ma wrote: > "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com> wrote > >> USCF has decided that this valid reason is counterbalanced by other >> reasons (that's how you run a real system - you end up compromising). >> But...you'd really laugh if you heard the *real* reason that the minimum >> USCF rating is 0100. >> >> HINT: it's closely related to the reason that the minimum USCF rating used >> to be (many years ago) 1000. > > Because there are 100 years in a century? > > No. In that case, the minimum rating would be 0999, of course. -- Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@gmail.com Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213 University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473 Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/                       Date: 01 Nov 2006 09:53:31 From: David Kane Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com > wrote in message news:eiakv4$pkr$3@SonOfMaze.dpo.uab.edu... > > In any Elo-based system, the only "correct" rating for a player who truly > knows nothing is: -infinity. This is only true if "knows nothing" equates to "never wins" which you haven't proven. In fact, if we rated a tournament filled only with unrated "know-nothings", they'd end up with the rating arbitrarily assigned to their class by the rating system. No system that I know of uses -infinity.                         Date: 01 Nov 2006 15:28:53 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. David Kane wrote: > "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com> wrote in message > news:eiakv4$pkr$3@SonOfMaze.dpo.uab.edu... > >> In any Elo-based system, the only "correct" rating for a player who truly >> knows nothing is: -infinity. > > This is only true if "knows nothing" equates to "never wins" which you > haven't proven. In fact, if we rated a tournament filled only > with unrated "know-nothings", they'd end up with the rating arbitrarily > assigned to their class by the rating system. No system that I know > of uses -infinity. uses -infinity as *what*? As the initial rating for a first-time player? Well, of course not - THAT WAS MY POINT! As the lowest possible rating? USCF does. In *calculating* ratings, any value (even negative values) are permitted. Only at the end is an administrative floor imposed. At one time, the programming assumed a minimum of 0000 - but did not really impose it (actually, it assumed a minimum of 0001, because 0000 was reserved to mean "UNR". That is, until it was noticed that ratings for some players were fast approaching 0000, and it was only a matter of time until a computed rating was actually negative. That's what sparked the discussion of the Absolute Floor. Participants in that discussion may recall that I argued for a Floor of 0400. The end result was a floor at 0100. The official reason given: "players are embarassed to have double-digit ratings". The lowest rating ever published (if memory serves) was 0040. There are now hundreds of players who are being propped up by the floor at 0100 (properly so, in my opinion - for reasons beyond the scope of this thread), but the basic Elo computation takes absolutely NO NOTICE of ZERO, for any purpose whatsoever (don't believe me? read Elo!). There is nothing at all in the current USCF rating system that prevents a rating from going negative (and,..as negative as you please, which is a pretty good definition of -infinity). The ONLY reason you don't see negative ratings reported is the politically determined Absolute Floor at 0100. Exercise for statistics journeymen: look at the distribution of USCF ratings and estimate the lowest "true" USCF rating as of today. -- Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@gmail.com Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213 University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473 Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/                           Date: 01 Nov 2006 15:12:26 From: David Kane Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com > wrote in message news:eib3iq$2n3$1@SonOfMaze.dpo.uab.edu... > David Kane wrote: >> "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com> wrote in message >> news:eiakv4$pkr$3@SonOfMaze.dpo.uab.edu... >> >>> In any Elo-based system, the only "correct" rating for a player who truly >>> knows nothing is: -infinity. >> >> This is only true if "knows nothing" equates to "never wins" which you >> haven't proven. In fact, if we rated a tournament filled only >> with unrated "know-nothings", they'd end up with the rating arbitrarily >> assigned to their class by the rating system. No system that I know >> of uses -infinity. > > uses -infinity as *what*? As the initial rating for a first-time player? > Well, of course not - THAT WAS MY POINT! Uhh. Actually you've made a number of points and claims. Including the false one at the top of this post. I agree that -infinity is the correct rating for someone who loses all their games. You haven't shown that someone who "knows nothing" is in that category. If two players who "know nothing" play each other, someone will still win. > As the lowest possible rating? USCF does. In *calculating* ratings, > any value (even negative values) are permitted. Only at the end is > an administrative floor imposed. > > At one time, the programming assumed a minimum of 0000 - but did not > really impose it (actually, it assumed a minimum of 0001, because 0000 was > reserved to mean "UNR". That is, until it was noticed that ratings > for some players were fast approaching 0000, and it was only a matter of time > until a computed rating was actually negative. That's what sparked > the discussion of the Absolute Floor. > > Participants in that discussion may recall that I argued for a Floor > of 0400. The end result was a floor at 0100. The official reason given: > "players are embarassed to have double-digit ratings". FYI, the rating system in use here (NWSRS) does use a floor of 400. This leads to ratings generally higher than the USCF. 23% of the people in the database are at the floor. This sounds bad, but in practice the vast majority of them are inactive. (Played a tournament, didn't like it, quit) > The lowest rating ever published (if memory serves) was 0040. There > are now hundreds of players who are being propped up by the floor at > 0100 (properly so, in my opinion - for reasons beyond the scope of this > thread), but the basic Elo computation > takes absolutely NO NOTICE of ZERO, for any purpose whatsoever (don't > believe me? read Elo!). There is nothing at all in the current > USCF rating system that prevents a rating from going negative (and,..as > negative as you please, which is a pretty good definition of -infinity). > The ONLY reason you don't see negative ratings reported is the > politically determined Absolute Floor at 0100. > > Exercise for statistics journeymen: look at the distribution of USCF ratings > and estimate the lowest "true" USCF rating as of today. >                             Date: 01 Nov 2006 19:49:33 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. David Kane wrote: > "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com> wrote in message > news:eib3iq$2n3$1@SonOfMaze.dpo.uab.edu... >> David Kane wrote: >>> "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com> wrote in message >>> news:eiakv4$pkr$3@SonOfMaze.dpo.uab.edu... >>> >>>> In any Elo-based system, the only "correct" rating for a player who truly >>>> knows nothing is: -infinity. >>> This is only true if "knows nothing" equates to "never wins" which you >>> haven't proven. In fact, if we rated a tournament filled only >>> with unrated "know-nothings", they'd end up with the rating arbitrarily >>> assigned to their class by the rating system. No system that I know >>> of uses -infinity. >> uses -infinity as *what*? As the initial rating for a first-time player? >> Well, of course not - THAT WAS MY POINT! > > Uhh. Actually you've made a number of points and claims. > Including the false one at the top of this post. I agree that > -infinity is the correct rating for someone who loses all their > games. You haven't shown that someone who "knows nothing" > is in that category. If two players who "know > nothing" play each other, someone will still win. Two people do not a rating pool make. If two people "know nothing" (literally), then it may be that one of them may win (they may, of course, draw - a much more likely event: drawn by adjudication of the arbiter), but even if one of them wins, the *correct* rating for BOTH of these players is -infinity (given that they will surely lose all of their games against anyone who actually knows how to play the game). The nice thing about -infinity as a rating for both of them is that -infinity + 400 (the usual, back-of-the-envelope calculation) = -infinity! If the two players who "know nothing" play a long series of games, I trust that they will split the available points - so their ratings should be identical. How they rate against the rest of the world depends, of course, on the results of games played against the rest of the world. If they truly "know nothing", and play a significant number of games against USCF 0600+ players, I have great confidence that the correct rating will be -infinity. (Knowing nothing, I expect most games to end when their flag drops on move 1.) But, enough of -infinity. How about -0400? Is it too difficult for you to imagine a player whose appropriate rating on the FIDE scale (notice I didn't say FIDE rating) should be -0400? That means they score 1-3 against -0200 competition. The -0200 folk, of course, score 1-3 against 0000 competetiton...and so on, up the ladder to someone who scores 1-3 against Kasparov. > >> As the lowest possible rating? USCF does. In *calculating* ratings, >> any value (even negative values) are permitted. Only at the end is >> an administrative floor imposed. >> >> At one time, the programming assumed a minimum of 0000 - but did not >> really impose it (actually, it assumed a minimum of 0001, because 0000 was >> reserved to mean "UNR". That is, until it was noticed that ratings >> for some players were fast approaching 0000, and it was only a matter of time >> until a computed rating was actually negative. That's what sparked >> the discussion of the Absolute Floor. >> >> Participants in that discussion may recall that I argued for a Floor >> of 0400. The end result was a floor at 0100. The official reason given: >> "players are embarassed to have double-digit ratings". > > FYI, the rating system in use here (NWSRS) does use > a floor of 400. This leads to ratings generally higher > than the USCF. 23% of the people in the database > are at the floor. This sounds bad, but in practice the vast majority > of them are inactive. (Played a tournament, didn't like it, quit) I'd be interested in statistics (ratings distributions, etc.) on this rating system. I'd be *especially* interested in a set of ratings for players who are also rated in other systems (USCF, FIDE, anything!). You say "ratings generally higher than the USCF. I'm not sure what you mean by that. Can you please explain? -- Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@gmail.com Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213 University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473 Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/                               Date: 01 Nov 2006 22:44:12 From: David Kane Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com > wrote in message news:eibiri$51r$1@SonOfMaze.dpo.uab.edu... > David Kane wrote: >> "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com> wrote in message >> news:eib3iq$2n3$1@SonOfMaze.dpo.uab.edu... >>> David Kane wrote: >>>> "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com> wrote in message >>>> news:eiakv4$pkr$3@SonOfMaze.dpo.uab.edu... >>>> >>>>> In any Elo-based system, the only "correct" rating for a player who truly >>>>> knows nothing is: -infinity. >>>> This is only true if "knows nothing" equates to "never wins" which you >>>> haven't proven. In fact, if we rated a tournament filled only >>>> with unrated "know-nothings", they'd end up with the rating arbitrarily >>>> assigned to their class by the rating system. No system that I know >>>> of uses -infinity. >>> uses -infinity as *what*? As the initial rating for a first-time player? >>> Well, of course not - THAT WAS MY POINT! >> >> Uhh. Actually you've made a number of points and claims. >> Including the false one at the top of this post. I agree that >> -infinity is the correct rating for someone who loses all their >> games. You haven't shown that someone who "knows nothing" >> is in that category. If two players who "know >> nothing" play each other, someone will still win. > > Two people do not a rating pool make. I never said that they do. > If two people "know nothing" (literally), then it may be that one of them may > win (they may, of course, draw - a much more likely event: drawn by > adjudication of the arbiter), but even if one of them wins, the *correct* > rating for BOTH of these players is -infinity (given that they > will surely lose all of their games against anyone who actually knows how to > play the game). The nice thing about -infinity as a rating for > both of them is that -infinity + 400 (the usual, back-of-the-envelope > calculation) = -infinity! > > If the two players who "know nothing" play a long series of games, > I trust that they will split the available points - so their ratings > should be identical. How they rate against the rest of the world depends, of > course, on the results of games played against the rest > of the world. > > If they truly "know nothing", and play a significant number of games > against USCF 0600+ players, I have great confidence that the correct > rating will be -infinity. (Knowing nothing, I expect most games to end when > their flag drops on move 1.) > No. Against people who "know almost nothing", they'll win 25%. Against people who "know a little more than almost nothing, they'll win 10% etc. All the way up to Topalov. > But, enough of -infinity. How about -0400? Is it too difficult for you to > imagine a player whose appropriate rating on the FIDE scale (notice I didn't > say FIDE rating) should be -0400? That means they score 1-3 against -0200 > competition. The -0200 folk, of course, score 1-3 against 0000 > competetiton...and so on, up the ladder to someone who scores 1-3 against > Kasparov. I'm not arguing against negative ratings. I'm pointing out the incorrectness of your statement that the only "correct" rating for a player who truly knows nothing is: -infinity. >> >>> As the lowest possible rating? USCF does. In *calculating* ratings, >>> any value (even negative values) are permitted. Only at the end is >>> an administrative floor imposed. >>> >>> At one time, the programming assumed a minimum of 0000 - but did not >>> really impose it (actually, it assumed a minimum of 0001, because 0000 was >>> reserved to mean "UNR". That is, until it was noticed that ratings >>> for some players were fast approaching 0000, and it was only a matter of >>> time >>> until a computed rating was actually negative. That's what sparked >>> the discussion of the Absolute Floor. >>> >>> Participants in that discussion may recall that I argued for a Floor >>> of 0400. The end result was a floor at 0100. The official reason given: >>> "players are embarassed to have double-digit ratings". >> >> FYI, the rating system in use here (NWSRS) does use >> a floor of 400. This leads to ratings generally higher >> than the USCF. 23% of the people in the database >> are at the floor. This sounds bad, but in practice the vast majority >> of them are inactive. (Played a tournament, didn't like it, quit) > > I'd be interested in statistics (ratings distributions, etc.) on this > rating system. I'd be *especially* interested in a set of ratings for players > who are also rated in other systems (USCF, FIDE, anything!). http://www.whsca.org/ratings.html But keep in mind that it is not the norm to dual-rate events. So the difference between the ratings is not solely caused by the minor differences in the algorithm (the floor, also some differences in imputing initial ratings), but because they involve different rating events. However, there are a fair number who play regularly in both systems. I did note that there are about 100 players who are at the floor even though they've played 4 tournaments. > You say "ratings generally higher than the USCF. I'm not sure what you mean > by that. Can you please explain? > There are 9104 in the database. 1974 have a USCF rating. 784 have a non-provisional USCF rating. The NWSRS has a practice of periodically bumping up the NWSRS ratings of those with higher non-provisional USCF ratings. Currently there are 156 players whose rating have been bumped up in that way. This suggests that most have higher NWSRS ratings.                                 Date: 02 Nov 2006 09:53:52 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. David Kane wrote: > > There are 9104 in the database. 1974 have a USCF rating. 784 have a > non-provisional USCF rating. The NWSRS has a practice of > periodically bumping up the NWSRS ratings of those with > higher non-provisional USCF ratings. Currently there are > 156 players whose rating have been bumped up in that way. > This suggests that most have higher NWSRS ratings. They bump ratings UP to conform to USCF but not DOWN? And you think it's the higher floor that generates higher ratings? -- Kenneth Sloan KennethRSloan@gmail.com Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213 University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473 Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/                                   Date: 02 Nov 2006 10:46:54 From: David Kane Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. "Kenneth Sloan" <KennethRSloan@gmail.com > wrote in message news:eid4an$cm7$1@SonOfMaze.dpo.uab.edu... > David Kane wrote: > >> >> There are 9104 in the database. 1974 have a USCF rating. 784 have a >> non-provisional USCF rating. The NWSRS has a practice of >> periodically bumping up the NWSRS ratings of those with >> higher non-provisional USCF ratings. Currently there are >> 156 players whose rating have been bumped up in that way. >> This suggests that most have higher NWSRS ratings. > > > They bump ratings UP to conform to USCF but not DOWN? And you think > it's the higher floor that generates higher ratings? > As I said, the number who receive points that way is minimal. I think it is an odd practice, to say the least, but it's inflationary effect is very small. Some of those receiving points that way are the older players who have stopped playing games in the NWSRS, so it has no effect other than symbolic. The bump occurs once or twice per year and the number of points added is small. On the other hand, people playing at their floor pump points into the system every tournament. Also, the initially imputed rating is in most cases higher than the USCF - it's changed over the years and the details have never been clear. But for most age groups its higher than 50*Age. Also, consider the "bonus point" mechanism for inflating the ratings. Imagine two identical pools of players, but players in pool A play twice as frequenctly as those in Pool B. Ratings in Pool A will inflate faster than those of Pool B. My guess is that our pool is more active than the USCF Pool. And ratings of players who play more frequently in the NWSRS will not have the lag that their USCF ratings have. There have been comic misjustices in tournaments where USCF ratings were used - e.g. one boy won the "biggest upset" prize every round even though in the NWSRS system he had the highest rating and was winning as expected. But his USCF rating was several years old, and 600 points out of date. I don't believe trying to align the scales would have any practical advantages.                                     Date: 02 Nov 2006 13:55:36 From: Kenneth Sloan Subject: Re: PROOF a beginner has no rating. Oh dear...where to start? David Kane wrote: > ... > As I said, the number who receive points that way is minimal. I think it is > an odd practice, to say the least, but it's inflationary effect is very small. > Some > of those receiving points that way are the older players who have stopped > playing games in the NWSRS, so it has no effect other than symbolic. > The bump occurs once or twice per year and the number of points added is small. OK > > On the other hand, people playing at their floor pump points into > the system every tournament. Also, the initially imputed rating > is in most cases higher than the USCF - it's changed over the years > and the details have never been clear. But for most age groups its > higher than 50*Age. That can be seriously wrong for Seniors... 50*Age is probably too low for anyone aged lower than 20. > > Also, consider the "bonus point" mechanism for inflating the ratings. > Imagine two identical pools of players, but players in pool A play > twice as frequenctly as those in Pool B. Ratings in Pool A will inflate > faster than those of Pool B. My guess is that our pool is more active > than the USCF Pool. You are assuming that the net effect of play is inflationary. That's certainly not the usual starting point for most Elo-based systems. Unadorned Elo is usually a deflating system. If the bonus point system you are using is more inflationary than necessary to buck the natural deflationary pressure, perhaps you need to fix it. In the current USCF system, the bonus points threshold has been adjusted to be mildly inflationary, by design. We have a political mandate to re-inflate ratings to the 1997 standard. > > And ratings of players who play more frequently in the NWSRS will > not have the lag that their USCF ratings have. What lag? USCF events are now rated the same day the