at the mercy of the arbiter

[Leonard Barden]

The previous two posts seem just to ignore the evidence presented by Mr Collyer.....

[Steve Collyer]

The previous two posts seem just to ignore the evidence presented by Mr Collyer.....

Thanks Leonard.
Who needs evidence when you have hot air?

[Keith Arkell]

Leonard,I'm just using a forum to suggest a hypothesis about the nature of the evolution and development and progress of chess with time. It's not personal against anyone,just a broad concept.I don't have the inclination to do the hours(maybe weeks) of work necessary to test it.

Steve,to dismiss my well thought out postings as ''hot air'' is a little discourteous.I like the idea of the computer testing you refer to.Such testing appears to still be in its infancy though,as the results of the ''Crafty'' test seems to lump the positional players mostly at the top end(Capa,Petrosian,Karpov,Kramnik),and the tactical players mostly at the bottom end(Tal,Steinitz,Lasker).

Such a test would of course be far more interesting if done by a 3000 rated Rybka rather tha a 2700 rated Crafty.

Has anybody used these tests on something which is verifiable eg comparing a modern day 2750 with a 2650 of similar style to see if the computer does indeed get it right?

Am I right in thinking that John Nunn did a test of this nature? Does anyone know where we can find his results?

What are the thoughts of 2600+ players on these matters?

[Steve Collyer]

Leonard,I'm just using a forum to suggest a hypothesis about the nature of the evolution and development and progress of chess with time. It's not personal against anyone,just a broad concept.I don't have the inclination to do the hours(maybe weeks) of work necessary to test it.

Steve,to dismiss my well thought out postings as ''hot air'' is a little discourteous.I like the idea of the computer testing you refer to.Such testing appears to still be in its infancy though,as the results of the ''Crafty'' test seems to lump the positional players mostly at the top end(Capa,Petrosian,Karpov,Kramnik),and the tactical players mostly at the bottom end(Tal,Steinitz,Lasker).

Such a test would of course be far more interesting if done by a 3000 rated Rybka rather tha a 2700 rated Crafty.

Has anybody used these tests on something which is verifiable eg comparing a modern day 2750 with a 2650 of similar style to see if the computer does indeed get it right?

Am I right in thinking that John Nunn did a test of this nature? Does anyone know where we can find his results?

What are the thoughts of 2600+ players on these matters?

Hi Keith.
As the authors of that article point out, they needed an open source engine so they could modify it to their exact needs & so Crafty was used.
I'm not surprised that the tactical (or often romantic-era) players by & large have worse results than positional players. The sharp lines played will obviously have greater scope for deviating scores than in more quiet positions.
Still, what is shown is that Capablanca has a lower blunder rate than Karpov & Kasparov and also had a higher % of best moves according to this evidence.
Until someone hacks into Deep Fritz 11 and can re-evaluate all these games, I'm afraid that this is the best you can do:
http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3455

[Leonard Barden]

Keith is referring to John Nunn's Chess Puzzle Book, which has a chapter adversely scrutinising the quality of play at Carlsbad 1911.

The Chessmetrics monthly list for April 1911 ends at No 58 who is rated 2369, 150 points below No 40. So on that basis No 100 in 1911 could be projected to be below 2200.

That is different from the previous discussion about 1930 (No 100 in Chessmetrics rated 2450) by which time there were more tournaments and standards had risen, probably at least in part due to the high quality of play of Alekhine and Capablanca and to the influence of instructional writing by Alekhine, Tarrasch, Nimzovich etc.

As I have stated in a previous post, it can be argued that Chessmetrics overstates some historical ratings by 100 points or so. I wouldn't strongly differ from that. But 400 points, which is Keith's position, that's another matter.

[JustinHorton]

Shakespeare and eg Mozart were artists.No new information has emerged in the ensuing centuries which,had they been aware of it,they could have used to improve their work

Ah, strictly speaking this isn't entirely true: there have been for instance developments in both technique and in the range and standard of instruments since Mozart's time.

I'm sympathetic to some aspects of Keith's argument, notably the far larger pool of players now and the simple fact that there are aspects of technique which are easily learned by any good player now but which were unknown (except perhaps to players so strong they could work them out themselves) several generations ago. But on the other hand Jeff Sonas' work - which I'm not remotely competent to evaluate, let alone challenge - is very highly respected. It's hard to believe that the world 100th-rated player eighty years ago would have been weaker than I am (about 2150), though I might well know more opening theory than they ever did. But I'm sure they'd have turned me over once we got into the middlegame.

[carstenpedersen]

The chapter in Nunn's book is called "Test of time" and he pays particular attention to Henry Suchting. He scored 11.5/25 and Nunn estimates his strength at about 2100, based on Nunns assessment of the quality of his play.

In Chessmetrics April 1911 he's listed as no 28 with 2559, or a difference of 359 points.......

[Leonard Barden]

Alekhine scored 13.5/25 in that same Carlsbad tournament, so would you call him 2200 or so in 1911?

[Keith Arkell]

Thanks Justin and Carsten.It's nice to get a measured response rather than sarcasm/ridicule.

I just took a look at this ''chessmetics''. In the name of good honest vanity I looked at my own graph. It seems that I went from
''World number 1107 in Aug 2000 aged 39'' to ''World number 280 in Jan 2005 aged 44''. What a shame the list stopped at that point!

Did ''chessmetrics'' come to a halt after 2005.

I think I prefer the judgements of the highly intelligent and respected Dr.John Nunn.

[carstenpedersen]

Alekhine scored 13.5/25 in that same Carlsbad tournament, so would you call him 2200 or so in 1911?

I have no idea. I merely pointed out the discrepancy between the 2 sources you mention - Nunn & Chessmetrics.


I don't remotely feel competent to judge this question myself but is it so impossible that this early in his career Alekhine had individual tournament performances in the 2200's? Maybe he had a bad tournament in Karlsbad? I don't know.

However, I have to say that the 1911 Chessmetrics numbers look very fishy, probably due to a lack of data. If there were 9 players over 2700, does it sound likely that there were only 11 between 2400 & 2500?

Also, having had a better look at more recent chessmetrics lists it does appear that the difference is smaller than I implied in my earlier post, as the numbers are clearly somewhat inflated compared to "real" ELOs for the same period (I'm certain there wasn't 20 2700+ players in 1985, for example).

[Keith Arkell]

Ok I have just played through 40 (out of 225) of Hugo Suechting's games selected at random from chessbase,and I rest my case.

I suggest that anyone who is interested in this debate do the same,and then decide whether this player was 2559 or 2100. I'll be charitable and say ignore the openings and endings.

If you take all the international players from 1911 and rate them between 2700 and 2200 then fair enough give him a rating of 2559, but to say that BY TODAYS STANDARDS this guy was 2559 is quite frankly preposterous.

Maybe I am misunderstanding,and ''chessmetrics'' is simply saying that if there had been a rating list around at that time then he would have been 2559 RELATIVE TO THE PLAYERS AROUND AT THAT TIME.

In that case the level of Suechting's chess proves my origional point that ''there is constant improvement going on at all levels,and so this obviously won't show in the rating system''
(see my post at 2am on Sat morning where I create the hypothetical world consisting of 10 improving players).

Incidentally,Alekhine was only 18 or 19 at the time of Karlsbad,so there was plenty of time for him to gain another 200 points in strength,or maybe he was off form.

[Leonard Barden]

If Suchting was indeed only playing to 2100 standard and scored 11.5/25 at Carlsbad 1911, this implies not only that Alekhine (13.5/25) was performing around 2165, the level of Justin Horton, but that Rubinstein (the recognised world No 2 of the time) and Schlechter (who the previous year tied a match for the world championship) who both totalled 17/25 performed only at 2275, and wouldn't have got anywhere near an IM norm in today's terms.

On that basis all the great players of recent times who have named Alekhine and Rubinstein as inspirations were plain wrong, and Kasparov should have called the first volume of his books My Weakie Predecessors.

I invite Keith to play over Alekhine's white games from Carlsbad 1911 against Vidmar, Tartakover, Chajes, Dus-Chotimirsky, Rotlewi and Cohn and his black game against Duras aod to give his assessment of the player's strength.

[Keith Arkell]

You get a better idea of Alekhine's playing strength if you select eg 10 of his games at random,rather than his very best efforts.I have never denied that he was talented.He just didn't have the information of today.
Of course those players gave all of us inspiration in our youth.I enjoyed Capa's best games and eg Rubenstein's R+P endings.

However,I don't think it unreasonable to suggest that,in the context of a world which is speeding up all the time,and in which we are advancing so rapidly in other areas,the level of play in chess has risen by (lets say) 400 ELO points in 100 years. That equates to 40 points in 10 years and 4 points in 1 year.In other words by about half an ECF point a year!

Leonard admits himself that the standards improved a lot between 1911 and 1930.Of course they would,and always will! It's also easy to see just by playing through the games that something magical happened to chess soon after the days of Alekhine and Capablanca.Capa was saying that chess had become sterile,or words to that effect,and along came the likes of Botvinnik,then Keres and then Bronstein,and introduced rich new ideas in eg the Kings Indian.

Anyway,I already rested my case. It is obviously unfair to measure the overall strength of past players with today's players.There is no comparison objectively speaking.This games of this Suechting,rated 28 in the World prove that.Call him 2559 if you like,but if he played like he did back then today he would get slaughtered.I strongly doubt that he would even maintain 2100...except one detail:He would of course improve! He would quickly learn from us.You see this debate isn't about talent,it is about information and knowledge.

[JustinHorton]

Would it be possible to suggest that many of the stronger players of the time might have been woefully lacking in technique - of all kinds - by today's standards, but that tactically they are unlikely to have been so weak? I don't want to make an entire (and inappropriate) distinction between tactics and technique, but even so it's surely possible to see that while in some facets of the game players didn't really (again, by today's standards) know what they were doing, in others they were incredibly far ahead of a player who, today, might be of similar technical level. This is why I think the world top 100 from an earlier age might well give me a thrashing regardless of their deficiencies.

I do think that Chessmetrics, in calculating for Steinitz in 1886 a rating higher than that of any player currently active, is begging the question a little. But hoe much that is an exaggeration - it's hard, perhaps impossible, to say.

I think that's a point, too .For instance, if you look at football matches played decades ago -try for instance the 1966 World Cup Final - you'll notice that t's rather slower than today's game. Simply, players accustomed to the football of 1966, were they suddenly to find themselves in the game of 2009, couldn't cope. Perhaps they couldn't cope at all, at any professional level. But would that mean they were worse than players currently at, for example Macclesfield?

If I say they weren't, I don't mean this in the sense of "they would have the capacity to learn". What I mean is that you're in a position where some aspects of the game - in football as well as chess - have changed enormous, perhaps unrecognisably, over decades. But others haven't. So you can look at aspects of play from 1911 or 1930 or 1895 or when you will, and think God, these people can't play to save their lives. And then you'll look at others and think "these people could calculate like Shirov". Perhaps it's a very mixed picture and it depends what part of the picture you're looking at?

[JustinHorton]

What I'm partly trying to suggest is that in days past, players' performances may have varied far more wildly than they do today. I mean this both in the sense of varying from game to game, and varying within any given game. I suspect that both of these things - but especially, perhaps, the latter - make it really hard to make a like-with-like comparison.

(I know, obviously, that even today players have good days and bad days, but I'd guess that if we were take out the top and bottom 10% and look at what was left, what we'd find with today's professional player would be, for a number of reasons, a far more consistent level of performance than was possible for almost anybody 80 or 100 years ago.)