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Topic: Correlation of winning to first capture (Read 3220 times) |
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Fritzlein
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Correlation of winning to first capture
« on: Apr 24th, 2006, 10:26pm » |
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This post is in response to a request from 99of9 as to how winning correlates with making the first capture. In my database there are
28786 games, of which
20673 are rated games, of which
19601 had at least one capture, of which
19592 were decisive, of which
19526 didn't have a suicide on 2w or 2b.
I eliminated the suicide captures because I speculated that they were handicap games, but maybe I should have left them in because they involved a totally stupid bot. Anyway 13092 of the 19526 remaining were won by the side making the first capture, which is 67%.
To eliminate bot silliness, I further pared the remaining games to the 1340 which were between two humans. Of those, 936 were won by the player making the first capture, or 70%.
By the way, I defined the side to make the first capture as the other side from the side first losing a piece. Thus if you frame my rabbit on a trap, and I abandon it later, I credit you with making the first capture even though the piece died on my move. I hope that is what you wanted, 99of9. If this doesn't answer your question, I'll be happy to rejigger the query.
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frostlad
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Re: Correlation of winning to first capture
« Reply #1 on: Apr 24th, 2006, 11:40pm » |
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Is there any trend as to what was lost when people were able to come back and win?
I would imagine that games when a rabbit was captured first that the win / loss ratio would be a lot closer.
It is interesting to see though that the odds of winning are so lopsided to the player making the first capture though.
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99of9
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Re: Correlation of winning to first capture
« Reply #2 on: Apr 25th, 2006, 12:08am » |
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on Apr 24th, 2006, 10:26pm, Fritzlein wrote:| I defined the side to make the first capture as the other side from the side first losing a piece. Thus if you frame my rabbit on a trap, and I abandon it later, I credit you with making the first capture even though the piece died on my move. I hope that is what you wanted, 99of9. |
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Yes, that's exactly what I was interested in. Thanks heaps for analysing this.
A 7:3 advantage wasn't quite as conclusive as I expected. But I think it is an important piece of data to give us hints about the value of the opening, and the value of material (relative to positional influence).
This could be dominated by totally uneven contests. Would it be possible to run the same query limited to humans rated within 200 rating points of one another.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Correlation of winning to first capture
« Reply #3 on: Apr 25th, 2006, 12:20am » |
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on Apr 25th, 2006, 12:08am, 99of9 wrote:
Yes, that's exactly what I was interested in. Thanks heaps for analysing this. |
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My pleasure.
Quote:| This could be dominated by totally uneven contests. Would it be possible to run the same query limited to humans rated within 200 rating points of one another. |
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That cuts it to 674 games, of which 454 were won by the player making the first capture. That's 67%.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Correlation of winning to first capture
« Reply #4 on: Apr 25th, 2006, 12:40am » |
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on Apr 24th, 2006, 11:40pm, frostlad wrote:| Is there any trend as to what was lost when people were able to come back and win? |
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In order to have enough games to get a reasonable percentage, I dropped back to allowing bot involvement. The winning percentage as a function of what the first capture was is:
R 67%
C 63%
D 65%
H 68%
M 78%
E 85%
I know you're all dying to know about the games where the first capture was an elephant, and the other side won. The game numbers are
798
1253
1926
4124
7593
8107
11022
11957
13697
16451
16942
17126
17485
23621
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frostlad
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Re: Correlation of winning to first capture
« Reply #5 on: Apr 25th, 2006, 12:49am » |
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wait, so those players lost an elephant first and still managed to win? Is that possible?
I spose we could save it for a new challenge eh evan? ( yes I'm from minnesota I do say eh )
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99of9
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Re: Correlation of winning to first capture
« Reply #6 on: Apr 25th, 2006, 4:50am » |
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on Apr 25th, 2006, 12:40am, Fritzlein wrote:R 67%
C 63%
D 65%
H 68%
M 78%
E 85%
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So the first rabbit is more valuable than a dog? 
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mouse
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Re: Correlation of winning to first capture
« Reply #7 on: Apr 25th, 2006, 6:01am » |
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on Apr 25th, 2006, 4:50am, 99of9 wrote:
So the first rabbit is more valuable than a dog? |
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This is interesting.
The reason can be the first capute of a dog is followed by a capture by the other side in the next move. If this is the case the first capture is not really a capture but part of an exchange. Which could explain the relative low correlation.
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NIC1138
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Re: Correlation of winning to first capture
« Reply #8 on: Apr 25th, 2006, 8:38pm » |
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Following a bad influence from Swynndla, I´m developping the habit of suiciding my elephants in the winning move. I hope you are excluding these games from the statistics...  (of course this is not the FIRST kill/capture, but the last...)
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Janzert
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Re: Correlation of winning to first capture
« Reply #9 on: Apr 25th, 2006, 8:39pm » |
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Very interesting results, Fritzlein.
As mouse sort of alluded to it would be interesting to see the numbers split out for outright captures and piece exchanges. I wonder how many of the 35% losses after first capture of a dog were when the player was already about to lose say a horse and took the dog for compensation. The tricky part of course would be defining an exchange, maybe the two pieces captured within 3(?) moves of each other.
Janzert
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Fritzlein
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Re: Correlation of winning to first capture
« Reply #10 on: Apr 25th, 2006, 9:15pm » |
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on Apr 25th, 2006, 8:39pm, Janzert wrote:
As mouse sort of alluded to it would be interesting to see the numbers split out for outright captures and piece exchanges. |
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That's beyond my ability to do with an MS Access query, but what about all the FAME values you calculated? For each game you could calculate the eventual winner's worst FAME score at any point. That would tell us how often the winner led materially wire-to-wire, and by how much they came back if not.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Correlation of winning to first capture
« Reply #11 on: Apr 25th, 2006, 9:21pm » |
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on Apr 25th, 2006, 6:01am, mouse wrote:| The reason can be the first capute of a dog is followed by a capture by the other side in the next move. If this is the case the first capture is not really a capture but part of an exchange. Which could explain the relative low correlation. |
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An alternative explanation would be this: Often the first capture of a rabbit goes against the side that has an additional strategic disadvantage such as one of their pieces held hostage or framed. Really the rabbit is the second blow against that player, although it is the first capture.
A dog capture, meanwhile, might be more likely part of an open position, which could involve a simple exchange as already suggested, but also could be part of a larger race. In either case, the advantage for the capturing player isn't as likely to be a dog plus something as it is to be a rabbit plus something.
In particular, suppose I'm playing a dumb, materialistic bot. (Is there another kind?) If I frame a dog and then threaten a rabbit in the other trap, it will let me take the rabbit rather than abandoning the dog, so I have a rabbit capture plus a framed dog. ALSO if I frame a rabbit in one trap and threaten a dog in the other, the bot will give up its rabbit, in which case I again have a rabbit capture and a hostage dog. I actually get to take the dog only when (A) the position is open or (B) I have a yet larger threat to horse or camel, and the bot can't throw away a rabbit or cat to get the dog out of trouble.
Clearly this is all speculation, but it is speculation of the best kind, namely the kind that is extremely difficult to refute or verify. I can talk and talk, and never fear being proven wrong, because the truth is buried deep within the movelists generated according to the strategies of players past. 
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| « Last Edit: Apr 25th, 2006, 9:32pm by Fritzlein » |
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chessandgo
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Re: Correlation of winning to first capture
« Reply #12 on: Apr 25th, 2006, 10:25pm » |
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that's poetry ! (I try to resist saying "amen") 
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Janzert
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Re: Correlation of winning to first capture
« Reply #13 on: Apr 26th, 2006, 2:19am » |
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While not what Fritzlein asked about here's some related fame score information until I can look at that question directly.
First any game that had a non-zero fame score in move 2 was excluded. All other games were included. This left 29046 games that were looked at.
There were 9754 games (33%) that had a fame score that favored one side then the other at some point in the game, of those 4232 or 43% were won by the side initially favored by fame (i.e. making the first capture).
1963 (6.7%) had a neutral fame score throughout the game.
17429 games (60%) had a fame score that only favored one side. This is split into 13982 games (80% or 48% of the total) where fame correctly favored the winning side and 3447 games (20% or 12% total) where fame favored the side that lost.
Narrowing it to games involving at least one human and both players within 200 points it leaves 12030 games. With these results:
A mixed FAME score in 4447 games (36.97%) with correct first capture in 1947 (43
.78% of mixed)
FAME neutral throughout game in 725 games (6.03%)
FAME favored one side only in 6858 games (57%)
FAME was correct 5372 games (78.33% or 44.66% of the total)
FAME favored the wrong side in 1486 games (21.67% or 12.35% of the total)
Which are probably not a significant difference.
Janzert
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Fritzlein
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Re: Correlation of winning to first capture
« Reply #14 on: Apr 26th, 2006, 2:08pm » |
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on Apr 25th, 2006, 9:21pm, Fritzlein wrote:| Clearly this is all speculation, but it is speculation of the best kind, namely the kind that is extremely difficult to refute or verify. |
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Actually, I thought of a query I could do, namely correlating the first capture with the second capture. In 17398 rated games in which there were at least two piece deaths (and the first wasn't apparent suicide on move 2), I found that 58% of the time both of the first two piece deaths were from the same army. Breaking this down by the type of the first piece captured gives:
R 66%
C 59%
D 55%
H 48%
M 51%
E 87%
So when the first capture is a rabbit, it is usually a rabbit plus something, but when the first capture is a horse, it is usually a horse for something. In the latter case it is interesting that the player capturing the horse still wins 68% of the time despite having given up something in return 52% of the time.
One final interesting stat from the same dataset: There were 1929 cases of the first two deaths being rabbits on the same side, and only 575 cases of the first two deaths being rabbits from opposite sides. Starting the game with a rabbit trade is far less common than I would have expected.
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| « Last Edit: Apr 26th, 2006, 2:27pm by Fritzlein » |
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