Games played in Scotland

[Patrick McGovern]

as a "sweaty sock" i can shed light on this topic, we get results in England graded only if we submit them,, if we dont they dont get graded. there is no cost. of course that is if we are members of Chess Scotland. as for wallets and crowbars , when we were treated fairly (re grading conversion) we spent vast sums of money socialising in the more salubrious watering holes in Blackpool, London, Grange over Sands, (and famously ) Cleethorpes. unfortunately our "invasions" do not occur any more. we did enjoy the trips and have many wonderful memories from our English trips.

[David Sedgwick]

I thought you had to pre-notify and if you didn't pre-notify then the results were not accepted? I also thought that if you didn't pre-notify (e.g. if you didn't want foreign events included) then the results were not included, but you remained free to pre-notify in the future? Is the ban from future submissions only if you pre-notify and then try and evade the grading by not sending in the results? I don't see that stated anywhere on the ECF site. (It is a reasonable response, but should be made clear in the documentation.)

The pre-notification is on an event by event basis. You're perfectly at liberty to have some and only some of your "foreign" (non-English) results graded, provided that you decide before an event that you want it graded and pre-notify accordingly.

The website makes clear that you then have to send in the results within one month. It doesn't specify the penalty for non-compliance, but does it really need to do so?

I forgot the deadline once and when it passed I received an email from the ECF officer then responsible giving me a further short period to submit the results, failing which I would be penalised as discussed above. I can't say whether or not such reminders are still issued.

[Ernie Lazenby]

A question I ought to have asked; I now have the proceedure in place to get the games graded but does that mean the 5 games played in Scotland are added to all my other games played in England or do I end up with 2 different grades? Having come out of retirement the whole point of the excercise is to play as many games as possible and try and get my miserable grade back up to where it was 3 years ago.

Hope I am not the only south of the border rep at Edinburgh.

[LawrenceCooper]

A question I ought to have asked; I now have the proceedure in place to get the games graded but does that mean the 5 games played in Scotland are added to all my other games played in England or do I end up with 2 different grades?

Hope I am not the only south of the border rep at Edinburgh.

They will be added to your other games. Any opponents without ECF grades will have their national grade converted to English. I forget the formula but remember this part from when I was briefly IRO in 2012.

[Ernie Lazenby]

Thanks thats helpfull

[Sean Hewitt]

...when we were treated fairly (re grading conversion)

I think that's the second time you've alluded to something like this. For the uninitiated (i.e. me) can you tell what it means?

[Patrick McGovern]

...when we were treated fairly (re grading conversion)

I think that's the second time you've alluded to something like this. For the uninitiated (i.e. me) can you tell what it means?

there was a conversion from scottish to english grades that worked for years Sean, it got changed several years ago (around the time CJ was your pres). i strongly feel that it was unfair toward scottish players. i attended blackpool (great tourney) as i had done for several years, due to the new conversion i was put into a much higher section (2 above what i usually played) than what i was expecting, it spoiled my tournament as it rendered me uncompetitive. Within our group there were three different ways used to allocate us to a section. one was to use their english grading, one had his fide grading used and i had my scottish grading used (then converted). I have not played in England since, neither has many of my friends.

[Roger de Coverly]

Within our group there were three different ways used to allocate us to a section. one was to use their english grading, one had his fide grading used and i had my scottish grading used (then converted). I have not played in England since, neither has many of my friends.

Are you able to recall what was the conversion formula used to convert your Scottish rating to an English grade? The ECF added 25 ECF points with spurious justification to the grades of "average" English players. This on paper should have been to the advantage of Scottish (and Welsh) players provided the conversion formula remained unchanged. But it might have been that a conversion formula of (rating-1250)/5 had been used, which was total nonsense and once corrected could have pushed those affected up two sections.

[Sean Hewitt]

there was a conversion from scottish to english grades that worked for years Sean, it got changed several years ago (around the time CJ was your pres). i strongly feel that it was unfair toward scottish players. i attended blackpool (great tourney) as i had done for several years, due to the new conversion i was put into a much higher section (2 above what i usually played) than what i was expecting, it spoiled my tournament as it rendered me uncompetitive. Within our group there were three different ways used to allocate us to a section. one was to use their english grading, one had his fide grading used and i had my scottish grading used (then converted). I have not played in England since, neither has many of my friends.

Thanks.

You played in the Major section in 2010 when you scored 2/5.
You played in the Intermediate section in 2009 when you scored 2.5/5.
You played in the Intermediate section in 2008 when you scored 3/5.
You played in the Major section in 2007 when you scored 2/5.

Matters are complicated by the fact that the event has had different names and grading bands for their sections but the Major section always sees to be one higher than the Intermediate (except for 2014!).

I don't know what rules they have in Blackpool for players from outside England who have an ECF grade (in 2010, your grade of 143 would ordinarily have qualified for the Intermediate which was for players under 150), but your 2010 results don't look spectacularly different to previous years at first glance.

[Brian Valentine]

The grading system gets blamed for a lot of things, but Patrick's situation should not be one of them.

Congresses are free to use any method they like to convert grades, but at least the last two times Patrick played at Blackpool he had a (B)ECF grade that should have been fit for purpose.

[Roger de Coverly]

The grading system gets blamed for a lot of things, but Patrick's situation should not be one of them.

Congresses are free to use any method they like to convert grades, but at least the last two times Patrick played at Blackpool he had a (B)ECF grade that should have been fit for purpose.

Perhaps the issue is that he had to play in a higher section because of his English grade. Had he been allowed to use his Scottish rating converted by a traditional formula, he may have been 25 points lower.

Is it not known that the Scottish players suffered a similar alleged under-performance as the English ones and that whilst the ECF decided to add 25 points to average players, the Chess Scotland rating team didn't? So assuming the Chess Scotland data has the usual Normal distribution shape, the middle is in a different place if you convert with times 8 plus 600. Also I think the Chess Scotland people use a times 10 plus something conversion to assign Scottish ratings to English players when incorporating results from outside Scotland.