Records in chess and press coverage

[Stewart Reuben]

Richard it isn't true that all you need to do is play some games. You also need to score at least 1 point. This is beyond the ability of some people. An unrated woman player played in the 10 player B section blitz tournament and scored 0/9. Thus the only other unrated player played only 8 games that counted.
In the Gambia it will be adults. I just hope all 6 will get at least 1 point. I persuaded FIDE that 0.5 would not be enough because of people simply giving a draw in the last round.
I remember discussions about getting people title norms. Where does it lead them? Well, you are an IM and still around. The same can be said of the GM title, a 2600 rating and so on.
People reach their own level. Why bother unless you are number 1 in the world at any activity?

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Justin

"Of course it isn't nonsense: it's the best science we have, and the best way to
objectively compare the strength of moves made in one period of history to those made at another.
It's not perfect, because computers aren't perfect, but it's pretty good."

It's nonsense.
You have modern players who learned from the games of the great players in the past.
They have refined their ideas, improved on their strategy and taken the game
to higher level.
You don't need a computer to tell you that.

And it's not the best science we have.
We have our opinions and eye for a beautiful idea.
I don't know about you but I play over a game to be entertained and watch it
all unfold before my eyes. Running it through a computer claiming a modern player
would have played differently and not lost is silly. It's pointless.
It cannot be proved. Certainy not by a computer.

And as for looking at games from a different part of history.
The blunders made by today's players are just the same as the players of the past made.
They will come from different setting opening wise but the bones will there.
Find me blunder from any top modern players game and I'll find you the same missed
shot from a game played 50 years ago.

"Tell me Geoff, do you think the markings that computers give to moves and the positions
that derive from them are subjective? Do you think they simply prefer certain sorts of
moves to others? If not, what point are you trying to make?"

Todays players are getting good at playing computers and their computer guided opponets.
First one to switch off his computer will be King.
(Carlsen is onto this, he's heading for positions that computers find hard to evaluate.)

"It's like claiming I'm a better writer that Shakespeare because I can type morewords per minute on a keyboard than he could.

And what point are you trying to make here? "

The claim is todays players are much better because of the assistance technology has
given them and the advancement of opening theory.

No. Todays top players are good chess players.
Claiming if we can whisk Fisher etc etc into the future that they will need time
to adjust so they too will become good players(?)

The Fischers etc etc are already good players they would not need to adjust,
they could hold their own from day one.


"It's only a complete waste of time and effort to people who don't understand
what the study is doing, or don't want to."

These guys obvioulsy have a good brain on their shoulders.
Why they want to waste it on this stupid and pointless excerise is beyond me.
They could put their time and effort into something more worth while.
What benefit to mankind is this study doing? Nothing. It's Pointless.
It was my tax payers money that educated these guys and now it's being squandered.
Put them to work on finding a cure for the flu which laid me out over Christmas
and tell them to leave the great games from old masters alone.

[Stewart Reuben]

Geoff. The people who did this work aren't British as far as I know. People 'waste' time in all sorts of ways. We are currently doing so.

[Geoff Chandler]

It's alright Stewart just having a rant.

My tax also goes to foriegn aid so I bet my money somewhere along the line
went into this project.

Not wasting my time, I am practising my keyboard typing skills
so I can keep one step ahead of Shakespeare.

[Michael Jones]

Differences between contemporary ratings mean something intrinsic to the system in a way that the actual values of ratings don't, certainly. Trying to figure out how Carlsen's rating of 2861 now compares to Kasparov's peak rating of 2851 is non-trivial.

Short claimed while doing commentary with Carlsen at the LCC that rating inflation was about 4 points per year, which would make Kasparov's 2851 equivalent to ~2900 now (which it's entirely conceivable that Carlsen may eventually pass anyway). He didn't specify the evidence on which that claim was based.

As I see it, there are two separate matters under debate here: which players make the objectively best moves (or as close to objective as it's possible to get, with the assessment of the strongest engines), and which are best at beating their opponents. The two aren't the same: after 1. e4 e5, 2. f4 may not be the best move from an objective point of view, but if you're extremely well versed in KG theory and you're pretty sure that your opponent isn't, it may be the move which gives you the best chance of winning that game. If you have the chance to complicate the position and you're confident that you can calculate the complications better than your opponent, it may be best to do so even if a quiet move is objectively better.

Modern players are almost certainly 'better' than their predecessors in the first respect, for the aforementioned reason that they make copious use of computers. In general they're probably no better at beating each other than players of any previous era were; it's debatable whether Carlsen is better at beating his opponents than Morphy, Capablanca, Fischer, Karpov or Kasparov were at beating theirs; the next few years may add evidence to one side or the other of that debate.