Elo differences on 40/40 vs 40/4 CCRL lists? Human play?
Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2014 10:31 am
Compare this list, which is 40 moves in 40 minutes (40/40):
http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/
to this one, which is 40 moves in 4 minutes (40/4):
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/
Why do the engines in the longer time control not have a much higher Elo than the same engine in the shorter time control? Especially the top five in each list. I understand that Elo is relative to the pool you are in, but you would think that with more time the engines could seek the "truth" of a position better and avoid losing games, hence there should be compression of the Elos a bit more so you should have Elos converge about some number. That is not the case, and strangely you also see some lower rated engines actually perform weaker than their peers at longer time controls and vice versa. See for example the Hermann program and the Joker program in both lists, which flip-flop in Elo.
I speculate it is because certain engines are written to optimize their blitz performance, while others simply use the same algorithm regardless of time control.
Put another way: if there was no optimization for blitz, then every engine should have the same Elo in the two lists, regardless of time control (time would be irrelevant).
Finally, though this is a topic for another thread, if anybody knows of a list that correlates human Elo play and machine Elo play (so you can see what 3369 that Stockfish 5 scores equates to human play) please post here. I think there's no such list since the sample size is too small, only a handful of grandmasters have played these engines.
JayRod
http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/
to this one, which is 40 moves in 4 minutes (40/4):
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/
Why do the engines in the longer time control not have a much higher Elo than the same engine in the shorter time control? Especially the top five in each list. I understand that Elo is relative to the pool you are in, but you would think that with more time the engines could seek the "truth" of a position better and avoid losing games, hence there should be compression of the Elos a bit more so you should have Elos converge about some number. That is not the case, and strangely you also see some lower rated engines actually perform weaker than their peers at longer time controls and vice versa. See for example the Hermann program and the Joker program in both lists, which flip-flop in Elo.
I speculate it is because certain engines are written to optimize their blitz performance, while others simply use the same algorithm regardless of time control.
Put another way: if there was no optimization for blitz, then every engine should have the same Elo in the two lists, regardless of time control (time would be irrelevant).
Finally, though this is a topic for another thread, if anybody knows of a list that correlates human Elo play and machine Elo play (so you can see what 3369 that Stockfish 5 scores equates to human play) please post here. I think there's no such list since the sample size is too small, only a handful of grandmasters have played these engines.
JayRod