Mathew Sadler 3rd in the World!

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi

They (them again) have done computer match up's v the top players.

Mathew comes 3rd (91.79%) behind Yinglun Xu (92.13% ) and Capablanca (92.05%)

Jonathan Hawkins takes 5th with 91.51%

On another list Carlsen comes 227th and Karjakin is 204th. Huh a couple of bums.

Mathew take a print out, pack a light bag (toothbrush and a durex), fly to New York and demand your place at the table.

http://chess-db.com/public/top100pqi.jsp

[Brian Towers]

Geoff, I think it is very much a back-handed compliment.

Here is part of the preamble from the Chess-db article

Caution: This ranklist and the player quality index method has not been designed to catch/indicate cheating. The method is not as theoretically solid as for example the one that has been developed by Prof. Keneth Regan for the FIDE Anti-Cheating commission. The fact that (over) 15 games have been evaluated and they show high or low similarity to engine choices means nothing as a fact by itself if not put into strict statistical frames and evaluated under the most stable test conditions. Also, even in strict statistical conditions (which is not the case here) the evidence that a player has high similarity to engine play does not mean he is cheating, it could just indicate a more computer like playing style, better home preparation, and so on

Somehow I don't think Matthew is going to be printing this out and framing it on his wall.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Brian,

I think it is a compliment, don't think it means anything. (what computer did Capablanca use?)

[Roger de Coverly]

(what computer did Capablanca use?)

They should check some Deep Blue games. Kasparov made claims that it had human assistance.

All they have established is that someone has managed to program Capablanca's style and assessments into the chess engine used for the comparison.

[Colin Patterson]

Matthew's latest book has a chapter on Capablanca, and he refers to the former world champion as an inspiration ... someone he tries to copy. So Roger may well be right about the comparison engine favouring Capablanca's style of chess.

It appears that chess-db.com did a Basil Fawlty here, and in trying not to mention 'the war', clumsily blurted it out several times. Unfortunate, but I'm sure no malice was intended.