From: Pieter Stouten <stoutepf <at> CARBON <dot> DMPC <dot> COM>
Date: 6 oct 1996
Subject: Re: Grading in Shogi variants

At 8:44 +0100 96/10/06, Colin Paul Adams wrote:

>I agree with the method, but not with the grades themselves.
>W. Schmittberger only 8 kyu?
>
Why not? It seems possible that without a large body of theory, with a very
small number of players and with a very short history, the top player in
regular shogi would have that strength. That aside, what is the problem
with Wayne Schmittberger being 8-kyu? Would he suddenly feel all warm and
fuzzy if he were promoted from 8-kyu to shodan? And why not to 4-kyu, 4-dan
or 8-dan?

>I suggest you make this shodan, and adjust other grades accordingly.
>
One might shift every player's grade by 8 (as Colin seems to suggest) so
that the range becomes 7-kyu to shodan. Alternatively, rather than 100
points per grade one might use 50 points per grade, which would stretch the
scale from 15-kyu to shodan rather than from 15-kyu to 8-kyu. In principle,
the latter seems more desirable, unless the inherent range of strengths of
tori shogi is smaller than that of regular shogi (which seems impossible to
establish).

Irrespective of what anybody may think about the system that *SHOULD* be
used, the crux of the matter is that there already *IS* a system that
works. It links grade differences to handicaps, and tori shogi players that
are familiar with regular shogi can intuitively relate to it. What reason
would there be to change Phil Holland's system? Sure, he made arbitrary
decisions about the anchoring point of the list (15-kyu) and about the
number of points per kyu grade (are these Elo points, Phil?), but why
replace one set of arbitrary decisions with another? Just so that there are
people who can say that they have a shodan grade? Without many players,
events, games scores and theoretical treatises, it seems to make sense to
fix the bottom of the range and let it develop for a while. In fact, 15-kyu
is a good choice as most regular shogi players identify that with
beginner's level. I see no reason to change the system now to make
Schmittberger shodan and possibly change it again when his strength goes up
or when other people become stronger than Schmittberger, etc.

Cheers, Pieter.

--

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