5 ms·

> #27 in America for eight-year-olds The granularity of this ranking is interesting.

by tudelo 8y ago

birken 8y ago
Well the USCF knows your exact USCF rating and your birth date, so it is very easy for them to make these lists. Though they should be taken with a grain of salt because, especially for young players who are improving quickly, their rating is very likely a lagging indicator of their current skill.
benatkin 8y ago
I disagree. This isn't a contrived category, which is common in tournaments, to make them interesting. On chess.com and Lichess there are chess tournaments that are restricted to people with lower than, say, a 1500 rating. If a 1700 chess player plays worse on purpose to get the score down, that's called sandbagging. There is little room for sandbagging here. People can't just change their ages, or up and move to the US. There are age ratings and regional divisions in different sports, and it both makes things more fair and opens up more opportunity to compete. This is a significant achievement and the boy is undeniably an elite chess player. Edit: s/soundbagging/sandbagging/g
- tbrake 8y ago
  > I disagree. Was there an edit to the OP I missed? What are you disagreeing with exactly? It was clearly a statement of opinion about how they found it interesting. You couldn't just elucidate more on the reasoning for the classifications, you had to first tell them they were wrong and then pedantically explain it. Peak fucking HN commenting.
  - benatkin 8y ago
    Yes, I'm disagreeing with the claim that it's interesting. Interestingness isn't entirely subjective. Mostly, though, I'm sticking up for the kid, whose sub-1500 rating shouldn't be scoffed at by any chess player who's more than, say, 10 years old.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - mbrameld 8y ago
      Did you maybe misread the first comment you replied to? What exactly is it you're saying isn't interesting?
- calvinmorrison 8y ago
  *sandbagging it's a term across all sports
  - kibwen 8y ago
    Including esports, where my experience with the term implies a meaning of "to intentionally disrespect your opponent by playing below your known skill level" https://www.ssbwiki.com/Sandbagging https://www.ssbwiki.com/Sandbagging
- zem 8y ago
  minor correction: "sandbagging". the term is common in the scrabble tournament community too, and i'd always assumed it was metaphorically "ambush by hitting someone over the head with a sandbag", but apparently that's only the presumed etymology, and there is at least one other theory out there: https://ridemonkey.bikemag.com/threads/anybody-know-origins-of-sandbagging-phrase.74415/ https://ridemonkey.bikemag.com/threads/anybody-know-origins-...
  - benatkin 8y ago
    just a typo :) thanks! I think chess.com is actually writing code to combat sandbagging. I don't know if they're using machine learning for it yet, but it would certainly be possible for a deep learning system to spot probable sandbaggers, if they have enough history of their games.
    - bluGill 8y ago
      It is a hard problem. People have good and bad streaks. People sometimes play drunk, which isn't actually sandbagging but has the same effect. People sometimes play tired and miss moves that would be obvious if they were more awake.
  - damienkatz 8y ago
    My understanding is it’s from car racing. Putting sandbags in during qualifying to make min weight. Then removed during the race to make the car lighter and faster.
- dlandis 8y ago
  What (if anything) stops people from cheating in online tournaments (by simply asking a computer for the best next move, given the current board arrangement)?
  - claudiawerner 8y ago
    I believe that the site (popular chess sites anyway) can detect when someone is continually playing the best (or near-best?) move, and often it's hard to just use the chess engine for one move because they can play "strategically" too of course.
  - bluGill 8y ago
    After game analysis. When someone picks the computer best most from a position you can ask how likely it is they came up with that on their own. Expert chess players recognize computer moves fairly accurately in a lot of situations (this is easy to test, just take a bunch of positions, show the last move and ask if it was human or computer). From there human judges look at the game and decide how likely it is someone cheated. Of course if you only cheat once you get away with it as nobody will be sure. However cheating once isn't enough to change a game - in fact it will probably change it for the worse on your side (without knowing what the computer intended you follow a bad line after the otherwise good move). Thus you can look at a series of games and concluded if the player cheated or not. From there you take after the fact adjustments which mostly means recalculate everyone's score as if those games didn't happen. Interestingly enough, chess masters generally will score alpha zero moves as human not computers. It will be interesting to see how online cheating progresses once better AI based chess computers become available.
    - dlandis 8y ago
      I see, that’s interesting. Although I also wonder if players cheat in other, more subtle, ways such as to just prevent blunders; not necessarily to choose the best moves.
      - omegaham 8y ago
        Yes, they do. The result is that time controls have shortened accordingly. It's a lot harder to cheat convincingly when you're playing bullet chess, whereas it might be easier to do so when you're playing 10 or 15-minute time controls.
- b0bby_tabl3s 8y ago
  "I disagree" then you proceed to go on a diatribe about nothing the comment you 'disagreed' with. You must LOVE hearing yourself talk. :eyeroll:
- travisjungroth 8y ago
  You disagree that it's interesting?
notyourday 8y ago
One thing to remember is that someone who has no official rating enters a tournament as unrated. The "does not suck in chess but isn't any good" rating is about 1500. Union Sq has a couple of Asian kids who play 1600-1700 hustlers ( with their parents watching ) and do about even with the which would make them about the same range. I'm sure they are unrated according to the US Chess Federation. Typically one would not want to enter an official tournament as unrated player while being a low rated player as that's the only time when one can compete in a low bracket and win a purse.

> #27 in America for eight-year-olds The granularity of this ranking is interesting.

by tudelo 8y ago

> #27 in America for eight-year-olds The granularity of this ranking is interesting.

Well the USCF knows your exact USCF rating and your birth date, so it is very easy for them to make these lists. Though they should be taken with a grain of salt because, especially for young players who are improving quickly, their rating is very likely a lagging indicator of their current skill.

benatkin 8y ago

I disagree. This isn't a contrived category, which is common in tournaments, to make them interesting. On chess.com and Lichess there are chess tournaments that are restricted to people with lower than, say, a 1500 rating. If a 1700 chess player plays worse on purpose to get the score down, that's called sandbagging. There is little room for sandbagging here. People can't just change their ages, or up and move to the US. There are age ratings and regional divisions in different sports, and it both makes things more fair and opens up more opportunity to compete. This is a significant achievement and the boy is undeniably an elite chess player. Edit: s/soundbagging/sandbagging/g

tbrake 8y ago
> I disagree. Was there an edit to the OP I missed? What are you disagreeing with exactly? It was clearly a statement of opinion about how they found it interesting. You couldn't just elucidate more on the reasoning for the classifications, you had to first tell them they were wrong and then pedantically explain it. Peak fucking HN commenting.
- benatkin 8y ago
  Yes, I'm disagreeing with the claim that it's interesting. Interestingness isn't entirely subjective. Mostly, though, I'm sticking up for the kid, whose sub-1500 rating shouldn't be scoffed at by any chess player who's more than, say, 10 years old.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - mbrameld 8y ago
    Did you maybe misread the first comment you replied to? What exactly is it you're saying isn't interesting?
calvinmorrison 8y ago
*sandbagging it's a term across all sports
- kibwen 8y ago
  Including esports, where my experience with the term implies a meaning of "to intentionally disrespect your opponent by playing below your known skill level" https://www.ssbwiki.com/Sandbagging https://www.ssbwiki.com/Sandbagging
zem 8y ago
minor correction: "sandbagging". the term is common in the scrabble tournament community too, and i'd always assumed it was metaphorically "ambush by hitting someone over the head with a sandbag", but apparently that's only the presumed etymology, and there is at least one other theory out there: https://ridemonkey.bikemag.com/threads/anybody-know-origins-of-sandbagging-phrase.74415/ https://ridemonkey.bikemag.com/threads/anybody-know-origins-...
- benatkin 8y ago
  just a typo :) thanks! I think chess.com is actually writing code to combat sandbagging. I don't know if they're using machine learning for it yet, but it would certainly be possible for a deep learning system to spot probable sandbaggers, if they have enough history of their games.
  - bluGill 8y ago
    It is a hard problem. People have good and bad streaks. People sometimes play drunk, which isn't actually sandbagging but has the same effect. People sometimes play tired and miss moves that would be obvious if they were more awake.
- damienkatz 8y ago
  My understanding is it’s from car racing. Putting sandbags in during qualifying to make min weight. Then removed during the race to make the car lighter and faster.
dlandis 8y ago
What (if anything) stops people from cheating in online tournaments (by simply asking a computer for the best next move, given the current board arrangement)?
- claudiawerner 8y ago
  I believe that the site (popular chess sites anyway) can detect when someone is continually playing the best (or near-best?) move, and often it's hard to just use the chess engine for one move because they can play "strategically" too of course.
- bluGill 8y ago
  After game analysis. When someone picks the computer best most from a position you can ask how likely it is they came up with that on their own. Expert chess players recognize computer moves fairly accurately in a lot of situations (this is easy to test, just take a bunch of positions, show the last move and ask if it was human or computer). From there human judges look at the game and decide how likely it is someone cheated. Of course if you only cheat once you get away with it as nobody will be sure. However cheating once isn't enough to change a game - in fact it will probably change it for the worse on your side (without knowing what the computer intended you follow a bad line after the otherwise good move). Thus you can look at a series of games and concluded if the player cheated or not. From there you take after the fact adjustments which mostly means recalculate everyone's score as if those games didn't happen. Interestingly enough, chess masters generally will score alpha zero moves as human not computers. It will be interesting to see how online cheating progresses once better AI based chess computers become available.
  - dlandis 8y ago
    I see, that’s interesting. Although I also wonder if players cheat in other, more subtle, ways such as to just prevent blunders; not necessarily to choose the best moves.
    - omegaham 8y ago
      Yes, they do. The result is that time controls have shortened accordingly. It's a lot harder to cheat convincingly when you're playing bullet chess, whereas it might be easier to do so when you're playing 10 or 15-minute time controls.
b0bby_tabl3s 8y ago
"I disagree" then you proceed to go on a diatribe about nothing the comment you 'disagreed' with. You must LOVE hearing yourself talk. :eyeroll:
travisjungroth 8y ago
You disagree that it's interesting?

notyourday 8y ago

One thing to remember is that someone who has no official rating enters a tournament as unrated. The "does not suck in chess but isn't any good" rating is about 1500. Union Sq has a couple of Asian kids who play 1600-1700 hustlers ( with their parents watching ) and do about even with the which would make them about the same range. I'm sure they are unrated according to the US Chess Federation. Typically one would not want to enter an official tournament as unrated player while being a low rated player as that's the only time when one can compete in a low bracket and win a purse.