Re: [computer-go] chess and go ratings

[William Harold Newman <william.newman@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Dec 04, 2003 at 04:58:40PM +0000, Nick Wedd wrote:
> In message <3.0.32.20031204174954.012058d0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Vincent 
> Diepeveen <diep@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
> 
> >Even though my chess level is comparable to 2nd dan professional in chess
> >though, the only real advantage i might have at a 9x9 go board, is that it
> >has just 64 squares which i am used to.
> 
> How do you compare chess levels with go ratings?  Can you give the Elo 
> number corresponding to amateur 1-dan?  or the go grade corresponding to 
> "strong club player"?  As press officer of the British Go Association 
> people sometimes ask me this, and I don't know how to give a helpful 
> answer.

I don't know how he does it, but when I did it last year, I sketched a
linear map from estimated rating of strongest player to estimated
rating of typical club player. Obviously there's some slop at the top
(especially in Go where pros don't like to map their ranks onto the
scale used by amateurs) and even more at the bottom (because no one
agrees exactly what's a typical club player). I think I said 1500 = 5k
for my purposes, and 2800 = 10d or 11d.

It's very imprecise, but it seemed better than nothing for the purpose
of trying to cross cultures in an extended discussion with a strong
chess player here last year. It's certainly seemed good enough to let
you answer "how strong are you [a 23xx player] in our terms? I dunno
exactly, but considerably stronger than 1d."

If you try to do this, it probably helps to point out at the same time
that a game of Go is longer than a game of Chess. Obviously it's
longer for the purposes of time -- 5 minute speed Go being
considerably sillier than 5 minute speed Chess -- and less obviously
it's also longer for the purpose of measuring small skill differences.
I usually compare a game of Go to three games of Chess, saying that
you'll probably manage an upset against a Go player who's 2 stones
stronger than you much less often than against a Chess player who's
correspondingly stronger than you -- maybe about as often as you might
manage an upset (in the overall match result, not an individual game)
if you played a 3-game Chess match against the stronger player.

-- 
William Harold Newman <william.newman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
In examining the tasks of software development versus software maintenance,
most of the tasks are the same -- except for the additional maintenance
task of "understanding the existing product". -- Robert L. Glass, _Facts
and Fallacies of Software Engineering_
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