Opinions Invited On Rabble Rousing Chess Blogs

[Nigel_Davies]

Just wondering what people think, my take is that they're really destructive for UK chess.

[Andrew Zigmond]

Just wondering what people think, my take is that they're really destructive for UK chess.

Do you have a particular blog in mind? I suspect you might do but I don't want to be the one to name it. The answer to your question is yes and no. Yes in that we're rarely any further on after them. No because you can't legislate against people writing them and they're not really any different to media pundits and retired politicians writing opinion articles in newspapers.

[Nigel_Davies]

I'm not going to say because that would make me no better than they are but I'm sure people can hazard a decent guess. The problem is that they publish very destructive stuff about anyone who attracts their ire and can get away with it because they're not worth suing.

[Roger de Coverly]

Just wondering what people think, my take is that they're really destructive for UK chess.

Assuming you aren't writing about "The Chess Improver", are you perhaps referring to a story about alleged grading manipulation? Let's not forget that the story first appeared on this forum and that players of extremely variable form and results have been a long standing suspected feature of British chess. It's probably a good thing that anyone tempted to manipulate their grade to retain eligibility to grade restricted events should be aware that they may eventually be found out and accused.

The ECF are asking for adverse comment in appointing someone suspected of grade manipulation to be the Controller of the Grand Prix.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Um, why the shyness?

http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.c ... ckett.html
http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.c ... tt-ii.html

I like that blog (particularly the chess history posts). Thanks for reminding me to go and read it.

[Nigel_Davies]

You should be aware that 'The Chess Improver' has a deliberate policy not to name people in a way that will cause offence.

Any accusations of the nature you are referring to would need to be properly researched and other explanations considered. This has never been done, in fact the only 'contributions' have been gossips and rumor mongers. Incidentally I could name quite a few people who have cheated or used 'extreme gamesmanship' in tournaments and many who are just deeply unpleasant. It is especially disgusting when they join in.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

True, and the thread on this forum about this:

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7864

...was eventually locked.

Bets being taken now on how long it will take this thread to be locked...

(in fairness, posting links to the blogs in the old thread might be justifiable, but maybe not...)

[JustinHorton]

.

Any accusations of the nature you are referring to would need to be properly researched and other explanations considered. This has never been done

Uh huh.

You ND, then, Nige?

[Roger de Coverly]

Any accusations of the nature you are referring to would need to be properly researched and other explanations considered. This has never been done

I don't think it was necessary to do much more than draw attention to the results history on the ECF grading site to make the issue public. That was all the original poster to this forum did, expressing the hope that his own personal form would bounce back in a similarly dramatic manner.

Players with low grades playing in grade restricted tournaments, seeking to improve, deserve a modicum of protection from sharks of a standard higher than they would normally expect to meet.

[Andrew Zigmond]

I believe Carl locked that thread largely because the player concerned doesn't contribute to this forum and therefore wasn't in a position to defend himself. He does contribute to a facebook group that now seems to taken over some of this forum's territory.

I'm tempted to ask where an infamous blog by a well known chess journalist fitted into this but I suppose there is a difference between provocative name calling and a potentially libelous accusation.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

In the comments to the second blog, someone said:

"I dropped 20 ECF points, all in team games played in six months".

That reminds me that I suffered a blip in my grading for the January 2014 list (I dropped from my normal level of just below 170 all the way down to 144). That was due to an atrocious run of form (starting with being trounced by several juniors in the day events at the 2013 British at Torquay) where I had no confidence at all and started to be convinced before I even sat down to play that I was going to lose (bit self-fulfilling that).

[I considered at the time entering lower sections of congresses to recover my grade and confidence, and possibly win some prize money, but after a bit of thought realised that if I continued to lose it would be difficult to regain confidence, so I persevered at normal levels (in league chess) and the wins eventually returned.]

I am a bit more sympathetic now to those that point out that such downward spirals in form are possible. But the point remains that these are usually blips. I recovered my usual grading level and fingers crossed the next such blip will be upwards.

How common is it for such dips in form to be both cyclic and extreme?

[JustinHorton]

I got to get myself some sleep tonight, which is why I've locked the comments until morning, but a couple of things before I try and drop off.

One is that of course I won't be discussing the subject of the series on here.

The other is - and I mean this in the nicest possible way - that as far as is possible and practical, I don't give a rat's arse what other people think about what I write.

I mean yes, it's nice when people say nice things, but I don't write with that in mind at all, because if I did...

...I would never get anything worthwhile written at all, would I?

And my general intention is to say things that I think need saying, but which, very often, for one reason or another aren't being said.

I think this may be a service of a kind, but if other people don't think so, then, as I say, the answer is: thanks very much, but I don't care.

In the nicest possible way.

Good night, Jim Bob.

[Roger de Coverly]

How common is it for such dips in form to be both cyclic and extreme?

I would have thought rare.

Nigel D asks for other explanations.

The two that spring to mind for such fluctuations and continuing to play are
(1) computer cheating
(2) sandbagging

There's no basis for (1) other than the point that someone who really couldn't play chess particularly well would get appalling results unless they resorted to external assistance. That's not borne out by looking at the few games to be recorded.

Until the thread back in October after the Scarborough Congress, it was not a name I was familiar with, although I was aware of the supposed rival Lee Bullock as an aspirational player. Those who witness play in the lower rated events suggest an apparent lack of concentration when games are going badly.

There is the ego thing that players "taking a dive" will not make much attempt to disguise it. Fischer was in part right when he spoke of "Commie cheats", the loss by Matulovic to Taimanov in the last round of the 1970 Zonal being a case in point.

[Brian Towers]

How common is it for such dips in form to be both cyclic and extreme?

A better question would be "How likely is it that such cyclic, extreme changes in form are down to chance?"

You would need to collect the results, split them up into two groups, the 4.5/5, 5/5 results and the rest. Then perhaps using something like 1.96xSQRT(p(1-p)/n), where p is the expected score and n is the number of games, get 95% confidence limits for the scores and see if the results lie within this range. If they are outside then there is a less than 1 in 20 probability that they occurred by chance. I'm afraid that I'm in the DILLIGAF camp but Jack Rudd is an Oxford mathematician and though the work would probably be tedious for him is well within his capabilities. It's really a question of whether he (or somebody else with the mathematical knowledge required) can be bothered. Doing the sums (more rigourously than I have sketched out) should put an end to the speculation one way or the other.

[Nigel_Davies]

I didn't want this post to go down this route, it was intended as a discussion about rabble rousing blogs. But I might add that once the matter mentioned above develops into 'typical crowd behaviour', creativity and research with regard to 'alternative hypothesese' seem to go totally down the tubes.