Gang Malkovich - registration

[Joaz Banbeck]

As a low dan, I've often wondered exactly what it is that higher dans know that I don't. Is it just more stuff? That is, if I keep playing and learn more tesujis and more josekis, etc, will I become like them? Does experience add up?

Or it is something qualitative? Do they grok something about the game that I don't? If play for another ten years, will I just have ten more years of 1D experience? ( Back as a young chess player, I knew an old guy who had played chess for 26 years. He was - to put it mildly - terrible. He used to say "I've had one year's expereience - twenty-six times." )

Is it cumulative or qualitative? I've devised a way to test this theory. If it is just cumulative experience, then I should to be able to gather a handful of players about my strength, and collectively we should be able to match stronger players. If not, then, well, we should lose. I call it 'Gang Malkovich' - a bunch of lower-ranked players ganging up on a stronger player.

I'm starting this registration thread for those of you who want to try it.

[Joaz Banbeck]

For a test run, I asked Topazg, Daniel_the_smith, Dusk Eagle, and Kirby to join me. We haven't explicitly discussed all the rules, but I assume that a move will be by voting. It should be interesting to see how one 1D explains to another what the best move is.

Our opponent will be the terror of L19 Malkovich games: Magicwand.

We will be playing here: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=3464

[cdybeijing]

How do you propose to finish this game in a reasonable period of time if you are going to have the players vote on every move?

[robinz]

It looks an interesting idea to me, but, having now seen the thread with the actual game, I'm very surprised to see that you're playing it as a handicap game. Surely, the hypothesis you're testing is that a bunch of 1-dans (or approximately so), by combining their knowledge (which presumably covers a considerably broader range than that of any one of the players individually), can be collectively as strong as a 4-dan? In that case, surely the only fair test is to have an even game?

I suppose that, done this way, if "the gang" loses then it will be a very convincing refutation of the hypothesis above, but if it wins it won't really tell us anything. (One experiment hardly proves a theory anyway, I know - but still, it would seem to me to be more in keeping with Joaz's idea if the game had no handicap. Perhaps I misunderstand his intentions though.)

EDIT: I now see that Daniel_the_smith has independently raised exactly the same point over on the game thread

[Magicwand]

exception of Topazg i can give everyone else 2 stone.
it is only fair that we play 2 stone.
just because they gangup doesnt mean that they are stronger.
it only means that strongest player will likely be voted out.

if i make the game complicated then strongest player will be non-factor.

Question: what happens if all pick different moves.

[robinz]

exception of Topazg i can give everyone else 2 stone.
it is only fair that we play 2 stone.

I don't dispute that, but the whole point of this game, surely, is to see if the "gang of five" are collectively stronger than any of their individual members? At least, this is how I understand Joaz's initial post above.

just because they gangup doesnt mean that they are stronger

This may be so, but the point of the exercise seems to be to find out whether or not it is. And, if they beat you in this 2-stone game (and I'm certainly not saying they necessarily will ), that won't tell us anything, as (as far as I can tell from having observed previous Malkovich games) most if not all of your opponents are capable individually of beating you at 2 stones, if the game went in their favour.

No disrespect intended at all, of course, MW (I know full well that I'd need about 15 stones against you to even have a chance ). I'm perfectly happy to sit back and enjoy watching this game as it is - I'm just surprised that it's being played at a handicap given what Joaz says was his motivation for the game. Good luck to all the players, and may the best man or gang win

[daniel_the_smith]

If the five of us work together well, my best guess is that we should play Magicwand even or perhaps take white.

Don't think of it as the "bad" players outvoting the "good" players. Think of it as we have 5 chances to stop ourselves from doing something stupid, which, at our level, describes the vast majority of mistakes.

If we lose a 2 stone game, that would definitely be significant evidence against my theory. We will see!!

[Dusk Eagle]

Question: what happens if all pick different moves.

If we all come up with different moves, we'll have to discuss it quite a bit. Someone will probably compromise anyway if we reach such a point. We're kind of sorting out the exact details as we go.

[Joaz Banbeck]

The first test run has been made, ( viewtopic.php?f=38&t=3464 ) and it was not a pretty sight.

Two things quickly became obvious.
1) A gang of 1Ds is not as strong as a 4D. Indeed, there seems to be no improvement at all. There may even be a decrease in strength!
2) Communication and organization is far more difficult than we expected.

...and furthermore, surprisingly...

3) It is not fun at all.

So we resigned at move 42.


Unfortunately, the question of quality vs quantity was not answered. The communication and organizational difficulties prevented us from adequately combining our collective 1D knowledge, so there is no way to know if that collection would have been significantly stronger.