Real-World Skill Levels: ELO

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Anthony

If you break ties evenly, it's about 59%. 100 points of Elo is 0.35 standard deviations (assuming two normal curves each with standard deviation 200), 1 point of skill is about 0.24 standard deviations on 6d6, which means if you interpret a chess game as a single quick contest, 1 point of skill is about 70 Elo. If you want to flatten the numbers to more like common GURPS skill levels, treating a chess match as a best of 5 makes the ratio about 150.

Is there a way to more closely simulate actual play: the higher the skill of the players, the more likely they are to draw, and the higher the first-move advantage. Top level play sees about 60% draws and 60% of the rest white victories.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Anthony

If you break ties evenly, it's about 59%. 100 points of Elo is 0.35 standard deviations (assuming two normal curves each with standard deviation 200), 1 point of skill is about 0.24 standard deviations on 6d6, which means if you interpret a chess game as a single quick contest, 1 point of skill is about 70 Elo. If you want to flatten the numbers to more like common GURPS skill levels, treating a chess match as a best of 5 makes the ratio about 150.

So what's it look like for best of 40? That's about the number of moves each player makes in a typical rated game and one roll each time you make a move seems like both the level of resolution you'd want if you were trying for some combat system analog, and the upper limit for number of rolls you could reasonably call for in any case.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by malloyd

So what's it look like for best of 40?

You multiply by the square root, so 430.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Is there a way to more closely simulate actual play: the higher the skill of the players, the more likely they are to draw, and the higher the first-move advantage. Top level play sees about 60% draws and 60% of the rest white victories.

Regular contests I guess, possibly with less normalization of high skill levels.

EDIT: OK, did some simulations. Normalize skill levels per regular contest rules (in other words to 10). If the character playing White wins the contest, they win. If the character playing Black wins the contest, they only win if they won by a margin of 4 or better, otherwise they tie. This gives results of:
White Wins: 25% of matches, 59.85% of wins
Black Wins: 16.77% of matches, 40.15% of wins
Tie: 58.23% of matches

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by Anthony

A general problem with computing real-world skill levels is that skill is usually not numerically ranked in the way RPGs do it. However, there is an exception: the ELO system....The floor for skill in USCF is 100....

I get that this is a role-playing section of the forum, so "RPG" almost certainly means role-playing game. But as for the rest....

ELO Electric Light Orchestra (band)
ELO Early Learning Opportunities (Florida)
ELO Epitaxial Lateral Overgrowth
ELO Extended Learning Opportunity
ELO Enabling Learning Objective
ELO East Lothian Orienteers (orienteering club; Edinburgh, Scotland, UK)
ELO Essential Learning Outcomes
ELO Epoxidized Linseed Oil
ELO Environmental Liaison Officer
ELO Emisora Libre de Orcasitas (Madrid, Spain radio station)
ELO Extra Large Orifice (fire sprinklers)
ELO Eric Loizeau Organisations (French event company)
ELO Extremely Low Observable
ELO Enemy Lock On! (military flight simulation magazine)
ELO Emerging Leaders Ocala (Florida, USA)
ELO Edge Localized Orbital
ELO Engineering Liaison Office
ELO Establishment Liaison Officer
ELO Engineering Logistics Office
ELO Electric Start-Long Shaft-Oil Injected (boat motors)

USCF United States Chess Federation
USCF United States Cycling Federation
USCF Union Sportive des Cheminots de France (French: Sports Union of Railwaymen of France)
USCF United States Commodity Funds LLC (stock symbol)
USCF United States Cricket Federation
USCF United States and China Foundation (est. 1992)
USCF United States Cavers Forum

. acronyms.thefreedictionary.com

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Alden Loveshade

acronyms.thefreedictionary.com

Makes sense you wouldn't find it there, as it is a chess ranking system devised by Arpad Elo. Not an acronym at all.

In short, every time you win, your Elo score goes up (the higher ranked the opponent, the bigger the bump). Every time you lose it goes down (the lower ranked the opponent, the bigger the drop).

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Alden Loveshade

I get that this is a role-playing section of the forum, so "RPG" almost certainly means role-playing game. But as for the rest....

Of course, considering Anthony referred to it as the ELO system, you could just search Google (or DuckDuckGo, if you prefer) for that (ELO system), and the first result (outside of ads) is the Wikipedia page on the Elo ranking system.

[Anthony]

I agree I should have provided a link and indicated I was referring to chess, my error; forcing readers to figure out what I'm talking about doesn't enhance communication.

[oneofmanynameless]

Just a quick note: it's the "Elo system", not the "ELO system." "Elo" is the name of the guy who designed it, not an acronym. Common mistake.

[Dragondog]

I started this thread on the subject. Though our starting assumptions differ.