Arpad Elo

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arpad Emrick Elo (actually Hungarian Árpád Imre Élő ) (born August 25, 1903 in Egyházaskesző near Pápa ; † November 5, 1992 in Brookfield near Milwaukee ) was an American physicist and statistician of Hungarian origin . He is the inventor of the Elo rating .

Life

At the age of 10 he came to the USA as an immigrant from Hungary. After completing his studies in natural sciences at the University of Chicago , he taught from 1926 until his retirement in 1969 as a professor of theoretical physics at Marquette University in Milwaukee. He was a chess player and won the Wisconsin Championship eight times between 1935 and 1961 . From 1935 to 1937 he was President of the American Chess Federation , a predecessor organization of the United States Chess Federation (USCF). In 1981 he was made an honorary member of FIDE .

Elo rating

Starting in 1959, Elo developed his rating system in which the chess players are assigned a so-called Elo number based on a statistical analysis of their previous tournament results, which reflects their skill level and allows predictions about their chances of success against other players. From 1960, the system was first adopted by the USCF and from 1970 also by the World Chess Federation FIDE, which officially introduced the system on July 1, 1971. Elo carried out the corresponding calculations for FIDE itself until 1980. In his book The rating of chessplayers past and present , published in 1978 , he also applied his formula retrospectively and determined ratings for all important chess masters from the mid-19th century.

In the meantime, the Elo system in chess has become the standard worldwide. It is also used to measure the level of play in other sports, for example in Go and even in football .

He himself said about the system he developed:

“Sometimes I think I made Frankenstein's monster! The young players are more interested in the Elo rating than in the things on the board. "

Fonts

  • Arpad E. Elo: The Rating Of Chessplayers, Past & Present. Arco Publishing, New York NY 1978, ISBN 0-668-04721-6 .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Veszprém Megyei Életrajzi Lexicon - Biographical Lexicon (Hungarian)
  2. ^ A b André Schulz : Arpad Elo for his 100th birthday In: de.chessbase.com. August 29, 2003, accessed October 24, 2019.
  3. ↑ Honorary Members of FIDE (English)
personal data
SURNAME Elo, Arpad
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Elo, Arpad Emrick (full name); Élő, Árpád Imre (original name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American physicist and statistician
DATE OF BIRTH August 25, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH near Pápa (Hungary)
DATE OF DEATH 5th November 1992
Place of death Brookfield, Wisconsin