When is the new grading list coming out?

[Matt Harrison]

Obviously it's a shame that the new grades won't be out for the British Championships.

However I'm much happier about the principle of junior grading being more based on recent results than the age-related junior increment. It would be interesting to know how this will be done.

And it's a good thing to check through them all before publication.

[David Gilbert]

The reasons for the delay are appreciated, but the projected publication date of 10 August 2009 leaves the Steve Boniface Memorial and the Thanet Congresses with a dilemma. They have already published their entry forms with new grading limits, and are no doubt taking entries – what should they do now? Go back to 2008/09 old style grades? Who'd be a chess organiser?

[Carl Hibbard]

The reasons for the delay are appreciated, but the projected publication date of 10 August 2009 leaves the Steve Boniface Memorial and the Thanet Congresses with a dilemma. They have already published their entry forms with new grading limits, and are no doubt taking entries – what should they do now? Go back to 2008/09 old style grades? Who'd be a chess organiser?

The possible date of the 10th is only the draft/provisional list but the official/printed release is scheduled for the end of August according to the ECF site

[Alex Holowczak]

It's great the system is going to be weighted for juniors, I think it's the only way you can reliably calculate junior grades. While still not perfect, I think it's a step in the right direction. It's just a shame that it's taken until now to realise it, and we have a major delay in the grades being announced.

[Roger de Coverly]

It's great the system is going to be weighted for juniors, I think it's the only way you can reliably calculate junior grades. While still not perfect, I think it's a step in the right direction. It's just a shame that it's taken until now to realise it, and we have a major delay in the grades being announced.

They should have done one or the other

Either
(a) move the "average" player 30 points closer to Keith Arkell with no changes to junior methodology. This time last year, this was what I thought had been announced as what they were trying to do.
Or
(b) leave the adult player grades alone (apart from knock on effects) and try various approaches to dealing with rapidly improving players. For example 20 games to "forget the previous year" instead of 30, minimum estimated grade for new players, treating "rapidly improving" players as new players, changing the age based factors, revisiting the 40 point rule and no doubt others.

I would imagine that last year's programs are still in existence and you could (and perhaps should) just publish a list for 2009 using the 2008 grades and methodology.

[David Lettington]

There is an update on the SCCU and also somewhere on the ECF site, apparently. Looks like there will be a delay.

[Carl Hibbard]

There is an update on the SCCU and also somewhere on the ECF site, apparently. Looks like there will be a delay.

I will repeat it here:-

It was reported at the April Council Meeting that the grading team wished to do further work on the best way to incorporate junior players into the grading system. As a result of this work the method of calculation of junior grades has been changed to give more weight to more recent results, rather than relying on the junior increment to make an appropriate allowance for the player's improvement. As a consequence, the new style adult grades for 2008 published last August will be subject to minor change before they are used in the 2009 calculation. The revised 2008 new style grades will be published as previous year's grade in the 2009 list.
The commitment given to Council in April, that the published 2009 grading list will have a distribution of adult grades roughly identical to that on the list available at the time, still applies and will be met.
Unfortunately doubt has arisen about the correctness (after several alterations) of the computer program used to calculate the grades. There will therefore be a delay in publication of the draft 2009 grading list. This is now expected to appear not later than 10th August, with Direct Members' printouts being distributed shortly after publication. It is still intended that a revised list incorporating corrections of reported errors, and upon which the printed list will be based, will appear at the end of August.
David Thomas
ECF Manager of Grading and Rating

[Roger de Coverly]

the method of calculation of junior grades has been changed to give more weight to more recent results

I'm not really sure what they are saying here. An underlying premise of the "Clarke" system is that the game you play against an opponent on 1st June 2008 counts the same for performance measurement as against the same opposition on 31st May 2009 and it's worked that way for about fifty five years. If they are intending to overthrow this premise, then they really ought to have some theoretical mathematical or statistical backup for what they are endeavoring to achieve.

Unfortunately doubt has arisen about the correctness (after several alterations) of the computer program used to calculate the grades.

That's not a total surprise if the underlying theory is suspect. We never did get an answer on the "Rough" issue as to why changing an adult to a junior caused about a fifty point jump. So to repeat the question - was it a program error or a theory error?

[Sean Hewitt]

That's not a total surprise if the underlying theory is suspect. We never did get an answer on the "Rough" issue as to why changing an adult to a junior caused about a fifty point jump. So to repeat the question - was it a program error or a theory error?

To John Upham : Told you they'd cocked it up!

[Matthew Lunn]

If the ECF are adamantly refusing to produce even a preliminary grading list before the start of the British Championships then what is going to happen to the dozens of players in the 4 FIDE rated sections who currently have no International rating??

Is the plan to estimate their ratings using last years ECF grades?! A list of preliminary ECF grades has been deemed essential to the running of the British Championship EVERY year until now for this very reason - I am not certain anyone has taken this into account (although I could be wrong!) when explaining the delay (which in turn neglects the possibility of a preliminary list that could subsequently be amended with the 'new' calculations.

[Roger de Coverly]

Is the plan to estimate their ratings using last years ECF grades?! A list of preliminary ECF grades has been deemed essential to the running of the British Championship EVERY year until now for this very reason - I am not certain anyone has taken this into account (although I could be wrong!) when explaining the delay (which in turn neglects the possibility of a preliminary list that could subsequently be amended with the 'new' calculations.

Reading between the lines of the announcement, the problem isn't that they have no list at all ( which has been the case in the past when the processing fell over), but too many , most of which contain problems. Keep a careful eye on the rankings used for pairings though, it's possible some of the controllers will have access to "unofficial" versions of the lists and will use them for seeding in preference to using 2008.

[Rob Thompson]

If the ECF are adamantly refusing to produce even a preliminary grading list before the start of the British Championships then what is going to happen to the dozens of players in the 4 FIDE rated sections who currently have no International rating??

Is the plan to estimate their ratings using last years ECF grades?! A list of preliminary ECF grades has been deemed essential to the running of the British Championship EVERY year until now for this very reason - I am not certain anyone has taken this into account (although I could be wrong!) when explaining the delay (which in turn neglects the possibility of a preliminary list that could subsequently be amended with the 'new' calculations.

This will be a particular prolem in the U-16s, which being a junior tournament means that the 2008 grades will all be inaccurate by now

[John Upham]

I wonder if Howard Grist / Dave Thomas might be persuaded to provide updates on progress?

[E Michael White]

This will be a particular prolem in the U-16s, which being a junior tournament means that the 2008 grades will all be inaccurate by now

Apart from changing parings when the order of grades may have changed, how does this affect the U16 ?

[Rob Thompson]

All it will affect is the pairings, but these effects will be felt much more because the U-16s, being a junior event, has people that will be improving quickly, so the last years grades will be out of date. It's also fide-rated for the first time this year, so these inaccurate grades will be converted into fide grades, which will put even more error into the pairings