FIDE titles and EGF Go ratings

    Keywords: Rules

tderz: I do have the following questions:

Who of you is a tournament player in Chess and Go?

I would like you to compare your efforts in time & intensity of study for that moment where your Go and Chess ratings had the same value.

1) How can I compare the ELO-ratings in Chess and Go w.r.t. to their difficulty to achieve? [1]
Do you have FIDE and an EGF rating and could compare your personal efforts?

sagemerlin: I am a Brazilian Chess (1818 FIDE) player and arbiter and go player (14k Little golem, probablay about 5-3k in the Nihon ki-in Brazil). About 1 year ago I made a comparation of the elo-kyu systems so I could compare my Chess strength to my Go's. So the first thing that i thouth was: "A Go profesional its easy to recgonize he is at least a 1pro-dan, what about a Chess player?" So, usually in Chess we call a player as professional when he is about 2200 Fide (Candidate Master). So 2200 Fide = to 1p. and then I made this way, 6 amateur-dan = 2100, 5d = 2000, 4d = 1900, 3d = 1800, 2d = 1700, 1d = 1600, 1k = 1550 (I belive that the diferance between kyu players is smaller then between the dan players) 2k = 1500 and so on. Whe you think up the ladder I am not sure wich way should take, 100 diff, or 50 diff, if I took 100 the strongest Go players would be about 3000 (probably the rigth way until now since this is the strength of the most strong computers, and in GO computer are still weak). If you took the 50 dif the strongest players will be about 2500... I think that its a bit low, any way, I think that my "table" works quite fine...

2) Who plays (played) Go and Chess and has (had) achieved the same ELO-rating in Chess (FIDE) and Go (EGF-ELO).
e.g. FIDE 1500 & Go nkyu
FIDE master = 2300 ELO points; Go 3dan = 2300 ELO points etc.[2]

ilan: As far as I know, FIDE ratings start at 2200, except for women.

MRFvR: It was once like that, but they have been lowering their limit. Now Fide ratings starts at 1400 (but they have plans to move down up to 1000). This is a good thing, since allouds even patzers like me to be rated 8-)

3) How much time did you need for your getting your resp. ELO ratings (rank, dan)? [3]

4) What is your [ext] percentile (1), [ext] percentile (2) in the world or in your country in the respective sports (difficult to obtain figures (worldwide) + the country might be strong in Chess but weak in Go a.v.v.) [4]

  • How many Go players are there? I remember an internet source (or the GW) speculating about 30 millions.
  • How many Chess players are there?[11]

tderz: I realize now that the parameter percentile is quite un-interesting to know. It is - still difficult to establish - more wishful to know the number of players with a higher rating than yourself. Even for the EGF figures there will be a high number of players around 1, 2, 3 and 4 dan who are not listed with an EGF-rating. There will be an even bigger and more important dark number for the important countries China, Korea and Japan.

Hence, the individual & personal responses of you w.r.t. questions 1 (effort), 2 (rating) and 3 (time) for that moment where your Go and Chess ratings had the same value are more important here.

5) I might not be correct with my following figures: i) If Chess uses a 200 ELO points interval for a winning probability (33%/67%; correct?) and Go a 100 ELO point interval per standard deviation; and ii) if Kasparov has now an ELO rating of 2804 (ref.: [ext] http://www.fide.com/ratings/advseek.phtml) and iii) Yi Chang-Ho, (9p) has 2960 ELO points (on 2004-12-10; source [ext] http://www.goweb.cz/progor/)

-> ii) then a lowly player of FIDE Chess ELO 2200 rating playing Gary (ELO difference = 600; => 3 standard deviations away => 99% probability for winning, resp. losing) had theoretically a (0.33)exp3= 3.6% winning chance vs. Kasparov (if Gary is not retracting to remis :-), or all remises are excluded), hence winning 3-4 out of 100 games.

Now in practice this must be highly unrealistic. Gary would win all simply by letting the player make the serious mistakes and not voluntarily taking own risks (I guess; I play some Go, but I do not play Schach, but schwach (German = weak)). Again, all remises - wished - by the weaker player would not be counted.

Relation of (long) speculation 5) with question 4 [11]:

A 2200 ELO points Chess player would be (theoretically and only if my figures are not flawed) approx. 3 standard deviations away from the best, highest-ranked chess player (Kasparow). However a 2200 ELO (EGF) Go player (= EGF 2 dan) would be 6 standard deviations away from todays best Go players (e.g. Yi ChangHo with guessed 2900 ELO). This difference in standard deviations (3 for Chess vs. 6 for Go) for probability of winning against top players should express itself in percentiles (to which %-age of the best players do you belong?).

-> iii) For Go it is not much different. Due to the different nature of the game, Yi could always shelter ( :-) ) behind 100% sure 0.5 point wins and avoid the tempting fair 60-100 point whipping. ([ext] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_ranks_and_ratings#Winning_chances_are_more_than_cumulative) In other words, by moderating the risk exposure and steering for a lower win in points (not a 50% chance for 140 points), the better player increases the probability for this win. This behaviour increases the chance up to 100%. [5]

6) (I do not indulge in nor understand the mathematical difference to the ratings here [ext] http://holigor.fcpages.com/baduk.htm, 1SD = 200 ELO points for Go) [6]

I do hope that several Chess&Go players here on Senseis could report on their experiences of how they acquired their resp. ratings (time, effort etc.); Many thanks in advance, Thomas


Discussion

ilan: I am starting to find this page somewhat annoying due to the errors and mistakes which the author tderz continues making despite being corrected. When someone asks for information from people who know what is going on, that information should be incorporated, otherwise the whole exercise is just a waste of time and effort. In particular,

1. The term "ELO" is incorrect and must be abandonned.

tderz: Ilan, I am terribly Sorry if writing ELO instead of elo was my foremost and gravest error. It just slips my attention and many other linguistic errors occur as well. I would like to behave from now on, but are still confused: the very [7] ("see also this intro on ELO" (sic) [ext] http://gobase.org/studying/articles/elo/, which I, of course, checked before) which you cite below, writes - as you do - ELO. Yet I see your point that elo (or Elo?) makes mores sense. All the information as FIDE elo-rating of e.g. 1600 points, FIDE master and expert I got from the very FIDE-websites. I thank you for your continuous effort and contribution here on this site. I can feel from your writing that you wanted to express your annoyance and you were not the anonymous 10.53.72.156, who modified the somewhat vague version 2 (below) on February 11, 2005 - 15:37.

2. There is a complete misconception about FIDE rankings which are limited to games played in relatively infrequent round robin international at the highest levels. In particular, only the best chess players have FIDE rankings, and, apart from dedicated international players, even these play a minority of their tournament games in FIDE tournaments.

3. FIDE rankings start at 2200 and there is no such thing as 1500 FIDE which is as ridiculous as saying that there is a 20K professional. (women's ratings start at 2000 though, so some ratings are < 2000).

ferdi: That was the case for many years, but since then the FIDE has lowered the starting point in general, for both men and women, from 2200 to 2000 to 1800 to 1600 points right now. ELO 1500 is still impossible, though ;-)

4. There is no such thing as a FIDE expert.

[1]

A) Use a histogram approach

tderz: Please give me your figures. How much time/effort did you need to achieve the same ELO rating points in Chess as in Go.
What does effort have to do with it - comapre the percentages of people with top grades (in bands obviously) to find some comparison. Presumably you should get some sort of Bell curvish figure?? Afterwards I could create any diagram I wish. Indeed a histogram chart as subgroup of colum diagrams might be appropriate once I have much numerical data (ratings versus times). First the data please.

Dear A), do you understand now, what I would like to know?

C)
[2] A) ... C) what relevance is this?

tderz: We'll see, first I would like to hear from your experience.

[3] A) ... C) Time is dependent on a persons inate ability, access to knowledge, time available to learn, age, etc

tderz: I know, please, how much is it in your case? Do you play/ed Chess and Go on the same level and got ELO ratings?
Then you are qualified to answer. I am not, because I do not have a chess rating.

[4] A) Go and look it up in the rating lists ;-p

tderz: I do not have your name - do you play/ed Chess and Go and are listed under the same name? Do you have an EGF-ELO-rating? Furthermore your experience of time & effort for achieving your resp. levels are not listed there. You are most probably the only one qualified to tell me your experience.
Thank you for participating, A).

[5] A) What was the question?

tderz: You got me here. If you are Chess and Go player, please tell me about your feelings and imagined winning chances when playing someone with 100, 200, ... 600 difference in ELO points, up to the strongest players.

[6]


ilan: The first thing to understand about the Elo system is that it was named for the actual person who invented it, Arpad Elo, so the spelling "ELO" is misleading, since all capitals is reserved for acronyms, in English, that is. [7]

As far as I can tell, the rough correspondence 2000 <=> 1 dan with each dan being a 100 point difference works fairly well, and also in comparing Go and Chess ratings, at least for levels above 5K. I don't think the comparison hold up well for weaker than about 5K, in particular, in chess, I don't believe that there is a strength level corresponding to a rating of less than 1000 apart from complete beginner, though I have seen US Chess rating lists with negative ratings (which would theoretically correspond to 20K in Go). [8]

However, the rating comparison only goes so far. There have been 2700 grandmasters who lost tournament games to 1800 players (Bent Larsen in the Canadian Open in the 1970's)[9], but it is hard to imagine a 7d player losing an even tournament game to a 2K, if they were ever to be paired up, that is. I should mention that I did see a 8d lose an even 9x9 game (.5 komi) to a 10K computer on KGS [ext] http://files.gokgs.com/games/2004/12/8/Arwen-GnuGoBot.sgf This example is quite telling, as 9x9 is more similar to chess in terms of rank difference, since you cannot always recover from one error or risky move, so you can always lose to someone much weaker than you. [10]

tderz: Ilanpi, thanks for replying. I thought of you when I created this page and checked your info. I may have contacted you individually if I had found rating info on your home page.

I would like to stay focussed on my specific questions first: Do you have FIDE and an EGF rating and could compare your personal efforts?

ilan: To answer your main question, I would definitely say that, up to first order, my progression in chess has been about the same as my progression in go. You have to take in the fact that I am now 30 years older, which means that I have more and less mental abilities. My analytical skill was completely undeveloped when I started chess, and completely developed when I started go. On the other hand, I had total recall for useless facts back then, and could concentrate on many things at a time, which I cannot do now. More generally, I was discovering the world, and things made more of an impression on me. On the other hand, I know a lot more about myself and the world now. All in all, the plusses and minuses seem to have evened out.

Otherwise, I am continually amazed by the number of levels of awareness one has in go, that is, how one has to completely change one's outlook on the game in order to improve. That was not so true in chess, where you could improve by simply studying and knowing more openings, endgames, and tactics. Maybe it is for this reason that there are more opportunities for one's improvement to stop in go. In chess, I certainly knew why most people stopped improving -- it was because they like the social aspect of learning openings, you could be a "fan" of your favourite player by copying his opening, the equivalent of wearing the jersey of your favourite football player, and were turned off by the austere nature of the endgame and its unsocial aspect -- you can't play your favourite players endgame, because they will all play it the same correct way. In fact, my advice to most chess players who stop improving is to burn their opening books (OK, just store them somewhere out of reach), which they of course ignore because it is too harsh, just like The Truth they are busy avoiding. Nothing like that in go, it looks like...

I also recently took up roller skating after many years of bike racing, and I find a good analogy between cycling versus skating and chess versus go. Cyling and chess will both give you the power base you need to compete, but I find that both go and skating need something extra, which is a sense of balance. In particular, miles and miles of training on the road will not achieve as much results in speedskating as short technical sessions indoors where you learn to shift your weight to develop power. On the other hand, road cycling is well known to be the last refuge of uncoordinated athletes with lots of power (I know a number of world class cyclists who cannot ride no hands). I see the analogy in go, for example, when there is a "tactical" player who always tries for interesting long combinations. He will be able to make life for a hopeless group, or win some fight in a corner, but will lose because he overlooked the "vague" moves which didn't have any direct tactical significance. Anyway, I certainly play like that... However, in chess, if you win the tactics, you will usually win the games.


[7]: see also this intro on ELO[ext] http://gobase.org/studying/articles/elo/
[8]: EGF-Info: [ext] http://gemma.ujf.cas.cz/~cieply/GO/gor.html
[ext] http://gemma.ujf.cas.cz/~cieply/GO/gor.html
[9]: To make up his reputation, wasn't Bent Larsen also the only one with a positive score (he won two games) against Fischer, before he was crushed as Taimanov and Petrosjan?
- No he wasn't players from Vik Pupols to Boris Spassky to Efim Geller to Gligoric all had positive scores over Fischer.
[10] I agree with you.

PurpleHaze: A better testament to Larsen's strength is The USSR vs The World match, when Fischer demanded first board Larsen objected and Fischer uncharacteristically backed down quickly conceding that he no reason to believe that he was stronger.

To suggest that Larsen in the 70's was a 2700 player is also inaccurate. Spassky and Petrosian as World Champions were about 2690, and he was less than that. Further a rating of 1800 CFC (Chess Federation of Canda - Federation Canadien d'Echec) would be above 1950 on the world scale (in about 1979 we all received a boost of 154 points to bring us closer).

Current FIDE ratings are nearly 100 points higher than 1970's era ratings.

The best example I know of would be Bruce Amos who is a chess [ext] IM and a 6d. Who during his active periods in the respective games would have been in the Canadian top 5 for more than a decade. Shame he is playing bridge now.

ilan: Well, I disagree with you regarding Canadian ratings vs FIDE ratings during the 1970's. That was the exact time and place when I was active in chess, and I have no reason to believe that Canadian ratings were lower than FIDE ratings. As I recall, most Canadian players of the time had CFC ratings which were not lower than their FIDE ratings (of those who had both).

Otherwise, there is irony in the Larsen losses since his defeats by computers were often cited by 1970's computer chess advocates who would then fail to note his losses to human A players (< 2000 rating).

ferdi: To give at least one answer to at least one of tderz questions: Fide around 2250, egf around 2250 (I don't know exactly :-) [ext] FIDE 2242,[ext] EGF 2254 (Feb2005), playing both games for more than 15 years.

tderz: Many thanks, ferdi. You are the first player here to respond to my questions 1+2+3. I guess that you did the same effort for both games - is that correct? If yes, would you then say that your FIDE and EGF ELOs of 2250 are directly comparable? That was the cause for all my questions. Could you try to give me your opinion on questions 4 and 5?

Many thanks in advance, Thomas

ferdi: I wasted the same amount of time, yes :-) But since I don't think Elo or EGF ratings are good for anything, I don't feel qualified to answer questions like "Are Elo and EGF ratings directly comparable?". And I can't answer your questions 4 and 5 because I don't understand them :-(

tderz: Questions 4 & 5 are meant for you to judge your very, very ... theoretical chances indeed: In 100 even games with each Kasparov (Chess) and any of the top 9 dans Yi ChangHo, Gu Li or Cho U (etc.) - where would you think your winning chances are higher? Ok, ok , I would think that you'd lose all (excluded Chess remises). Yet if you count the levels of players between you and the resp. top players with each next-higher level having a 2/3 winning probability against the lower level. How many more levels would that be? I think 3 in Chess vs. 6 in Go (for about your rating). So you did the the same effort in both games and I would conclude from there that Go is the deeper game. Does a Go 3dan (EGF) equal a Chess 1.600 FIDE rating (or ca. 2250)?

Second, theoretical question: What do you think is easier for you now: Going to EGF-ELO 2350 (3-4dan) or FIDE 2350? What title would that be? Does your present chess rating have a title (name)?
An easier, similar question: coming from FIDE and EGF-ELOs 2150 and promoting to 2250, what felt easier?

dnerra: A fried of mine is ELO 2430, and has just become 3d. I think he has invested a lot more in chess than in go.

[11] The difficulty with both figures would be the cut-off point for beginners. On the other hand both, FIDE and EGF-lists are finite. I guess one could take the FIDE list as representative for the whole population of Chess players.

 However the EGF list is not representative for all Go players, because the high dan region is not as dense as in China/Korea/Japan. 

Does an International Rating list exist which lists all players from all countries, where, e.g. the ratings are converted to one standard?

An idea would be to take players who are listed in several lists (e.g. AGA and EGF and ...) as anchors for conversion (I guess one still misses out on Asia here).
Question: Do rating lists based on ELO statistics exist for Asian amateurs?


tderz: I had the thought is a 2300 ELO-Go rating comparable with FIDE-"expert" or, if not, with what FIDE rating is it comparable. Perhaps I should take standard deviations (6 s.d. to top Go) and deduct 6 times 200 ELO points (=1.200) from top Chess ratings. This would result in 2800 - 1.200 = 1.600.
Does a Go 3dan (EGF) equal a Chess 1.600 FIDE rating?

HolIgor: Comparing to the old Soviet chess or modern Russian ranks: 1 dan (about 2000 EGF) is like a 1st grade player, 3 dan ( 2200+ EGF) is like a candidate, 5 dan ( 2400 +) is similar to a master, 7 dan is like a grandmaster. As far as I know 1600 in chess is the level of a casual player, perhaps, something like 5 kyu in go.

larsen I played chess at a level somewhere between 1600 (Polish rating) and 1800 (English active chess rating about 145 BCF). In Go, I'm 6 kyu, yet I feel my chess play even now is less erratic.


ilan: Yet another difference between chess and go: When I was learning chess, when I got to about 1800 I was fairly confident that I could beat any person who had never studied the game, that is, who had progressed only by playing (I now realise that this was probably true, except for a handful of exceptions). On the other hand, I don't yet see any equivalent strength in go, maybe 5 dan?

tderz: How should I understand this who had never studied the game and progressed only by playing (to where?)?
If the ratings are the same (Chess 1800, Go 2k or 5dan) it should not matter for the winning probability which style you apply or have. If the homegrown, most probably stubborn peasant's fighting style + willpower results in a rating X (e.g. 5dan) without theoretical opening finesses then it should be equal to the well-founded player with theory knowledge. Or did you mean, never lose to a beginner anymore? Of course beating any person means in Chess, confidently being beyond remis chances ("Remisbreite ", even against beginners). See e.g.[ext] "Nimzowitsch kam gegen den Amateur nie aus der Remisbreite... " that Amateur was no beginner ...


This is a copy of the living page "FIDE titles and EGF Go ratings" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2007 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
[Welcome to Sensei's Library!]
StartingPoints
ReferenceSection
About