Shouldn't the ECF membership and grading season be the same?

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David Blower
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Shouldn't the ECF membership and grading season be the same?

Post by David Blower » Wed Jul 18, 2012 1:31 am

From 1st September-31st August?

I don't see why the grading season runs from 1st July-30th June but ECF membership runs from 1st September-31st August. I think it would make sense to have both of them the same.

Afterall most club events and leagues (I would have thought) would be arranged according to the ECF membership season, so I think the ECF grading season should start in September.

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Re: Shouldn't the ECF membership and grading season be the s

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Jul 18, 2012 1:44 am

David Blower wrote: Afterall most club events and leagues (I would have thought) would be arranged according to the ECF membership season, so I think the ECF grading season should start in September.
The grading season is now a six month period. With the lack of events over Christmas and for that matter in the last two weeks of December, it makes sense to have one of the cutoffs at 31st December. A 31st March cutoff would run into Easter in many years, a traditionally busy time. Equally 30th June is a relatively quiet time for events.

Congresses take place almost every weekend, so membership years are of little relevance to Congresses. If you had a 31st August cutoff, the graders still need a couple of weeks or more to collect and process results, so publication wouldn't be until the third week of September, which is arguably too late if you need to select and nominate teams based on new gradings.

The ECF is talking of moving its financial year end to 31st August.

FIDE have moved to publishing new International ratings monthly. The issue of more frequent updates to domestic grades is one the ECF will need to consider.


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Re: Shouldn't the ECF membership and grading season be the s

Post by ben.graff » Fri Sep 14, 2012 9:41 pm

If you play more than 60 games a year, isn't the problem that games played in the first half of the season (through to December 31st cut off) somehow count for less? Most team/ season long KOs and other events etc are going to use the July grades. Wouldn't it make more sense for all games played in the year to count towards the July grade? (I'm sure this could be done in a way that would still enable juniors rapid pace of development to be accounted for.)
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Robert Jurjevic
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Re: Shouldn't the ECF membership and grading season be the s

Post by Robert Jurjevic » Wed Sep 26, 2012 4:09 pm

May I ask if the games of a graded internal club tournament (all) played between the the 1st of July 2012 and the 30th of June 2013 will (all) be included for grading in 2012-2013 season? Our internal club tournament is played on Tuesdays and is intended to last from the 4th of September 2012 (first Tuesday in September 2012) to the 25th of June 2013 (last Tuesday in June 2013). May I ask if the games played between the 1st of July 2012 and the 31st of December 2012 (ought to be sent for grading in January 2013) will (all) be counted for January grades in 2012-2013 season? May I ask if the file format of the ECF grading file (sample of which has been shown below) has been changed so as to accommodate dates of individual games? My understanding is that even the grades are calculated twice per season still the grading period is a year (not half a year). Is that so (all the games from a season are counted but the grades taken into account in the calculation are either from the first or the second half of the season)? Thanks.

Code: Select all

#EVENT DETAILS
#EVENT CODE =
#SUBMISSION INDEX = 1
#EVENT NAME = ACC Richard Davey Swiss 2010-11: Open
#EVENT DATE = 01/10/2010
#FINAL RESULTS DATE = 31/05/2011
#RESULTS OFFICER = Mr Robert Jurjevic
#RESULTS OFFICER ADDRESS = [email protected]
#TREASURER = Mr Richard Jones
#TREASURER ADDRESS = [email protected]
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#COLUMN = BCF CODE
#COLUMN = NAME
#COLUMN = GENDER
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Re: Shouldn't the ECF membership and grading season be the s

Post by Alex Holowczak » Wed Sep 26, 2012 4:20 pm

Robert Jurjevic wrote:May I ask if the games of a graded internal club tournament (all) played between the the 1st of July 2012 and the 30th of June 2013 will (all) be included for grading in 2012-2013 season?
Taking this at face value, the answer is that it's entirely up to you whether or not your internal club tournament is graded. If you decide that it is, then you can have it graded.
Robert Jurjevic wrote:Our internal club tournament is played on Tuesdays and is intended to last from the 4th of September 2012 (first Tuesday in September 2012) to the 25th of June 2013 (last Tuesday in June 2013). May I ask if the games played between the 1st of July 2012 and the 31st of December 2012 (ought to be sent for grading in January 2013) will (all) be counted for January grades in 2012-2013 season?
If you have a season-long internal event, then you should submit the pre-December 31 games in January for the January list, and then the complete file at the end of the season.
Robert Jurjevic wrote:May I ask if the file format of the ECF grading file (sample of which has been shown below) has been changed so as to accommodate dates of individual games?
I think the ECF grading file always had the facility for dates of games, but I'm not sure. E-mail this question to Richard Haddrell.
Robert Jurjevic wrote:My understanding is that even the grades are calculated twice per season still the grading period is a year (not half a year). Is that so (all the games from a season are counted but the grades taken into account in the calculation are either from the first or the second half of the season)? Thanks.
Not quite sure I understand the question, but the grading period is still a year. Again, e-mail Richard Haddrell.

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Re: Shouldn't the ECF membership and grading season be the s

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Sep 26, 2012 4:25 pm

Robert Jurjevic wrote: May I ask if the games played between the 1st of July 2012 and the 31st of December 2012 (ought to be sent for grading in January 2013) will (all) be counted for January grades in 2012-2013 season?
If you send them in, then yes, otherwise no.
Robert Jurjevic wrote: May I ask if the file format of the ECF grading file (sample of which has been shown below) has been changed so as to accommodate dates of individual games?
League and Congress games have had the potential to be individually dated for many years. I'd suggest asking Richard Hadrell about formats.
Robert Jurjevic wrote:
My understanding is that even the grades are calculated twice per season still the grading period is a year (not half a year). Is that so (all the games from a season are counted but the grades taken into account in the calculation are either from the first or the second half of the season)?
That depends what you mean by a grading season. Those playing at least thirty games get an X rating which indicates that their grade has been calculated only on the results of the most recent six months. For everyone else, the system goes back in time to find results until it has accumulated thirty games or gone back 36 months. With detailed results now available at the ecfgrading site, it should be possible to reproduce any published calculation.

Depending on how many games are played in a half season, it's now very possible for some games in a season to affect two grades, whilst others only affect one. By way of example, if you play 10 games every quarter, the Jan 2013 grade will include 2012 Q2, 2012 Q3, 2012 Q4 and the July 2013 grade will include 2012 Q4, 2013 Q1 and 2013 Q2. So 2012 Q4 will feature twice. They've been doing the rapid-play this way for years.

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Re: Shouldn't the ECF membership and grading season be the s

Post by Robert Jurjevic » Wed Sep 26, 2012 6:19 pm

Thanks for your reply Alex.
Alex Holowczak wrote:
Robert Jurjevic wrote:May I ask if the games of a graded internal club tournament (all) played between the 1st of July 2012 and the 30th of June 2013 will (all) be included for grading in 2012-2013 season?
Taking this at face value, the answer is that it's entirely up to you whether or not your internal club tournament is graded. If you decide that it is, then you can have it graded.
Yes we would like our tournament to be graded. It is the Ashtead Chess Club internal graded tournament (which as I understand has been going for many years). Ashtead Chess Club (as far as I understand) has no accredited ECF grading officer (who can send the tournament results for grading) and appointing one (it would seem) would have been a rather complex procedure and (as I understand) is not encouraged by the ECF (but the results are sent by Mr Mike Gunn, a member of Guldford Chess Club, who has kindly taken the role of the Ashtead Chess Club internal tournament grader). http://www.ashteadchessclub.org/html/acc1213.html
Alex Holowczak wrote:
Robert Jurjevic wrote:Our internal club tournament is played on Tuesdays and is intended to last from the 4th of September 2012 (first Tuesday in September 2012) to the 25th of June 2013 (last Tuesday in June 2013). May I ask if the games played between the 1st of July 2012 and the 31st of December 2012 (ought to be sent for grading in January 2013) will (all) be counted for January grades in 2012-2013 season?
If you have a season-long internal event, then you should submit the pre-December 31 games in January for the January list, and then the complete file at the end of the season.
OK. The Ashtead Chess Club internal graded tournament rule says that "only one game is permitted per two players per season". May I ask if it said that "one or more games are permitted per two players per season" that would pose any problems to grading (both the pre-December 31 games file and the all season games file could then contain two or more games between the same two players)? I believe that ECF does not record the game colours (who was White or Black in the game)? In theory game colours could be taken into account for grading (a simple rule could be to regard White player for 5 grading points stronger as say a 125 player is expected to score against a 120 player around 50% in a match if the 125 player plays in every game with Black pieces) but I will not go into that now as I was enough of a nuisance with my proposal for amending the ECF grade calculation method (in order to address grade 'stretching' problem). http://www.jurjevic.org.uk/chess/grade/ ... malies.htm
Alex Holowczak wrote:
Robert Jurjevic wrote:May I ask if the file format of the ECF grading file (sample of which has been shown below) has been changed so as to accommodate dates of individual games?
I think the ECF grading file always had the facility for dates of games, but I'm not sure. E-mail this question to Richard Haddrell.
Roger de Coverly wrote:
Robert Jurjevic wrote:May I ask if the file format of the ECF grading file (sample of which has been shown below) has been changed so as to accommodate dates of individual games?
League and Congress games have had the potential to be individually dated for many years. I'd suggest asking Richard Hadrell about formats.
We do not record individual game dates at present (not sure if we should, not easy to do to be honest, as people may not know when they have played the games, etc.). Tournament Director computer program for Windows (which I use to administer the tournament) has no ability (at present but may in some of its future versions) to record individual game dates. Mr Mike Gunn has assumed that the 2011-2012 pre-December 31 games have been played on the 1st of December 2011 and the 2011-2012 post-December 31 games on the 1st of June 2012.
Alex Holowczak wrote:
Robert Jurjevic wrote:My understanding is that even the grades are calculated twice per season still the grading period is a year (not half a year). Is that so (all the games from a season are counted but the grades taken into account in the calculation are either from the first or the second half of the season)? Thanks.
Not quite sure I understand the question, but the grading period is still a year. Again, e-mail Richard Haddrell.
My understanding is that ECF takes 30 or more games per grading period to be statistically significant (fair enough I would guess). January grades I assume are still based on at least 30 games (i.e. if one plays less than 30 games in the first half of the season the games from previous season or seasons are taken into account, in fact I understand that no individual games can be taken as their temporal order is unknown, so the season grade is taken into account in proportion to the number of games to be counted from that season).

"
Category definitions:
X – Grade based on all games (at least 30) played in the latest halfyear
A – Grade based on the 30 most recent games, all played in the latest 12 months
B – Grade based on the 30 most recent games, all played in the latest 24 months, including at least 20 in the latest 12 months
C – Grade based on the 30 most recent games in the latest 36 months, of which at least 10 were played in the latest 12 months
D – Grade based on 15 or more games in the latest 36 months, of which at least 5 were played in the latest 12 months
E – Grade based on 9 or more games in the latest 36 months, of which at least 1 was played in the latest 12 months
"
Roger de Coverly wrote:That depends what you mean by a grading season. Those playing at least thirty games get an X rating which indicates that their grade has been calculated only on the results of the most recent six months. For everyone else, the system goes back in time to find results until it has accumulated thirty games or gone back 36 months. With detailed results now available at the ecfgrading site, it should be possible to reproduce any published calculation.
When going back I assume you can go only in season (not half season) chunks (that is because as I understand ECF does not record the number of games played per half season)?
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Re: Shouldn't the ECF membership and grading season be the s

Post by Alex Holowczak » Wed Sep 26, 2012 6:30 pm

Robert Jurjevic wrote:Yes we would like our tournament to be graded. It is the Ashtead Chess Club internal graded tournament (which as I understand has been going for many years). Ashtead Chess Club (as far as I understand) has no accredited ECF grading officer (who can send the tournament results for grading) and appointing one (it would seem) would have been a rather complex procedure and (as I understand) is not encouraged by the ECF (but the results are sent by Mr Mike Gunn, a member of Guldford Chess Club, who has kindly taken the role of the Ashtead Chess Club internal tournament grader). http://www.ashteadchessclub.org/html/acc1213.html
You don't need an Accredited ECF Grading Officer. There's no such thing. There's just Graders, which is a privilege Richard Haddrell usually bestows on someone who keeps pestering him to find graders for your events. :lol:

What happens in Surrey is slightly different again. Mike Gunn grades all of the Surrey internal stuff wearing his hat as Grading Officer for Surrey. As a result, Surrey send in all the internal games played by clubs within their territory, and the county is assigned halfresults counting from their games. This is probably something Surrey will want to continue, so you should speak to Mike Gunn about that.
Robert Jurjevic wrote:OK. The Ashtead Chess Club internal graded tournament rule says that "only one game is permitted per two players per season". May I ask if it said that "one or more games are permitted per two players per season" would that pose any problems to grading (both the pre-December 31 games file and the all season games file could then contain two or more games between the same two players)? I believe that ECF does not record the game colours (who was White or Black in the game)?
No, you can grade whatever games you like, with whatever colours you like. However, I would strongly encourage you to report colours when grading. The database certainly allows such information to be recorded. The website outputs this input, if that makes sense. I always report colours; it's no appreciable extra effort. (I use the spreadsheet, so it's just a case of typing "W" in the right cell, and filling in the other cells accordingly.)
Robert Jurjevic wrote:We do not record individual game dates at present (not sure if we should, not easy to do to be honest, as people may not know when they have played the games, etc.). Tournament Director computer program for Windows (which I use to administer the tournament) has no ability (at present but may in some of its future versions) to record individual game dates. Mr Mike Gunn has assumed that the 2011-2012 pre-December 31 games have been played on the 1st of December 2011 and the 2011-2012 post-December 31 games on the 1st of June 2012.
The date matters these days. Mike wasn't able to record the dates when he did it because no one could provide the information for him. The advantage of the organiser doing his own grading is that he knows the dates of the games, so he should put them in the grading file. I use Swiss Master, which requires a bit more faff to get the grading file, but it does put the dates in.
Robert Jurjevic wrote:My understanding is that ECF takes 30 or more games per grading period to be statistically significant (fair enough I would guess). January grades I assume are still based on at least 30 games (i.e. if one plays less than 30 games in the first half of the season the games from previous season or seasons are taken into account, in fact I understand that no individual games can be taken as their temporal order is unknown, so the season grade is taken into account in proportion to the number of games to be counted from that season).
30 games correlates to a 95% confidence interval, apparently. So that's where the magic number 30 comes from. This is hear'say, I've not done the statistics. I know you're into stats, so I assume you're familiar with the concept of confidence intervals, so I won't bore you with the details. I think what you say is correct, but I think you should check with Richard to make absolutely sure.

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Re: Shouldn't the ECF membership and grading season be the s

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Sep 26, 2012 6:45 pm

Robert Jurjevic wrote: The Ashtead Chess Club internal graded tournament rule says that "only one game is permitted per two players per season". May I ask if it said that "one or more games are permitted per two players per season" that would pose any problems to grading (both the pre-December 31 games file and the all season games file could then contain two or more games between the same two players)? I believe that ECF does not record the game colours (who was White or Black in the game)?
One game per season is your club's internal rule. The grading system is capable of grading double round tournaments or matches. Game colours are recorded by the grading system provided the input file contains them.
Robert Jurjevic wrote: I understand that no individual games can be taken as their temporal order is unknown
In most cases, the temporal order is known for leagues and Congresses. It's only club championships that are likely to have an arbitrary date placement. The solution is obviously to supply the date or at the very least the month in which the game was played.

Looking at http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/?ref=25313 ... 1676933033, it's only the internal games that don't have a proper date. The date used for December 2011 was 1/12/11, so those three games will be picked up if the calculation routine needs to do a wind back. What you see on the web page is a copy of the data used for calculations, so picking up individual games is possible.

Whether that's the most sensible way to do it, remains to my mind an open question

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Re: Shouldn't the ECF membership and grading season be the s

Post by Robert Jurjevic » Wed Sep 26, 2012 6:47 pm

I read about estimating a starting grade for an ungraded player:
Estimating a starting Grade for an ungraded player

A Rapid grade, where available, will be used in default of a Standard grade; and vice versa. If the player has no grade at all, a starting grade is calculated as follows, using all his games in the latest three years (for adults) or one year (for juniors), inclusive of the current year.

Stage 1 is to calculate a ‘grade’ for each ungraded player on all his games against graded opponents in the relevant period. The 40-point rule is not used. If all his opponents are graded, it stops there and the result will be used as his starting grade.

Stage 2 brings in games between the ungraded players. Once again the 40-point rule is not used. The players are ‘graded’ on all their games, using as starting grades the figures obtained from Stage 1.

The resulting ‘grades’ will not be very accurate. So they are fed in again as new starting grades, and Stage 2 is repeated. This continues, with increasing accuracy each time, until the figures (more or less) stop changing. The starting grades can then be considered accurate.

These starting grades are then used in the grading proper.
We have a couple of ungraded players in the club. May I ask if the above article in fact suggests that any mistakes made in estimating (in the club using test games or whatever) are eliminated?
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Re: Shouldn't the ECF membership and grading season be the s

Post by Alex Holowczak » Wed Sep 26, 2012 6:48 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Robert Jurjevic wrote: I understand that no individual games can be taken as their temporal order is unknown
In most cases, the temporal order is known for leagues and Congresses. It's only club championships that are likely to have an arbitrary date placement. The solution is obviously to supply the date or at the very least the month in which the game was played.

Looking at http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/?ref=25313 ... 1676933033, it's only the internal games that don't have a proper date. The date used for December 2011 was 1/12/11, so those three games will be picked up if the calculation routine needs to do a wind back. What you see on the web page is a copy of the data used for calculations, so picking up individual games is possible.

Whether that's the most sensible way to do it, remains to my mind an open question
One good way of doing it, if you have to, is to edit the round number. For example, I ran a Rapidplay League, and with the grading for that, I had two games on the same night, so they had the same date. Therefore, I had round 1 for the first games, and round 2 for the second games. If all your games end up being lumped together on one date, the round number establishes an order within itself, but it will still be wrong in relation to all of the other games.

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Re: Shouldn't the ECF membership and grading season be the s

Post by Alex Holowczak » Wed Sep 26, 2012 6:50 pm

Robert Jurjevic wrote:I read about estimating a starting grade for an ungraded player:
Estimating a starting Grade for an ungraded player

A Rapid grade, where available, will be used in default of a Standard grade; and vice versa. If the player has no grade at all, a starting grade is calculated as follows, using all his games in the latest three years (for adults) or one year (for juniors), inclusive of the current year.

Stage 1 is to calculate a ‘grade’ for each ungraded player on all his games against graded opponents in the relevant period. The 40-point rule is not used. If all his opponents are graded, it stops there and the result will be used as his starting grade.

Stage 2 brings in games between the ungraded players. Once again the 40-point rule is not used. The players are ‘graded’ on all their games, using as starting grades the figures obtained from Stage 1.

The resulting ‘grades’ will not be very accurate. So they are fed in again as new starting grades, and Stage 2 is repeated. This continues, with increasing accuracy each time, until the figures (more or less) stop changing. The starting grades can then be considered accurate.

These starting grades are then used in the grading proper.
We have a couple of ungraded players in the club. May I ask if the above article in fact suggests that any mistakes made in estimating (in the club using test games or whatever) are eliminated?
Well, no mistake can truly be eliminated. They can never be that accurate. The iteration process described above is deemed to be the most accurate way of estimating an initial grade. Again, I've not done or seen the stats, but this is the belief of the people who worked on the grading a few years ago. I have no evidence to doubt or confirm this judgement.

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Re: Shouldn't the ECF membership and grading season be the s

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Sep 26, 2012 6:52 pm

Robert Jurjevic wrote:We have a couple of ungraded players in the club. May I ask if the above article in fact suggests that any mistakes made in estimating (in the club using test games or whatever) are eliminated?
Any estimates you use for pairings are purely internal and have no effect on the published grades. It's been that way for ten years or so.

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Re: Shouldn't the ECF membership and grading season be the s

Post by Robert Jurjevic » Wed Sep 26, 2012 6:58 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:Well, no mistake can truly be eliminated. They can never be that accurate. The iteration process described above is deemed to be the most accurate way of estimating an initial grade. Again, I've not done or seen the stats, but this is the belief of the people who worked on the grading a few years ago. I have no evidence to doubt or confirm this judgement.
Well this looks to me as a very good news (don't know when this method has been introduced :) ) as I understand that it eliminates grading anomalies (well not sure if I am allowed to use that term anymore ;) ) related to inaccurate estimate of the initial grade of ungraded players. In practice I worry about one player whose grade we estimated to 80 (I was worried what if say his grade actual grade was 60 or 40, etc.)
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