"Christopher Dearlove" <chris@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:K4ZJNXG5QZ4HFw04@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> In message <7tOdnan7yPuKA0PanZ2dnUVZ_h-vnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, David Kane
> <davidekane@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes
>>Changing the scoring in chess
>>would not significantly increase the cheating possibilities
>
> Factually inaccurate. It's been pointed out that changing the scoring
> system as you suggest increases the advantage of cheating.
The specific example did *not* do that, because it was
ridiculous and impractical.
And you are forgetting that there are other ways to cheat,
probably far more effective. (connect to Fritz. e.g.). So effectively
the cheating possibilities are unchanged. And don't forget that
changing the scoring will *decrease* draw-based cheating, so
overall there would be a decrease in dishonest collusion.
> Now to throw something concrete into this. Freakonomics (Levitt and
> Dubner) quote numerous examples of cheating (teachers to name one
> less obvious example). But in particular they quote good statistical
> evidence that sumo wrestlers throw matches. This is precisely what
> you are arguing wouldn't happen in chess. Given we already have
> evidence (agreed draws) that chess players aren't moral paragons
> (and I think Bobby Fischer blew that one too) there's a near certainty
> they'd be doing something similar. (Maybe the coin toss, or they
> could auction the game throw between them in advance, with an
> agreed signal when it's invoked by mutual agreement. That solves
> most of the problems you raise, even though a simple coin toss is
> mostly good enough.)
Collusion to draw is widely accepted and part
of the game. Even chess' rules are not clear on the issue, and
the rules that do exist are almost never enforced.
Losing on purpose is a far bigger moral step. There are very few
do***ented cases of thrown games.
>
> And to return to Fischer. When he was on top, most of his
> opponents were Soviet grandmasters. It's well recorded that the
> USSR authorities would instruct players what to do. With a net
> gain from throwing games, they would have been laughing all the
> way.
>
> And finally, what's the problem with draws? Apart from that draws
> can be instructive and interesting, let's just suppose they aren't,
> and that 80% of games are draws (I think it's slightly less than
> that). So only 20% of games are interesting. Who has time to
> watch even that 20%? The only people who'd have to watch draws
> are people watching a single game, live. And we can pretty much
> assume those people are chess enthusiasts, and they clearly
> don't mind draws.
It's not that draws are never interesting or that there is some
threshold of draw incidence below which chess becomes interesting.
It's that when the return on playing for a win is low (as with the
current scoring), players don't do it. So games are not fully contested
(because contesting games is non-optimal). In effect draws between
GMs statistically aren't full games, they are partial games, yet the
existing scoring system treats them as full games. Changing the
scoring is one way to address that defect. I will grant that all proposed
solutions have problems. However, increased cheating in general
is not one of them.
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