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BGonline.org Forums
Snowie ER and XG elo - the new Performance rating (PR) system
Posted By: Timothy Chow In Response To: Snowie ER and XG elo - the new Performance rating (PR) system (Ian Shaw)
Date: Tuesday, 24 November 2009, at 11:29 p.m.
It's not clear to me how much it matters which error-rate method one chooses. What are error rates used for, anyway? It seems to me that there are two main uses:
1. Players use them privately to help them improve their own play.
2. People use them informally to compare the strengths of different players.
As far as #1 goes, I don't see that it matters too much which ER system I use, as long as I stick to one system. So what if forced moves appear in the denominator? I'm just using ER as a rough guide to whether I'm improving. As long as forced moves appear in the denominator today as well as six months from now, it's perfectly valid for me to compare the two numbers. Who is so stupid that they fool themselves into thinking that by just by exploiting the peculiarities of some particular ER system, they are really improving their backgammon game? Anybody that stupid deserves to be fooled.
As far as #2 goes, I also don't really see the need to pick the "right" ER method. The key word here is "informal." As far as I know, almost all the money in backgammon is doled out based on wins and losses, not on ER. Maybe an ER competition is played for real money once in a while. But if ER is used mostly for bragging rights and gossipy entertainment, then there's no danger that using the "wrong" ER method will seriously deform the way backgammon is played. And what does it really matter anyway, if everybody uses an "erroneous" ER system 1, which rates X as better than Y, even though Y is better than X according to the "right" ER system 2? From the point of view of entertainment, this sounds to me like a good thing, because it gives you something more to have fun arguing about.
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