For those of you who are ignoring the warning, read here.
Basically, it is a paper where two guys analyzed a large database of chess games move by move to determine chess players' "intrinsic rating" and see if the "strength of their moves" have improved compared to rating levels in the past. In simple terms, they are testing to see if a 2700 player today is playing the same quality moves as a 2700 player 20 years ago. If the move qualities are the same, it shows that there is no rating inflation.
So what did they find?
A smooth correspondence is shown between statistical results and the century points on the Elo scale, and ratings are shown to have stayed quite constant over time. That is, there has been little or no ‘rating inflation’.Note that they are using the strength of the moves of the chess players and not just results, which is probably a much more accurate measure of playing strength. I sincerely believe the study can be extended to using rating to predict playing strength. But as in all statistical studies, higher ratings will only increase the chances of winning. Playing strength is not absolute. As they say, "you win some, you lose some".
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In the 1970’s there were only two players with ratings over 2700, namely Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov, and there were years as late as 1981 when no one had a rating over 2700. In the past decade there have usually been thirty or more players with such ratings. Thus lack of inflation implies that those players are better than all but Fischer and Karpov were.
