On Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 12:24:27 AM UTC+1, Tim Chow wrote:
It seems that I scored 7/10, which may be the highest score that I've
ever achieved on an Othello quiz. I see that one of the ones I got
wrong was the "easiest" problem as measured by how many participants
got it right!
Congratulations to Yokota Kazuki, who has won the competition three
times in a row (allowing for the fact that there was no competition
in 2020 or 2021).
Since the rollouts are the arbitrator, I think the natural way to rank the participants would
be as follows:
1) For every wrong answer, give the negative evaluation for that answer as in the rollout.
2) For every omitted answer, replace the omission by the worst of the candidate plays.
3) Sum and take the highest sum.
4) In the case of ties, rank the participants according to their solving time.
Of course, if there's only one player with 10/10, and we're only interested in first place, this doesn't matter.
There are some interesting (to me) points of comparison between competitive backgammon-problem-solving and competitive chess-problem-solving.
(As I see it), some points are as follows: [If I use any terms you don't know (and want to know), the answers can easily be ascertained by googling --
for example "chess helpmate".]
1) Backgammon problems seem heavily oriented towards practically useful positions. All of the positions look like they could easily have arisen in practice.
Here, the comparison with chess problem solving could hardly be more marked. Standard chess problem solving has direct mates, endgame studies, helpmates and selfmates.
Helpmates and selfmates don't even make any sense from an ordinary chess-playing point of view. Direct mates make almost no sense, given that chess doesn't confer much
benefit to minimising distance-to-mate. Furthermore, the positions are hardly ever plausible. In particular, Black nearly always has a should-have-resigned position, and White
has a position which makes White's inability to win earlier implausible. Endgame studies do indeed ask for optimal practical play. However, many of the positions are unnatural
here too, as they are selected for being interesting and difficult and clear, with the practical value not a factor in selection.
2) There are a huge number of prestigious (although not heavily funded) chess-problem-solving events. If someone doesn't need to earn money (and there are a surprisingly
large number of such people) and has the funds to travel, it is quite possible to be a full-time chess-problem-solver as there is a yearly calendar of events.
3) Because of point 1), there is quite a difference between the chess communities and chess-problem-solving communities. Over 99% of the world's top chess players don't compete
in chess-problem-solving events. Probably many of them would do poorly even if they did. However, the converse question is also interesting:
How many of the world's top chess-problem-solvers are expert in playing chess? Here, everything
depends on what we mean by "expert". If we mean at least the strength of "expert" level as defined by the USCF, then the answer is probably: "At least 90% of them".
If we mean IM strength or better, then it may be around 25 to 30%. There are many names that are well-known in both communities -- in particular John Nunn and Piotr Murdzia.
4) The prestige of chess-problem-solving in the chess community is far less than backgammon-problem-solving in the backgammon community. I don't think Piotr Murdzia is
particularly well-known despite having been the world's best chess-problem solver.
5) Chess-problem organisations maintain a rating list for chess-problem solvers, which is designed to have a similar scale to OTB chess ratings. I'm not sure if this is done in
backgammon.
Paul
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