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If 4,1,2,3 was the best possible board order everyone would be using it.. thus making 3,4,1,2 the best order.. then everybody would be using it making 2,3,4,1 the best order.. and then back to 1,2,3,4 .. etc.. etc..
Or better yet, how about a little Vizzini from 'The Princess Bride'.
Anand played at the Turin Olympiad in 2006... I know this for a fact as I saw him there :)
Anand's last Olympiad made him part of the worst ever performance by a top seeded team. India was the #2 seed in 2006 and finished a dismal 30th. All 6 (an extra reserve in those days) of India's team played below expectations and all lost concomitant FIDE points.
The #1 seed, Russia, also bombed and fisished off the podium in 6th. Armenia, of course, won the first of their two consecutive golds. China took silver and the U.S. bronze.
Mathematically any board order will give the same mathematical expectations. No complicated proof is necessary : the teams rating averages remain the same! That is all I am saying. What you point out are subjective reasons why this or that board order could give better or worse results. These are unprovable but you can believe in that if you wish. You may be right... about 50% of the time. :)
Let me cite the simplest example possible, Jean, a 2 men team. Let's suppose for the moment that the 4 Russian elites, Kramnik, Karjakin, Grischuk, and Svidler (leaving out the currently ill Morozevich) are sitting around a chess club and Svidler challenges Grischuk to a team match, offering to let Grischuk have Kramnik on his team if and only if Svidler gets to pick the board order.
While some might argue that Kramnik and Grischuk should be the betting favourite since Kramnik is higher rated than Karjakin and Grischuk is also higher rated than Svidler, I'd be willing to bet some rather significant bucks on the Svidler team since he gets to choose the board order. Conversely, if Grischuk was picking the board order, I'd switch my bet to his team.
The empirical evidence cries out that Grischuk's team can't win IF he gets matched up with Svidler, his personal nemesis. While Grischuk scores pretty much dead even with his Russian peers, Svidler is the one exception. Grischuk is a wretched +1 -7 =16 vs Svidler.
Were Grischuk arranging the board order, then he'd face the higher rated Karjakin, whom he's +2 -2 =9 against while Kramnik would face Svidler and have a +6 -3 =15 edge. Surely you'd have to agree that board order would be significant in this example despite the unaltered mean arithmetic average.
Looking at past history between two players makes me think of the roulette player who uses pen and paper to record which numbers won in the past and now assumes different numbers are due to come up.
If you're going to say chess is different then you must be assuming that these guys are not smart enough to alter their game or opening repertoire to overcome the 'bete noir' effect.
Looking at past history between two players makes me think of the roulette player who uses pen and paper to record which numbers won in the past and now assumes different numbers are due to come up.
If you're going to say chess is different then you must be assuming that these guys are not smart enough to alter their game or opening repertoire to overcome the 'bete noir' effect.
Your roulette wheel analogy is a poor one, Vlad. You and I both know that your poor hypothetical sap will continue to piss away 5.26% (less if he's lucky enough to playing in Europe with only one house number) of his money regardless of how he/she picks his/her numbers.
Chess players are NOT roulette wheels and they DO have memories. To discount the empirical evidence would surely be betting folly. Have you heard Anand, for instance, try to explain his abysmal record against Aronian? Aronian is clearly very much inside his head and until he scores a few wins against his one nemesis amongst his fellow elites, then the 'smart' money should always be on Aronian. If Aronian manages to come out of the Candidates next March, perhaps we'll have a friendly wager (:
Looking at past history between two players makes me think of the roulette player who uses pen and paper to record which numbers won in the past and now assumes different numbers are due to come up.
If you're going to say chess is different then you must be assuming that these guys are not smart enough to alter their game or opening repertoire to overcome the 'bete noir' effect.
Do you know any good chess bookies, Vlad? Although you beg to differ, I think I could make a decent enough living going with the empirical evidence.
I'm sure I could have got excellent odds today in London on Wang Hao, who had the Black pieces against Hikaru Nakamura. I would have gladly made that bet given China's best has never lost to America's best. After today's win, Wang Hao now stands an unblemished +4 -0 =4 against Nak.
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