On 13 Mar 2002 03:40:24 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Smith) wrote: > I have what I hope is a simple theoretical question to resolve an > argument: > > The problem concerns finishing position at the end of round-robin > chess competition. > > If competitor A has probability Pa of finishing in the top half of the > league table, and competitor B has Pb, what is the probability that A > finishes higher than B ?
Not just simple, but simplistic. That is, I think you assume a most simplistic model, where a single 'quality' number implies who is going to win. That is in contrast to the real world, where A>B and B>C can be consistent with C>A. But even that is not enough to answer the question that you are asking. How well does the number predict the outcome? - I remember one EXTREME year of college basketball-conference results for my local team (Pitt). The 10 teams exhibited 8 'levels-of-performance' during the home-and-home competitions. That is, the favored team won every time. The home team won each game in the couple of instances where the ranks were tied. (That's the way I remember it, anyway.) -- Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
