No time limit makes it a pretty tough bet to lose......also who knows, maybe he'd get bored, plateau at some point....it gets a lot tougher at some point obviously.

Note that I don't believe that most random people, even very smart people, have the capability at a relatively late age to ever reach the master level of chess (or much lower even). I think it helps a lot if they've never played in any halfway serious capacity before (very hard for the brain to unlearn bad thinking patterns IMO). I suspect it also helps if they've used their intelligence towards mastering some other game in their lifetime.

Depends on how you define "most", "relatively late age" and "much lower".

It is an interesting thing to consider though as it's completely unclear to me what the traits of a good chess player are, but being smart is definitely not even close to being enough.

I think Fischer when asked said the most important assets for a chess player were a good memory, good nerves and a will to win. That's as good as any other theories I've heard (and probably why I remember him saying that).

As far as Cunningham goes, I'd say give him 10 years and he'd be close to a lock based on the progress he's made in a very short time. The bet would just have to be big enough that he doesn't get bored. It wouldn't take 10 years of full time study either, he would be able to take a ton of vacations.

Change it to close to a lock not to become 2350 FIDE and I wholeheartedly agree.

This prop bet is a story on the Boylston Chess Club's blog.

http://boylston-chess-club.blogspot.com/

Gentlemen (and a few women), this is a most interesting thread. I joined 2p2 today just to read about this bet, after learning about it on the BCC Website. I'm impressed by poker players' appreciation of chess psychology, their understanding of statistical principles like variance and probabilities (when it comes to ratings discussion), their appreciation for chess literature, etc. Here are a few of my observations.
(1) After googling "Howard Lederer chess" I came across his Wiki page. Lederer was 21, in 1986, when his rating last changed. This most recent rating for Lederer is 1951. His Wiki page says that he was "a young chess talent," but does not mention his peak rating. Any "chess talent" that is 21 should likely be improving, not declining from USCF 2100+ to USCF 1951. For a young player to drop 150 points is quite unprecedented. Based on these few facts I'm skeptical Lederer was ever over USCF 2100. Who has a source for this fact?
(2) After multiple requests, AC has not yet mentioned the amount of money wagered. I'm thrilled that AC has posted multiple times here to discuss the bet, but I would love to hear for how much money it is. So let me ask AC directly: How much money is the bet?
(3) Both HL and AC are millionaires. Why not make the bet interesting? Wager at least a few thousand. I'd also love to see a match of, say, 6 G/30 or 12 G/15.
(4) What fascinates me more than anything is AC's quest to improve. The chess community is always debating how quickly one can improve through the various classes. But nearly no adult has the time or money to devote a full year to chess training, especially an adult who has started as a beginner. AC is the closest thing we have to a real experiment. (Howard Stern is another semi-experiment. He's been taking lessons from Dan Heisman for about 3-4 years.) I would love to see AC continue training after the bet is over.
(5) Why did AC drop out of the Chicago Open? Anyone know? AC? AC beat experts at the U.S. Open and then went on to lose to an 1100 at the Chicago Open. This is a display of huge variance. This is strange.

Well, first, I wouldn't say it's "unprecedented" for a young, improving player to drop 150 rating points...I've seen it before - could be any number of reasons...new coach, loss of coach, new style, psychological downfalls, personal life...

And, don't really think you can say that you doubt Lederer was ever over 2100. He made it to 1951, chances are he was higher than that, and then his rating tapered off as he lost interest or pursued other interests, (as happens with most young, aspiring players) until he eventually stopped playing rated games.

Lol. I understand you're not from the poker world, you should understand that Lederer makes 7 figure bets sometimes on things like will Phil Ivey win 2 bracelets in the next 3 world series of poker tournaments etc. There is no way they're not betting in the tens of thousands, and that would be a small bet for them.

I'll concede and change my phrasing from "unprecedented" to "very unlikely." As we've been discussing, it's not that simple to go from 1950 to 2100+, like it may be to go from 1800 to 1950. Not knowing the facts, and not seeing any references or citations to Lederer's pre-1986 rating, I am starting to have my doubts he was ever rated as high as 2100+. It's possible that he had a provisional rating that high, but then for odds-making purposes in determining his current strength, I would have to rethink my position. A rating is a rating, but someone who was a "true" 2100+ and dropped to 1950 may have a different playing style than someone who's never really reached a 2100 plateau.

As for the amount of money wagered, yes, I am not from this world. I'd love to see these guys wager an amount approaching my yearly salary! LOL Is there some betters' code of conduct that precludes these guys from announcing the amount?

Sorry, I meant Southern Cal Open, not Chicago open. Why did AC drop out?

Depending on the rating system used, it used to be possible to gain many points very quickly through "bonus points" if you had two or three good tournaments in a row. This happened to me when I first started playing tournaments, I scored 5/5 in the U2000 section at some tournament and went up to 2150, then dropped 200 points before gradually working my way back up.

But for a player has an established rating of 2100+ it would be quite unusual for them to drop to 1950 through variance alone.

Yes, I agree, especially because in 1986 they did not have bonus points (at least none that I remember). It seems very unlikely that a young, 21-year-old rated 2100+ could quickly drop to 1951, unless he was never 2100+ strength in the first place. The reason I say "quickly drop" is because remember, this guy was only 21. One doesn't drop a legit 150 points unless one is inactive for a number of years. How many years could a 21-y-o be inactive? OTOH, it is possible that Lederer had a few bad tournaments (sick, dog died, etc.), and he decided to drop chess after that. In this latter scenario, however, I would say that Lederer is stronger than most people give him credit. In this latter scenario, he would have regained his 150 points easily enough (if this was his nominal strength and he stuck with chess), and his 25-year layoff would now put him at about 1900 (a "normal" 200-point loss for inactivity). If his nominal 1986 strength was actually 1951, then today he is more likely about 1800 or 1750, and AC has a decent shot, if not a favorable one.

For me then, a key part of the odds, if I were an odds maker, would be to know Lederer's pre-1986 tournament history.

What we don't know is the amount of time that passed throughout the loss of the rating points. All we know is that in 1986 he was rated 1951 (I looked it up just to be sure). If he went from 2100+ down to 1951 in a year, this, IMO is completely normal for someone who stopped caring about the game/rating points or who just stopped studying/preparing and was just playing for fun or because he/she was just used to playing specific tournaments each year or something.

There are many players out there who played/studied a ton for a period of time, achieved a certain level of success/rating and then moved onto other things in life. But when that state championship comes around or that Labor Day tournament or that fun Las Vegas tournament, etc. comes around they just habitually gravitate towards it like instinct This is what could explain the rating point loss over a reasonable period of time.

Obviously in 1986, a young Lederer does not fall into the lifelong 2300+ player group who at age 50 hit his floor of 2200 and stayed there the rest of his life. lol.

And I'm not sure if there is a way to actually find out tournament history prior to what is on the uscf site. I would hope/think that they have the actual paper crosstables stored in some warehouse in either TN or NY, but that makes it unlikely we will be able to access them.

I know someone who has rating supplements going back to the 70s, so maybe I can at least find some information about HLs rating history...

hahaha. My grandfather was like that too. Kept every single one He also had thousands of CL's to go along with them. lol.

OneArrow,

I think you're underestimating how easy it is to lose 150 or more points if you lose interest in the game. We both know a BCC regular who has done exactly this.

Jacob Rasin's rating graph:





Once you hit your peak, it's easy to fall precipitously if you don't continue to work hard at the game.

.

Based on this information, and not making any adjustment for the difference between 1982 ratings and 2010 ratings, I would guess that Lederer's strength has not fallen much below 1900. One usually does not fall much more than 300 points off one's peak, so given the great time lapse I would approximate Lederer's current strength to be about 300 points lower than 2100. This would be about 1800. Now adjust this for any rating inflation or deflation since 1982. There was a period of inflation in the 1990s and then a period of deflation in the 2000s. So let's call it a wash.

If I were an odds maker, I would create a line based on HL having a current strength of about 1800. AC, at about 1650, currently has about a 30% to 35% chance (without seeing the official ELO probability table) of winning the one game match and the bet.

...just my two cents. This thread has seemed to discuss these ideas to death, by this point.

Thanks for the rating supplement info, guys. I knew these old and brittle phone-book-type supplements were good for something.
OA

He has the 5 year supplement of 87 right? What were Lederer's ratings from 83 to 87?

Just out of curiosity, where does this: One usually does not fall much more than 300 points off one's peak - come from? I mean it is clearly just a random number that you thought off, isn't it?

We don't know, I guess it only shows the last rating reached during that period. If someone had the chess life issues over that time they could look at the rating lists in there.

OneArrow talking out of his ass IMO.

I played the game after a two year break and it took me 2-3 weeks of playing regularly (100-125 games) before I was 90%-95% of my peak. I was easily 400+ points worse in the first dozen matches.

Lederer coming in cold to this match is toast.

Obviously my 300-point max drop is purely subjective, but it is based on something. The USCF, for whatever reasons, floors people 200 points below their peak rating rounded to the nearest hundred points. (For example, someone with a peak rating of 1599 would have a floor of 1300.) I'm using the USCF estimate. Most people, however, never get to within one point of flipping their third digit, and many people, after a layoff, don't hit their floor. I'm using the 300-point number as an estimate. Make it 400 points if you wish. My ass doesn't care. This would still put HL at 1700, and the current favorite if AC is currently rated 1650.

Positional chess is a lot more like riding a bicycle than tactics is. If AC is going to try to push the game into tactical waters, I guarantee you that HL is going to try to push it into a dry positional struggle that ends in a queen trade and a dry endgame -- just how many endgames has EC even seen, let alone studied?

I was at the US Open in August. Spoke with Allan there and watched his results.
He beat 3 experts and tied a master, starting with a 1571 provisional rating and gaining over a hundred points. There's no question that he has the ability. The better question is, does he have enough time?

The piece of this handicapping that seems flawed to me is the assumption that Allen's rating accurately measures his playing strength. You've carefully considered what Lederer's playing strength is likely to be, but you're just blindly assuming that Cunningham's current rating accurately measures his strength.

Consider: When this bet was made he was a rank amateur. His 875 provisional rating in January was probably a pretty good measure of his playing strength at the time. Now, nine months later, he's rated 1649. And he's only played three tournaments in the last three months. His extremely rapid improvement is clear, and given the way the rating system works, and how few tournaments he's played relative to his practice and training time, makes it seem likely to me that his rating is probably lagging behind his true strength.

If you are basing your line on Lederer playing at 1800 strength, then I don't think that makes Allen as big an underdog as a true 1650 would be. I think Allen probably has a strength of at least 1700 right now, and he still has more time to improve.

Maybe it's just because I'm rushing, but one or more of the above numbers seem wrong to me.