H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Dec 20, 2018 07:53 AM UTC:
Yes, that is the study in question. For your 'quibble' to carry any punch, you would at least have to show that it makes any difference which rating bin you take, i.e. whether there are any cases at all where only considering games of players rated 2300-2400 and only 2400-2500 Elo players or 2500+ Elo players would make any difference beyond statistical noise. (Which, for the 2500+ only bin would probably be intolerably large.)
As I explained, where this to be the case it would cast severe doubts on the usefulness of the concept 'piece value' in the first place. Which can only be partly cured, but by discarding the result of the 2500+ (and presumably also the 2400+) players, and including more games of 1900-2200 rated players. As those are the ratings relevant of players that would pay attention to piece values, while GMs and super-GMs tend to use a more 'holistic' evaluation of the board where positional factors usually dominate material concerns. (Weaker players cannot give those factors the weight they would deserve, because they are not able to identify them well enough. So that these terms for them would just represent random noise and are better ignored.)
Yes, that is the study in question. For your 'quibble' to carry any punch, you would at least have to show that it makes any difference which rating bin you take, i.e. whether there are any cases at all where only considering games of players rated 2300-2400 and only 2400-2500 Elo players or 2500+ Elo players would make any difference beyond statistical noise. (Which, for the 2500+ only bin would probably be intolerably large.)
As I explained, where this to be the case it would cast severe doubts on the usefulness of the concept 'piece value' in the first place. Which can only be partly cured, but by discarding the result of the 2500+ (and presumably also the 2400+) players, and including more games of 1900-2200 rated players. As those are the ratings relevant of players that would pay attention to piece values, while GMs and super-GMs tend to use a more 'holistic' evaluation of the board where positional factors usually dominate material concerns. (Weaker players cannot give those factors the weight they would deserve, because they are not able to identify them well enough. So that these terms for them would just represent random noise and are better ignored.)