[ShaneP]

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What I'm saying is that it is true in theory and practice in Go, Chess, Checkers, Tic-Tac-Toe, and whatever else, that the game is of complete information. To claim otherwise is either wrong, or as in your case, abusing the nomenclature. That's all I'm saying, and being a theorist in the field, I don't like seeing people abuse the notation...again, not saying your point is wrong, it's just that your wording is poor.

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We constantly have to invent new wording to get new ideas across. Let me give you an example. If you were a "theorist in the field" of zoology, you'd know that balsa wood is a hardwood and pine is a softwood. But that's pretty misleading isn't it? So I would tell most people that balsa is a soft wood and you would correct me and say no, it must be a hardwood.

Yes, I know chess is a game of complete information. But in practice that's pretty misleading. In practice it's a game of incomplete information. This is no more wrong in my view than saying that balsa is a hardwood and balsa is a soft wood in practice.

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Sorry, can't help myself...if I was a 'theorist in the field' of zoology, I wouldn't necessarily know anything about trees. Now, if I were a botanist...(sorry for the nit, but it kind of goes with my point). But it would be pretty easy to explain to someone confused about it that (I think..I'm not a botanist) hardwood versus softwood is an issue of rigidity, not of strength.

But the key thing is the definition of complete information isn't open to interpretation. Are there hidden chess pieces? Do the pieces move in a different way that isn't known to both participants? Complete information games are defined as having the state of the world/system known to all. Complete information versus Incomplete information just has to do with the rules of the game, it has nothing to do with how complex the game is, or if people are playing the Nash Equilibrium strategy.

Looking at it another way...would you say Tic-Tac-Toe is a game of complete information? (it is). But according to your 'definitions', it would become a game of incomplete information if I was playing an idiot. Or I could define a simple game of incomplete information where the participants easily identify and play the Nash Equlibrium, and evidentally this would make it (according to a slight extension of your definition) a game of complete information. This makes your definitions useless, since now you need to specify the complexity of the thinking of the participants.

If you want to use a new word, fine. But when you take an established word with a concrete meaning and use it for something else, you muddle up the interpretation and argument.

I'm guessing a bit of trying to get chess called a game of incomplete information is that you're trying to show poker is a game of skill. That is, chess is a game of skill, and then by calling chess a game of incomplete information, those games then can be games of skill and thus poker is. But what I would say is just because a game is a game of incomplete information, doesn't make it a game without skill. After all, there are games of complete information that are entirely games of chance (Chutes and Ladders for a prime example), so the categorization of Complete or Incomplete information doesn't (or shouldn't) determine whether a game is skill or luck.