Forum for Direct Comparison
Obfustication or Incoherence [#2110]
I have stated that the definition of Direct Comparison is hard to understand. I would like to reference which definition I am talking about in case this changes.
A player's Direct Comparison is the Number of Wins Score of only the games played against each other. This sentence doesn't really make sense in English. Robert says that it makes sense mathematically, how a small child with a poor grasp of english reading it from the rules page would understand or anticipate that I don't know.
PS: I originally stated this on a different page, but somebody has now moved the thread, further obfusticating the issue. :)
Well, I can't understand this sentence as well. But why can't you just point that out and propose a better one instead of hiding your statement behind mathematical criticism. (He isn't a native speaker after all - and neither am I.)
I have pointed it out to Robert on numerous occaisions, he generally ignored the observation, and then eventually said it didn't matter because it made sense mathematically. That it makes sense to him mathematically doesn't seem to be good enough to me. Updating these pages is a matter for the EGF rules commission, since they are aware that it does not make sense then they should update the page. They have not done so.
I'd say that this sentence is very difficult to parse. Assuming that the referred page is self-contained, the term Number of Wins Score isn't defined anywhere.
My guess: The direct comparison score of a tied player is the number of games he or she won against other tied players.
That is not good enough because furthermore it must be the same tie. A tournament can have several different groups of tied players.
The EGF Tournament System Rules presume knowledge of some terms like McMahon or Number of Wins Score. The definition of direct comparison in them presumes a context. The rules are not dictionary definitions.
Nevertheless, I agree that the rules' wording can be improved in principle. The EGF's AGM has more important business though than to update mere wording improvements every year.
Okay. I found ![[ext]](images/extlink.gif)
your rec.games.go post, which explained things so much clearer. But the definition could have been better worded. In particular for me, the term Number of Wins Score sounds like fixed constants for all players once all the games in a tournament has concluded, but it is actually used as a function that takes in different subsets of the tournament games as one of its arguments. Further more, the term each other is also ambiguous.
Therefore: A player's direct comparison score is his or her Number of Wins Score computed from only the games played between the players that are tied to the said player.
It seems to me that the problem is mostly solved if we create a page defining exactly what is meant by Number of Wins Score. I will attempt to do this, but I hope that Robert or someone else will correct me if I get it wrong.
Thanks. I was thinking of doing the same thing, but you did it first.
what this is normally written as is your number of wins or the same number of wins. Understanding this awkward phrase does not fix the sentence.
isd, it's not clear to me whether you're talking about the page Iterative direct comparison on this site, or something on Robert Jasiek's site, or something else entirely. As far as this site is concerned, I and others are doing our best to improve it. It will help if you can be clear and constructive in your comments.
He's referring to the following sentence as quoted from the EGF Tournament System Rules:
A player's Direct Comparison is the Number of Wins Score of only the games played against each other.
You can guess what I think about this sentence.
Xela, Iterative Direct Comparison is to my mind an ugly and inaccurate tiebreaker, I am afraid I don't wish to contribute to that page. Between just 2 players I can live with using Direct Comparison, for more I feel sick. :)
As Unk80 guesses, I am referring to the sentence I originally mentioned in this thread.
As written somewhere else I generally don't like tie breakers, especially the SOS, SOSOS and derivative ones. However, this page would gain tremendously by not creating one by one a realm of definitions and turning the topic into an academic (=incomprehensible) one. The aim should be to explain in plain words (in correct english) what Direct Comparison, Iterative Direct Comparison (= repeating the Direct Comparison with only those players who are still tied after Direct Comparison) is all about. The idea is basically so simple, the definition should be as well. Using less nouns may help.
Kind regards Tapir
I agree, the spontaneous creation of new definitions is disturbing. The AGA defined face to face result quite well I think. Again the term Direct Comparison is not actually one that is in common usage, it appears to have been made up by somebody. When I played chess we always talked about their individual result http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tie-breaking_in_Swiss_system_tournaments
The USCF has an odd definition http://www.swissperfect.com/tiebreak.htm#principle%20other
FIDE has a more normal looking definition for Direct Encounter
http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?view=article&id=127
Personally I think Iterative Direct Comparison is bonkers.
A page explaining what IDC is is not a page about who likes or dislikes it and why.
The term Direct Comparison has been in use at least since the 90ies. It appears to have existed before I started to play in 1991. (I have not studied old sources to find out its birth.) In Europe, it is the predominating term. Maybe in the USA, it is not? I can't know. AGA players use quite some other phrases for tournament terms. Maybe "face to face result/score" is one of them.
The term Iterative Direct Comparison was probably created during the 90ies when experiences tournament organizers and rules freaks noticed that some tournaments used DC while others used IDC. (In particular, IDC was and is commonly used in European Go Congress side events of the groups - KO system while DC was chosen for the German championships.)
So it is by far something else than spontaneous creation of a term. Rather the opposite is true: Usage existed long before any term had been set.
Go theory, tournament theory and rules theory are evolving all the time. Enriching language by new terms is one of the most powerful and useful means to advance to enhanced or advanced understanding. Language in general evolve and create or import new terms all the time. Some of them spontaneously, like peanuts (for "relatively small - but in absolute terms possibly big - amounts of money").
Of course, "Direct Comparion" is a term made up by somebody quite like "Snapback" was made up by James Davies and "Go" was made up by some unknown person(s). Go is a special game requiring specialized terms. The better our understanding shall be the more (alternatively the better selected) terms we need.
And surely Chess players do everything their own way. They do not know what "SOS" is but speak of "Buchholz-Sonneberger" or whatever it was called.
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