1970s grading lists?

General discussions about ratings.
Roger de Coverly
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Re: 1970s grading lists?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Mar 02, 2011 11:47 pm

AustinElliott wrote: Was actually slightly (pleasantly) surprised to see I'd made it as high as 179 in 1978, which was probably my best playing year (aged 16-17).
There was an old rule of thumb proposed by Leonard Barden and others, which was that to achieve IM status ( grade needed 210-230) or GM status (grade needed 220+),a way of progressing was to add 10 points a year. It was further proposed that progress could be measured by comparing age*10 to grade. On that basis you were, in theory at least, still on the "road to grandmaster".

AustinElliott
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Re: 1970s grading lists?

Post by AustinElliott » Thu Mar 03, 2011 12:54 am

Cheers Roger - and thanks for the ELO conversion. The grading actually went down to 173 the year after that (my annus horribilis and final year of competitive chess, when I was getting steamrollered by the 200+ brigade!) so the progress seems to have been tailing off by then.

Funnily enough, another thing that used to make me think I was likely to have been reaching my playing limit was that I wasn't much of a mathematician. Back in the 1970s I remember being tremendously struck by the fact that virtually all the future GMs of the Nunn-Speelman-Mestel generation, who of course were the rising stars of the day, were maths students / postgrads / mathematicians.

While I used to find most academic things at school pretty easy, I had no intuitive grasp of maths at all. My dad, who was a physicist by trade, once tried to teach me maths when I was 12 or so, and it practically led to family meltdown! I did get an A-level in maths, but only by relentlessly drilling myself through past papers to practise.

Anyway, the chess-maths link still fascinates me, and I see it even has its own Wikipedia page.

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: 1970s grading lists?

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Thu Mar 03, 2011 8:13 am

The BCF to Elo conversion was x8 and add 600, but the conversion to US Elo was about x8 and add 700. US Elo ratings are still higher than FIDE Elo ratings.
"Kevin was the arbiter and was very patient. " Nick Grey

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John Saunders
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Re: 1970s grading lists?

Post by John Saunders » Thu Mar 03, 2011 9:58 am

AustinElliott wrote: Anyway, the chess-maths link still fascinates me, and I see it even has its own Wikipedia page.
... which has a couple of glaring omissions - Anatoly Karpov and Tony Miles (both studied maths at uni - the former switched to economics and the latter switched to full-time chess). And Luke McShane, come to think of it (part of his degree was in maths).

That said, quite a few big-name players had (or have) no maths background to speak of (at least, that we know of). Fischer, Kasparov, plus Anand, Kramnik, Carlsen, Aronian, Topalov - unless someone knows better. This may be a reflection of the fact that modern professional chess demands complete dedication, almost from the cradle.

Quite a few GMs have specialised in (and excelled in) languages or the arts. Ray Keene is one, and Stuart Conquest is a superlative linguist (I think he turned down a Cambridge place to play full-time - I can't remember his proposed subject but I think it was English).

(edited to correct my English ... don't want Messrs Truran and Robertson ticking me off again...)
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David Sedgwick
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Re: 1970s grading lists?

Post by David Sedgwick » Thu Mar 03, 2011 11:28 am

John Saunders wrote:Stuart Conquest is a superlative linguist.
I think that Stuart is fluent in four languages. That's a considerable achievement.

However, it's some way behind Susan Polgar, who I believe is fluent in seven.

Jon D'Souza-Eva

Re: 1970s grading lists?

Post by Jon D'Souza-Eva » Thu Mar 03, 2011 11:58 am

David Sedgwick wrote:However, it's some way behind Susan Polgar, who I believe is fluent in seven.
Susan Polgar's achievements, which are considerable, are unfortunately often exaggerated in press releases and interviews. In an early article about her it was said that she knew how to say "checkmate" in seven languages!

Alex Holowczak
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Re: 1970s grading lists?

Post by Alex Holowczak » Thu Mar 03, 2011 12:31 pm

David Sedgwick wrote:
John Saunders wrote:Stuart Conquest is a superlative linguist.
I think that Stuart is fluent in four languages. That's a considerable achievement.

However, it's some way behind Susan Polgar, who I believe is fluent in seven.
Where I live, most people aren't even fluent in one. :oops:

AustinElliott
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Re: 1970s grading lists?

Post by AustinElliott » Thu Mar 03, 2011 4:44 pm

Yes, I remembered Tony Miles had been a maths student - didn't spot that he was missing from the Wikipedia chess+maths list. And Bill Hartston was another of the UK "1970s rising master" gang who has a maths degree. In fact, among that first crop of the British chess revival that I was familiar with in the 1970s, Keene rather stood out as NOT being a mathematician.

I guess if one seeks a more general theme it might be "puzzle-solving" or "abstract thinking" ability, which to some extent might encompass both the maths lot and the linguists.

PS I love meandering about on Wikipedia picking up random pub-quiz facts. My latest favourite is that Manchester University, where I work, once briefly employed Emanuel Lasker as a temporary maths lecturer.

Sean Hewitt

Re: 1970s grading lists?

Post by Sean Hewitt » Thu Mar 03, 2011 8:01 pm

Carl Hibbard wrote:
Sean Hewitt wrote:
Carl Hibbard wrote:I will be publishing a lot more on the "new" grading site but how far back things go I am not sure yet?
Any clues as to what and when Carl?
A full breakdown of as much information as I am given - in time for the new list, although I am doing the work the week of the 21st as I have a week off...

Requests as to what the current site does not do are welcome!
How about a list of all individual results ala FIDE?

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Carl Hibbard
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Re: 1970s grading lists?

Post by Carl Hibbard » Thu Mar 03, 2011 8:06 pm

Sean Hewitt wrote:How about a list of all individual results ala FIDE?
Yes will be included, the current database is say 40mb whereas the new one is 300mb plus - so yes I have lots of detail to present...
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Carl Hibbard

Alex Holowczak
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Re: 1970s grading lists?

Post by Alex Holowczak » Thu Mar 03, 2011 8:07 pm

Carl Hibbard wrote:
Sean Hewitt wrote:How about a list of all individual results ala FIDE?
Yes will be included, the current database is say 40mb whereas the new one is 300mb plus - so yes I have lots of detail to present...
Does that include information about which tournament the games were played in, the date the game was played on (when provided, of course), and which colour the player had?

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Carl Hibbard
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Re: 1970s grading lists?

Post by Carl Hibbard » Thu Mar 03, 2011 8:41 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:
Carl Hibbard wrote:
Sean Hewitt wrote:How about a list of all individual results ala FIDE?
Yes will be included, the current database is say 40mb whereas the new one is 300mb plus - so yes I have lots of detail to present...
Does that include information about which tournament the games were played in, the date the game was played on (when provided, of course), and which colour the player had?
I presume so yes but ask me on the 21st when I start the work
Cheers
Carl Hibbard

Richard Bates
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Re: 1970s grading lists?

Post by Richard Bates » Fri Mar 04, 2011 7:44 am

It would be surprising if it had colour information, wouldn't it? I can't imagine this is routinely provided to graders.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: 1970s grading lists?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Mar 04, 2011 8:24 am

Richard Bates wrote:It would be surprising if it had colour information, wouldn't it? I can't imagine this is routinely provided to graders.
The print-outs provided to Direct Members include colour information when available. This gives leagues an incentive to collect and record it with their result data. Tournament cross-tables would normally include colour.

Alex Holowczak
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Re: 1970s grading lists?

Post by Alex Holowczak » Fri Mar 04, 2011 10:47 am

As the ECF's newest grader (having graded the BUCA event on Tuesday; I assume there have been no new ones in the last three days!), it's trivial to add the colour information if the grader knows it. If you're doing a league in a spreadsheet, then it's just a case of copying and pasting a column of wbwbwb or bwbwbw (for however many boards you have) for all the matches in the league. A league grader should easily be able to do that, given the rules for who has white on odds and evens is usually pretty clear. Not sure about congresses though. I guess most congresses need to send their results off to people far away to get their events graded, and don't necessarily give the grader the information.