Site review - Chessmetrics

Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, ... : who was the greatest world chess
champion of all time? Petrosian was the world champ in 1964, but
where was he ranked in the list of top-10 players at the end of the
year? Who has the best chance to win the forthcoming Ivanchuk -
Ponomariov match for the FIDE World Championship?

We all have our opinions on these questions, and while our collective
opinion matters, it's often useful to have an objective, quantitative
answer. If you like chess history & statistics, and you haven't seen
the site...

Chessmetrics by Jeff Sonas
http://www.chessmetrics.com/

...you're really missing something. Here's a Web site which attempts
to provide quantitative answers to qualitative questions about the
relative strength of chess players. The home page is a well organized
index to the many pages on the rest of the site. The introduction
starts...

'Hello, my name is Jeff Sonas. I am a statistical columnist for
KasparovChess.com, and in the past couple of years I have developed
many statistical methods for predicting and analyzing chess results.
More recently, I have developed a new system for rating chess
players, and I have used that system to calculate annual historical
ratings, retroactively back to 1850. This website allows you to
explore them.'

...The top of the home page links to two documents explaining the
intricacies of the Sonas rating system...

About the Chessmetrics Rating System
http://www.chessmetrics.com/Documents/AboutSystem.htm

Comparison between Chessmetrics and FIDE ratings
http://www.chessmetrics.com/Documents/FIDECM.htm

...The remainder of the page consists of index tables. The first
table, an index to 'historical ratings for a particular date', starts
31 Dec 1851 and ends 10 Sep 2001. The pages show the top-10 active
players on the date, a color coded graph of their rating progression
for five years before and after the date, and a list of the top-500
active players on the date. The top-500 list includes additional info
like age and confidence factors for the top players. The age has an
additional link if the list marks a player's birthday.

Looking at the list for 10 Sep 2001, I discovered that of the 487
players listed with an age, Vassily Smyslov was the oldest player on
the list (80.46 years old) and Teimour Radjabov was the youngest
(14.5). The following shows how the player's ages were distributed:-
80s 1
70s 1
60s 6
50s 34
40s 101
30s 185
20s 142
10s 17
In other words, Smyslov was the only player on the list to have
reached the age of 80, Korchnoi was the only player in his 70s, and
185 players were in their 30s.

The second table, to 'find a particular player's career list', is an
index by the first two letters of the players' surnames. This lets
you bring up the chart of a specific player in exactly two clicks.

The third table, to 'view age-based lists' is an index by player age
from 11 to 82 years old. Clicking on 17, for example, gives the top-
10 players as of their 17th birthday, a graph of their progress for
the years surrounding age 17, and a full list of the top-500 17 year
olds. I once read that a player peaks at age 29; the top-5 'players
on their 30th birthday' were Fischer, Kasparov, Capablanca, Anand,
and Karpov.

The fourth table, 'Quick links to everyone who has ever been a top-
five player' lists 100 names. I'll explore this in a moment.

The fifth table, 'All-time rating leaders across peak 1, 3, 5, 9, and
15 years', names Capablanca as the top player across 1, 3, 5, and 9
years, while Kasparov tops Capablanca on the 15-year list. Somewhat
curiously, Fischer is listed 3rd on the 15-year list with a time span
of '31-Dec-1960 to 31-Dec-1974', although he stopped playing in 1972.
Sonas calculates his rating as 2894 after the 1972 title match with
Spassky. The rating then bounces between 2888 and 2897 until he is
listed inactive on 31 Aug 1975.

The last table links to 'Color-coded top-12 graphs spanning 10, 30,
50, 100, or 152 years'. The
10-year ranges, for example, show color coded graphs of the top-12
players for each ten year interval starting with years evenly
divisible by 5, from 1850-60 through 1995-2002. The 152 year graph
shows the top-12 players of all time.

---

Long time readers of my articles might remember that I discussed
historical ratings in...

Chess History on the Web (2000 no.24)
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw01d15/2000-24.txt

...The goal at that time was to build a list of the best players of
all time. I compared the list to the player collections on the
University of Pittsburgh (UPITT) archive. The result was a short list
of top-ranked players who were missing collections at UPITT.

I constructed my own list of great players from two sources. The
first was an offline resource, 'The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and
Present' by Arpad E. Elo, B.T.Batsford, London, 1978. I scanned data
from Appendix 9.4 ('All-Time List of FIDE Titleholders') and Appendix
9.5 ('All-Time List of Great Untitled Players'). Elo's 'FIDE
Titleholders' listed 590 players; his 'Great Untitled Players' listed
197 players. I combined these with a second source, an incomplete
list of historical FIDE ratings, which had data for 226 players
active since Elo wrote his book.

If I'd had the Chessmetrics list of 'everyone who has ever been a top-
five player', I could have been spared this work. Since I had taken
the time to develop my own list, I decided to compare it with the
Chessmetrics of top-5 players. This would let me (1) double check my
own amateur effort against a more professional job, and (2) discover
any surprises in the Chessmetrics list.

Comparing my own list of 143 names against the Chessmetrics list of
100, I came up with 64 matches. I then compared the remaining 36
names on the Chessmetrics list with Elo's lists. I got 33 matches;
all but 4 of these were on the list of 'Great Untitled Players'. This
left three unaccounted names.

While I was preparing this work I noticed a few Chessmetrics names
which I would not expect to be on a list of 'everyone who has ever
been a top-five player'. The first name was Judit Polgar. The
youngest of the Polgar sisters is certainly the strongest woman who
has ever played chess, and she may have approached the top-10, but I
could not recall her having ever been listed on any top-5 FIDE list.
When I checked the Chessmetrics page, I saw that the highest ranking
Polgar received was no.8 on the 31 Dec 1995 list. She also ranked
no.9 on a few other lists in 1995 and 1999. No.8 is not far from
no.5, but it's not top-5 either.

The second name was Vladimir Makogonov. Indeed, when I looked at
Makogonov's Chessmetrics page, I saw that he was ranked no.5 on 31
Dec 1943, and no.4 on 31 Dec 1944. Fair enough.

Getting back to the names which had not appeared on any of my
previous lists, the three from the Chessmetrics list were James
Kipping, Victor Knorre, and Igor Naumkin. Kipping was ranked no.5 on
the 31 Dec lists for 1857 and 1858. Knorre was ranked no.2 at the end
of 1866, no.3 at the end of 1867, and no.2 at the end of 1868. The
1868 list places him 2nd behind Gustav Neumann, but ahead of 3rd
Steinitz, 4th Anderssen, 5th Lange, and 6th Zukertort.

Naumkin was the biggest surprise. He was ranked no.4 on 30 Sep 1987,
and no.5 on 31 Oct 1987. The FIDE list for 1 Jul 1987 lists Naumkin
(USSR) at 2470 with 20 games played in the preceding six months; the
1 Jan 1988 list has him at 2485 with 25 games played. These ratings
were not even sufficient to be ranked in the FIDE top-100. This
deserves further investigation.

Comparing in the other direction, the highest ranked on my list of
143 names not on the Chessmetrics list of 100 top-5 names were
Svidler (whose top Chessmetrics ranking was no.8 in 2000), Morozevich
(no.8 in 2001), and Rublevsky (no.9 in 2000). That's also fair enough.

---

Let's return to the question I raised at the beginning of this
article : Where was Petrosian ranked at the end of 1964? Chessmetrics
says that he was no.2, after Fischer. Fischer first reached the no.1
spot at the end of 1963, jumping over Petrosian and Botvinnik from
the no.3 spot on the previous list.

How many of the recognized world champions have reached the no.1
position and how many haven't? The highest ranking for each world
champion was:-
1 Steinitz
1 Lasker
1 Capablanca
1 Alekhine
5 Euwe
1 Botvinnik
1 Smyslov
1 Tal
1 Petrosian
2 Spassky
1 Fischer
1 Karpov
1 Kasparov
3 Khalifman
2 Kramnik
2 Anand
One of these two will be the next FIDE world champion:-
2 Ivanchuk (no.9 on the last list)
22 Ponomariov (ranking from the last list)

With two exceptions, all of the champions up to the 1993 FIDE -
Kasparov rift reached no.1. Since the rift, none of the champions has
been ranked no.1. Kasparov has kept that position to himself.

Euwe's highest rankings were no.7 end-1934 and no.5 end-1935. The
no.5 ranking trailed Capablanca, Lasker, Nimzowitsch, and Alekhine.
At the time of his 1929 match with Bogoljubow, Alekhine was ranked
no.1 and his opponent no.5, but Bogoljubow had dropped out of the top-
10 by the time of the 1934 match. Alekhine slipped from no.1 to no.4
in 1935, the year of his 1st match with Euwe.

Spassky was ranked no.3 on 31 Mar 1969, the last list before he won
the world title from Petrosian. On the first list after the match, he
was ranked no.2. Fischer had been no.1 since end-1963 and Spassky
never managed to overtake his famous adversary.

Khalifman's no.3 ranking was in 1986, when he was 20 years old. He
was ranked no.24 before the start of the 1999 FIDE World Championship
in Las Vegas, where he won the title. Vladimir Akopian, his opponent
in the last round, was ranked no.30.

How many players have reached the no.1 position without having become
world champion? On a visual scan of 'Rating graphs : 10-year ranges',
I came up with Paulsen & Neumann in the 1860s-70s, Tarrasch in 1895,
Maroczy in 1907 (due to Lasker's inactivity), Reshevsky in 1938 &
1943, and Fine in 1941. I confirmed the no.1 ranking on the page for
each player, although there may have been others that I overlooked.

The highest Chessmetrics ranking for perennial no.2 Keres was ...
no.2! He first achieved the runner-up position in 1946 and last
achieved it in 1960.

---

Who is Jeff Sonas? The listing for chessmetrics.com places the
registrant in San Francisco, California. Sonas writes elsewhere on
the Web, 'I'm really not that great of a chess player, and I have a
pretty minimal education in statistics'. Whether or not that is
excessive modesty, former world champion Garry Kasparov thought
enough of Sonas's chess and statistics to give him the opportunity to
write for...

Kasparov Chess
http://www.kasparovchess.com/

...where you can find articles under the 'search' option. An early
article demonstrating some of the power behind Sonas' approach was

A fascinating look at supertournaments throughout the ages.
http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=7374&p_docLang=EN

...which listed 131 of the greatest chess events, from 1870 Baden-
Baden to 2000 Sarajevo. Although flawed -- no tournaments are listed
between the 1962 Curacao Candidates tournament and the 1970 Palma de
Mallorca Interzonal -- the list attracted serious attention. GM Larry
Evans copied the list in his column for the April 2001 issue of Chess
Life. Sonas defended the article and further described his methods
in...

Statistics and the Greats of Chess History
http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=7771&p_docLang=EN

The Statistical Theory Behind the Predictions
http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=11420&p_docLang=EN

Chessmetrics: The Sonas Statistical Method Updated
http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=14378&p_docLang=EN

...Some other practical applications of his method have been...

Viktor Korchnoi: the Strongest 70-Year-Old Chessplayer in History
http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=16177&p_docLang=EN

Statistical Predictions for FIDE KO Semifinals
http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=18935&p_docLang=EN

Will Ponomariov Be the First Teenage Champ?
http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?
p_docID=19378&p_docLang=EN

I intended to write more about Arpad Elo, the inventor of the Elo
rating system, but I ran out of time. Elo has had a profound impact
on the chess world. It is no accident that he was inducted into the
chess hall of fame during its earliest years.

Will Jeff Sonas and Chessmetrics also have an impact? It would be
wonderful to see the current Chessmetrics list of top-10 chessplayers
published regularly in the sports (or leisure, I won't quibble)
section of major newspapers.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

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