BtM 4A: What’s the point of points?

September 1988, Position H

Black to play

Zagorovsky - Bryson (corres) 1984-1988

Contributions are welcome in the comments box. I’ll reply with what the Masters have to say about their choice to anybody who suggests a move.

Scroll down to see some commentary from me and the Masters’ feedback.

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The Beat the Masters scoring system can be confusing. Usually, you get points in direct proportion to the number of votes the panel give your choice of move. When the summariser feels there are better moves available than panel’s most popular option, then things can get difficult.

I’ve just looked at a position* where the move that scored the top mark of 10 points wasn’t the choice of any of the panel (but it was mine - suck it, bitches). Other times, like today’s position for instance, it doesn’t go like that.

5 of the panel chose … Ba4 (as I did). That’s the 10 point answer. 4 chose … Bg4 which gets you 9 points.  … Be6, the game continuation but chosen by none of the masters, will get you 8 points.

Clearly the summariser feels that … Be6 is the best move - it’s given an "!" - and yet nevertheless he awards two other moves higher marks because they got votes and … Be6 didn’t.

" … none of the panel had 48 hours to spare to delve into the complexities of the position …."  No doubt, but doesn’t this make the scoring arbitrary and a total waste of time?

Arbitrary - yes.  Waste of time - no.

It is of course absurd that I got 10 points in this position for choosing what is considered to be an inferior move. In that other position I mentioned, it’s irrational that I scored more points than all the Masters just because I happened to choose the move that turned out to be correct when my analysis - needless to say - contained a massive flaw.

What’s the point of generating a number that has a lot to do with random luck?

Leaving the opportunity to make a gag about mimicking the ECF grading system for one  moment, there is a serious response here. It’s all about motivation.

The number of points you score for any individual position doesn’t mean much. It’s not even that important if you score 55/90 for one set of positions and 62/90 in the next. In the long term, the general trend of rising scores is a good sign, but even that isn’t what matters. Not really.

The thing about getting a concrete evaluation of our efforts is that it makes it easier to keep going. To keep trying.

It doesn’t make sense. There’s no logic to it. The numbers don’t really matter. And yet the fact that there is a number and we can try to get it higher is really helpful for us humans. 

The numbers take an abstract impossible to measure concept like 'chess improvement' and makes pretend that it is measurable after all. So we can see ourselves getting better. Or maybe we don’t yet. Either way, we can keep striving. I don’t know why this works. It just does.

The numbers mean nothing and yet still give meaning to a programme of chess training. You don’t get this from studying random positions from annotated games no matter how good they might be.

No, it doesn’t make sense. Yes it is arbitrary. You may well feel aggrieved if you put in the graft required to discover the subtle point that makes ... Be6 better than all the other moves and weren’t rewarded for your efforts.

Even so, there is a point to the Beat the Masters points system. Don’t dismiss it out of hand.

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POINTS

10: … Ba4

9:  … Bg4

8:  … Be6

5:  … Ba3

1:  … g6, … Bxd4

MASTERS

… Ba4: Norwood, P. Littlewood, K. Arkell, J. Littlewood, Horner

… Bg4: Flear, Keene, Botterill, S. Arkell

… Ba3: Pein

SOURCE

1 … Be6, Zagorovsky - Bryson, corres 1984-1988

* which will most certainly be the subject of a future post