Nick Addante Post on IL

[n1ck]

Alex, pretend I am Borghetti and you are Alex Moiseyev. Now pretend my posts are moves throughout your world title match with him coming up. Analyze and responsd what is presented to you with the same care.

I am not complaining that I had a harder opponent the first round. If everyone looks at the information presented as a whole, here is the conclusion you should draw:

1) There were incorrect pairings in 2 critical rounds where mathematics should have delegated the correct pairings.

2) The first round is completely random, and thus requires human touch as opposed to a mathematical/computer touch.

3) There are scenarios within rounds where the mathematics only goes so far, and the human element comes into play with the random selection between evenly scored opponents

4) IF THERE ARE TWO MAJOR ERRORS IN PAIRINGS WHERE MATHEMATICS IS OBVIOUS, WHATS TO SAY IN THE ROUNDS WHERE THE HUMAN FACTOR IS MORE PRESENT PAIRINGS AREN'T....SO MUCH RANDOM AS DESIGNED?

5) All of the "random" human element pairings seem to be favorable in all cases towards the Ellisons and infavorable towards myself, so statistical likelihood of the events occuring was calculated.

6) The statistics show what played out is extremely unlikely

I don't care who I play, you come to a tournament to play the best players. It should be obvious this is how I feel, when I continue to pursue the Master Division despite all of the people who tell me to play in the Majors. I want to play the best, and earn my position by playing the best.

I never said anything about the 3-mov deck, that is your own problem. How come in GAYP everyone starts with the same 12 by 12 setup each round? Well, then force every single pairing to play the same 3-mov opening each round.

[Alex_Moiseyev]

...

Nick, there is only one way to beat unfearness - go above it. I don't really know what else I can say. Can you believe or not - sometimes people offer me 3 points (like it happened in IL). But it didn't work that way 15 years ago. I had stronger opponents, my competitors had easy opponents. Today my opponents sometime spend all round time on 1-2 moves and the position is judged with draw. So what ???

Thanks God, in OH we don't have serious problems. Richard Beckwith traditionally run events for many years and I never had any objections to pairings or any other issues. One time when I played with Michael Holmes in OH State, it was a minor conflict related to round time and ruling was in Michael favor. I still think I was right, however ... like in Soccer in World Cup:

Referee is always right, even if (s)he is wrong !

[john reade]

The 2 Ellison brothers should have played each other in the first round.

[Ingo_Zachos]

Nick,

I had some sympathy for your claims as I was sceptical that not all last round encounters were not started at the same time, which is a usual precaution to avoid arranged games (but can not avoid drawn encounters).

But that seems a problem of the urgent needs of other participants, and not a fault of the refree.


It does not prove anything to look at the pairings.
Swiss system has no clear standard (except if u take FIDE swiss system), and it depends on your defaut settings in Swiss Perfect (ie color matching, which tie breaker system, what ranking to use to make the pairings etc. ...)if the pairings can be "reproduced" like it was in this tournament.

It is absolutely no fault of the referee here.

And a probability of 10 percent is not that unlikely as you may think.
It means it can happen.
And it happend.

So what?
Blame reality not to match your dreams?

Nick, a true difference between any online gambling and playing checkers is that there is much more interaction if u really play checkers right at your side in the room you are playing.

That is why it is thougher and why it will always be harder to play and win then to gamble online and gain a high rating there.

And that means u have to respect referee decisons and conditions that did not work in your favor.
Like in all sports btw.

It is not like online play,
You can not run away and try it with a new name and new software/hardware tomorrow.
You have to take it for a year.

Next year is your chance to show what you can do.
Or you can challenge him to a match to clarify who the better player is.

But don't hide in your ivory tower plz.

To John:
they used repairing, so maybe then they would have played in round one and the last round, then causing the same problem.
Another example why repairing has nasty side effects.


Greetinx from sunny old Europe,

Ingo Zachos

[n1ck]

Ingo,

Thankyou for your very well thought out reply. I agree with you, no matter what probabilities are presented, there is still a chance things can occur, I mean, someone eventually wins the lottery despite the odds.

The two rounds of incorrect pairings were not a statistical anomilee, these were 0% possible.

Additionally, it is not a 10% chance I don't play any player from Illinois as you mentioned, it is a 0.10% chance = 0.0010 x 100%

Which means, 99.9% of the time you will be matched up with an Illinois player in the 7 round Illinois tournament

The purpose of these statistics, is to justify the random "95% confident something is wrong here" statement I posted on the Gary Ellison thread. Someone called me out for throwing a number out there without any calculations, so now, here are my calculations to show 95% was a conservative estimate.

[Ingo_Zachos]

Nick, easy

accept your failure and don't blame others of foul play anymore plz.

It was in your hands before the last round, but you only drew your round, so it was not in your hands anymore.
PPl. that is why you played a skittle game rather then watching the games on which so much depended.
You knew you had a chance, but not a very good one anymore.

My advice is to come back next year,

and not to blame anybody for this temporarily setback.

You had bad luck, but it was not foul play.


And you are young and talenated, so try to improve and do not waste time to argue.
Time is on your side.

Greetinx from sunny old Europe,

Ingo Zachos

[MostFamousDane]

The Swiss system should only be a lottery for the first round.

The Swiss system is unfortunately a complete lottery. We have covered this before on the forum but as prince says "there is joy in repetition"

There are a number of certain assumptions or preconditions for the swiss system to work, in checkers at least two are not met:

1. Ranking is effected by draws - it is assumed that a draw against an opponent means that player A played worse that player B who won. This makes sense for other games but for a game like checkers this makes no sense - gayp is very drawish and in 3-move you are not playing the same opening.
2. Players are close to each other in strength - so it doesn't matter much which opponent you draw. We don't have enough players for this to be the case and quite often there is a big gap in skill between the top and the bottom players.

These two missing preconditions makes the outcome of most checkers tournament close to completely random for all players except the players at the very bottom. Completely absurd results occur on a regular basis as has been covered on this forum. There really is only two things you can do about it:

A. Accept that the results are random, pay no attention to the results and just play for fun
B. Try to change peoples minds and hope that one day a majority of the checkers players undestand basic math/logic - good luck with that .

[liam stephens]

Well, if the ratings were being used properly, the sharks and the minnows would not be allowed to swim in the same pond !

[john reade]

The possibility of the 2 brothers playing in the last round is a strong argument against repairing.

[kiwinurse]

The Ellisons are good people,and should not be discredited here.Theyre not to blame for the lottery draw,and you dont pull down people who do much for checkers.From experience,theres aften a lot of unfairness in checkers,especially at live tournaments,and lots of areas need to be addressed,they are overdue for correcting,but dont shoot down the good people that make checkers happen,who have been playing for years and are the life of checkers.

[Eric Strange]

Should also not shoot down the young players who are the future of the game.

[kkelly]

If the immature\selfish\self serving attitude shown by "our future" in this thread is the direction we are going, then it is a sad future indeed.
Compare the demeanor shown by both parties.
1st party (and his mouthpiece) provided half truths, un-verified accusations and slander all the while promoting self.
2nd party has remained relatively quiet,allowed proper authorities within the organization to address the issues, both brothers have selflessly provided, organized and promoted checkers and the ACF for years in a positive manner. Both have acted as GentleMEN.

If the actions and selfish attitudes of the 1st parties are the future of the ACF, then we must change it.
If the the actions and selfless attitudes of the 2nd parties better represent what the ACF should be, then we should follow that lead.

John Wayne once said
Life is tough.
but it is much tougher when your stupid.

[kiwinurse]

Im not shooting down anyone,the future of the game rests also with the workers of the tournaments,who put the money and time and effort into the matches,without them we have nothing,to discredit them is just plain stupid

[n1ck]

"I'm not shooting down anyone"

-- I feel shot

"The future of the game rests also with the workers of the tournaments"

-- Long term or short term?

"Who put money and time and effort into the matches"

-- Put money, and take money by finishing 4th instead of 7th

-- Put time....and finish a critical 7th round in a matter of minutes

-- Put effort....and manage to incorrectly pair 2 of 7 rounds

"Without them we have nothing, to descredit them is plain stupid"

-- I,along with others, understand the carefully thought out process undergoing for this particular situation. Because you do not agree with me, this makes me ignorant. If I would have known this, I would have attended your accredited university Jan instead.

[n1ck]

Kkelly,

How do I begin this, I am so offended. How am I mentioned by such a beginner...

I have not spoken any half truths. Everything I have stated is a whole truth. The half-truths are coming from their end.
What I have stated:

1) 1st Post: The Ellisons victory appeared sketchy, no accusation of cheating, just leaving things up for open-ended conversation that everyone else came to that conclusion, which is indeed my belief. There is nothing half-true about the fact that I believe they cheated.

2) 2nd Post: Gene did not wake me up, that is a complete whole truth. He states he spoke to me at 6:15 AM indicating that he woke me up. This is a half-truth, as its possible he said something to me while I was sleeping, but he did not wake me up. And it IS HIS RESPONSIBILITY AFTER I ASKED HIM TO WAKE ME UP, TO INDEED WAKE ME UP. If he said no, then it would be my responsibility, as it originally would have been.

3) 3rd Post: I addressed all the slander brought my way from Gary's comments about my attire and increase in skill. So if he is telling whole truths, I dress like a scumbag and cheat? That is not the case.

4) 4th Post: 100% reproduced tables from ncc checkers of the tournament score table and pairings with statistical analysis. Nothing half true about numbers which do not lie, and incorrect pairings according to the swiss system mathematics.

5) 5th Post: Literary analysis of what the statistics and score table represent, to those of you who spend such little time reading into the narrative opulence of the information presented, but pick apart the most insignificant and indirect details. Nothing half-true about what my analysis of what the logic to the statistical analysis means to me, but shows in general.

6) 6th Post: Correcting Ingo's incorrect understanding of 0.10% as 10%, do the math from the calculations, nothing half-true that it works out to be 0.0010 = 0.10%

7) 7th Post: Letting Jan know how I feel about her comment, nothing half-true about my feeling towards her remarks.