7 ms·

A four stone handicap in Go is way less than a four piece handicap in chess. Also, Crazy Stone is 6d on KGS.

valarauca1 13y ago
True I edited it down to just bishops. And KGS is very inflated, a 6d on KGS vs. a 6d international professional wouldn't be contest. The normal conversion I hear is a 3d on KGS is around a 1k on Eastern Servers. Or that's my experience for people who play on KGS and eastern servers. I'm a 4k on KGS, but I know my knowledge is a bit amateur or a South Korean 4k.
- z0r 13y ago
  It's roughly the other way around - a 1k on KGS is probably capable of easily holding down 2d on Tygem / Cyberoro
- ghaven 13y ago
  I'll second that it's really the other way around in both my own experience and the general perception I've always had from others.
- awwducks 13y ago
  There is a difference between amateur levels and professional dan levels. For reference, you probably have to be at least 7-8 dan on KGS to be close to being professional. Here is a rank comparison of various amateur systems: http://senseis.xmp.net/?RankWorldwideComparison http://senseis.xmp.net/?RankWorldwideComparison All of those systems will be weaker than any professional system. It's inaccurate to say that KGS is "very inflated" since it's measuring amateurs instead of professionals.
- asynchrony 13y ago
  Two bishops is still too much. An above average amateur chess player around ELO 2000 should regularly beat the world champion with two extra bishops.
  - fragsworth 13y ago
    More often than not, a loss of a single piece in chess results in resignation. You have to make a serious blunder to lose a game when you're ahead by one piece. I think a more accurate analogy would be playing a game of chess without a pawn, or two, maybe, but the game is so heavily based on opening lines that some might argue if you have a pawn handicap, it shouldn't be called chess.
    - gcp 13y ago
      From the perspective of a player over 400 ELO stronger than his opponent, such blunders do happen regularly.
    - S4M 13y ago
      My FIDE rating is slightly above 1900. I think that with 2 bishops I'll beat Magnus Carlsen easily, simply because I could sacrify one bishop for some attack and still be ahead in terms of material. But with only one bishop ahead at the start of the game, I doubt it will be enough.
      - gcp 13y ago
        You would lose a longer match. (You're the second player posting here who seems to drastically underestimate the effect of the ELO difference. That said, 900 ELO difference is so far out on the Bell curve that I wouldn't want to take bets on this one.)
      - sanoli 13y ago
        2 bishops is a massive advantage in chess, but I still don't think a 1900 player could beat Magnus. Maybe a 2200 player?
        gcp 13y ago
        2 bishops is IIRC about 700 ELO-equivalent, so this looks like a good estimate to me. (That said, 700 ELO difference is >99% winning rate, so we're in outlier territory, and as said in the other post, that would prevent me from taking bets :)
- bluecalm 13y ago
  A bishop in chess is massive. I am decent amateur (2300 ELO) and I crush the strongest computers in blitz (which are way stronger than the strongest humans) with bishop odds and it's not even interesting. 4 stones is more like a pawn, massive at professional level, not much in pro vs amateur duels. While playing vs Houdini I managed only few draws (and I lose like 95% of the time) with 2 pawns odds as well (and those were 2 pawns of my choosing, not random ones). There is huge difference between a bishop and two pawns.
  - gcp 13y ago
    I am decent amateur (2300 ELO) and I crush the strongest computers in blitz (which are way stronger than the strongest humans) with bishop odds and it's not even interesting. Either your rating is wrong, your are not actually playing the strongest computers, you're arguing from a too small sample size, or your definition of "crush" means "I win half of the games but those that I do win I do so convincingly". 4 stones is more like a pawn This is completely and utterly wrong. The winning odds of having a 4 stone headstart are an order of magnitude higher than those of being up a pawn. There is huge difference between a bishop and two pawns. Yes. About 150 ELO - equivalent. More than being another pawn up.
    - asynchrony 13y ago
      Where are you getting this material advantage / ELO handicap ratio? At any rate I'm also a decent amateur (2350 ELO) and it's absolutely unsurprising that a (2200+) player easily beats very strong computers with bishop odds.
      - gcp 13y ago
        I pointed some public research putting 1 pawn = 100 ELO advantage above. I used a different technique that didn't try to search for quiet positions, but calculated the ELO value of positional and material factors directly, and included human games as well. The mathematics to do so are (appropriately enough!) in a research paper from the Crazy Stone author.
    - 13y ago
- mcv 13y ago
  There's a big difference between amateur dans and professional dans (which is also why professionals are usually denoted with a p rather than a d).

True I edited it down to just bishops. And KGS is very inflated, a 6d on KGS vs. a 6d international professional wouldn't be contest. The normal conversion I hear is a 3d on KGS is around a 1k on Eastern Servers. Or that's my experience for people who play on KGS and eastern servers. I'm a 4k on KGS, but I know my knowledge is a bit amateur or a South Korean 4k.

z0r 13y ago
It's roughly the other way around - a 1k on KGS is probably capable of easily holding down 2d on Tygem / Cyberoro
ghaven 13y ago
I'll second that it's really the other way around in both my own experience and the general perception I've always had from others.
awwducks 13y ago
There is a difference between amateur levels and professional dan levels. For reference, you probably have to be at least 7-8 dan on KGS to be close to being professional. Here is a rank comparison of various amateur systems: http://senseis.xmp.net/?RankWorldwideComparison http://senseis.xmp.net/?RankWorldwideComparison All of those systems will be weaker than any professional system. It's inaccurate to say that KGS is "very inflated" since it's measuring amateurs instead of professionals.
asynchrony 13y ago
Two bishops is still too much. An above average amateur chess player around ELO 2000 should regularly beat the world champion with two extra bishops.
- fragsworth 13y ago
  More often than not, a loss of a single piece in chess results in resignation. You have to make a serious blunder to lose a game when you're ahead by one piece. I think a more accurate analogy would be playing a game of chess without a pawn, or two, maybe, but the game is so heavily based on opening lines that some might argue if you have a pawn handicap, it shouldn't be called chess.
  - gcp 13y ago
    From the perspective of a player over 400 ELO stronger than his opponent, such blunders do happen regularly.
  - S4M 13y ago
    My FIDE rating is slightly above 1900. I think that with 2 bishops I'll beat Magnus Carlsen easily, simply because I could sacrify one bishop for some attack and still be ahead in terms of material. But with only one bishop ahead at the start of the game, I doubt it will be enough.
    - gcp 13y ago
      You would lose a longer match. (You're the second player posting here who seems to drastically underestimate the effect of the ELO difference. That said, 900 ELO difference is so far out on the Bell curve that I wouldn't want to take bets on this one.)
    - sanoli 13y ago
      2 bishops is a massive advantage in chess, but I still don't think a 1900 player could beat Magnus. Maybe a 2200 player?
      - gcp 13y ago
        2 bishops is IIRC about 700 ELO-equivalent, so this looks like a good estimate to me. (That said, 700 ELO difference is >99% winning rate, so we're in outlier territory, and as said in the other post, that would prevent me from taking bets :)
bluecalm 13y ago
A bishop in chess is massive. I am decent amateur (2300 ELO) and I crush the strongest computers in blitz (which are way stronger than the strongest humans) with bishop odds and it's not even interesting. 4 stones is more like a pawn, massive at professional level, not much in pro vs amateur duels. While playing vs Houdini I managed only few draws (and I lose like 95% of the time) with 2 pawns odds as well (and those were 2 pawns of my choosing, not random ones). There is huge difference between a bishop and two pawns.
- gcp 13y ago
  I am decent amateur (2300 ELO) and I crush the strongest computers in blitz (which are way stronger than the strongest humans) with bishop odds and it's not even interesting. Either your rating is wrong, your are not actually playing the strongest computers, you're arguing from a too small sample size, or your definition of "crush" means "I win half of the games but those that I do win I do so convincingly". 4 stones is more like a pawn This is completely and utterly wrong. The winning odds of having a 4 stone headstart are an order of magnitude higher than those of being up a pawn. There is huge difference between a bishop and two pawns. Yes. About 150 ELO - equivalent. More than being another pawn up.
  - asynchrony 13y ago
    Where are you getting this material advantage / ELO handicap ratio? At any rate I'm also a decent amateur (2350 ELO) and it's absolutely unsurprising that a (2200+) player easily beats very strong computers with bishop odds.
    - gcp 13y ago
      I pointed some public research putting 1 pawn = 100 ELO advantage above. I used a different technique that didn't try to search for quiet positions, but calculated the ELO value of positional and material factors directly, and included human games as well. The mathematics to do so are (appropriately enough!) in a research paper from the Crazy Stone author.
  - 13y ago
mcv 13y ago
There's a big difference between amateur dans and professional dans (which is also why professionals are usually denoted with a p rather than a d).