Monthly Grading Lists

General discussions about ratings.
Alex Holowczak
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Monthly Grading Lists

Post by Alex Holowczak » Tue Jul 21, 2009 3:32 pm

If you look at professional golf or tennis, they're able to produce their rankings on the Monday of each week, given that a tournament will end on the Sunday. There are numerous ranking events per week in those sports, yet still they can produce updated ranking lists overnight on its website.

So why can't the ECF do that with chess?

I would imagine there are issues with getting results from tournament organisers to the ECF, and then a further delay in putting them on to the computers. I imagine about a month being required. So, why can't the gradings of July 1st 2009 reflect events finishing from June 1st 2008 to May 31st 2009? (Or more seasons if required) Then for each month, drop the results from the month longest ago, and add the results from the new month. Presumably (he says with little experience of coding, or even how the ECF grading computer works), it can be programmed to count which games are outside of the date range, and which games are inside it?

I also would like to know why it takes so long to be published on the website. Again, surely the ECF grading computer can be programmed such that it updates the website on the correct day automatically. Indeed, why can't the online player profiles contain the player's results from the grading period, which again are stored on the grading computer? If players are e-mailed with their game results, surely the information can be put online instead/too?

I see several advantages to a monthly system, particularly if it were graded with the weighting system they're introducing for juniors. (A weighting system is used in the golf ranking system.) The grades more easily reflect current ability, as opposed to the average performance over the previous season. I see this as far more meaningful information, particularly for rapidly improving players. This in turn will reduce the stretching that effects the system, as undergraded players will not be undergraded for as long a period of time. It'd also be more interesting to players, who have a monthly highlight of a new grade, rather than an annual one. The lag would be at most two months, instead of twelve months.

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Carl Hibbard
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Re: Monthly Grading Lists

Post by Carl Hibbard » Tue Jul 21, 2009 3:49 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:I also would like to know why it takes so long to be published on the website. Again, surely the ECF grading computer can be programmed such that it updates the website on the correct day automatically. Indeed, why can't the online player profiles contain the player's results from the grading period, which again are stored on the grading computer? If players are e-mailed with their game results, surely the information can be put online instead/too?
The grading "computer" as you call it and the web site are not linked and are updated in different ways!

We have discussed publishing the results that went to make up the grade but never got any further with it, this came down to a decision as to whether that level of information should only be accessed by direct members and not the general public
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IM Jack Rudd
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Re: Monthly Grading Lists

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Tue Jul 21, 2009 3:56 pm

Beware the Law Of Unforseen Consequences. A large proportion of English chess is played in events that take the best part of a year to complete, and if the grades were to update within the period covered by the event, there would be the issue of deciding what was the relevant for the purposes of the competition.

Tim Spanton
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Re: Monthly Grading Lists

Post by Tim Spanton » Tue Jul 21, 2009 4:02 pm

FM Jack Rudd wrote:Beware the Law Of Unforseen Consequences. A large proportion of English chess is played in events that take the best part of a year to complete, and if the grades were to update within the period covered by the event, there would be the issue of deciding what was the relevant for the purposes of the competition.
How about the grades in force when each game was played?

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Re: Monthly Grading Lists

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Jul 21, 2009 4:04 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:So why can't the ECF do that with chess?
Because it doesn't want to and the "Clarke" methodology needs a "long" period of time over which to calculate a rating. You may or may not have noticed that FIDE have switched to publishing ratings every two months and that results are published on the website "as received". So it can be done but only with an Elo style methodology.
Alex Holowczak wrote:The grades more easily reflect current ability, as opposed to the average performance over the previous season. I see this as far more meaningful information, particularly for rapidly improving players.
This is not necessarily what you want from a rating system, since most rating systems are attempting to measure "strength" using results as a proxy. See the various opinions expressed on the chessbase site about the rejected FIDE K factor doubling and for that matter the various contributions on this site from Brian Valentine amongst others about the effect of fluctuations in form on ratings.

The approach I would suggest for "unofficial" monthly ratings on a Clarke system is to just calculate "next year's" grade using results submitted so far. So after 1 tournament of 5 games the "up-to-date" grade is (25 * last year's grade + 5* this year's grade) / 30.

For that matter, players who play 10 games a season count their 30 games over three seasons, so there is always an element of lag in the system. In fact there's a necessary trade-off between lag and instability. You would not particularly want a career 175 player to hit a temporary period of bad form and be eligible to enter under 150 events. Equally if a grade over 200 qualified you for a title or a prestige event, you would want the 175 player to demonstrate a 200 standard over a reasonable number of games.
Alex Holowczak wrote:This in turn will reduce the stretching that effects the system,
Do you have any real proof that Keith Arkell should be moved 30 points closer to the "average" player? Much of the noise about rating deflation has come from players who went away for a while and found when they came back that they couldn't recapture their previous grades because standards of play had improved in the meantime.

Mick Norris
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Re: Monthly Grading Lists

Post by Mick Norris » Tue Jul 21, 2009 4:07 pm

Tim Spanton wrote:
FM Jack Rudd wrote:Beware the Law Of Unforseen Consequences. A large proportion of English chess is played in events that take the best part of a year to complete, and if the grades were to update within the period covered by the event, there would be the issue of deciding what was the relevant for the purposes of the competition.
How about the grades in force when each game was played?
2 problems with that - we have a league where all players have to be graded U100 (soon to change to U125 I guess) - if a fixture is postponed a player may become eligible or ineligible in the meantime

We already have a problem with the Manchester Rapidplay (1 March) with players entering in advance of the grading revision in January/February and having to be moved up sections because their grades have gone up - I wouldn't want this to be a monthly occurance

Alos, the current system allows graders until end June to submit results for grading, useful for leagues in particular like Manchester where some results take ages to come in
Any postings on here represent my personal views

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Rob Thompson
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Re: Monthly Grading Lists

Post by Rob Thompson » Tue Jul 21, 2009 4:28 pm

Would it be possible to do the Standard play grades after 6 months, like the rapidplay ones? This is beginning to move towards the idea of monthly grades, but without being a massively drastic change.
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Alex Holowczak
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Re: Monthly Grading Lists

Post by Alex Holowczak » Tue Jul 21, 2009 4:33 pm

Carl Hibbard wrote: The grading "computer" as you call it and the web site are not linked and are updated in different ways!
Maybe linking them then would be an improvement? It'd make the task of publishing grades much quicker.
Carl Hibbard wrote: We have discussed publishing the results that went to make up the grade but never got any further with it, this came down to a decision as to whether that level of information should only be accessed by direct members and not the general public
Given the site now allows membership, why not publish it to members, but not to the public? I.e. you have to log in and if that account belongs to an ECF member, you can view people's grading results?
Roger de Coverly wrote: Do you have any real proof that Keith Arkell should be moved 30 points closer to the "average" player? Much of the noise about rating deflation has come from players who went away for a while and found when they came back that they couldn't recapture their previous grades because standards of play had improved in the meantime.
I think the top of the scale is fine, it's the bottom that has the problem. Due to the lag, junior grades (or new players to the system) are always a lot lower. In the Under 100 section of the tournaments I've entered in 2008-09, Under 21s won all of them! And we weren't even in the top 10 of the field according to our grades. The top wouldn't notice much difference. My grade would have improved this season in smaller jumps, so any of my opponents would have a clearer indication of my ability. Indeed quite a few players around here quip "you're always undergraded when you first start". Monthly lists would reduce this undergrading, as it wouldn't pull everyone else down, either. My opponents would score 140 points for beating me this season, where they should really be getting 160. (I've been playing at 110 standard all season.) This is far more dramatic than giving juniors an artificially higher grade, it's usually by 10 points. Most juniors improve far quicker than that. A monthly list would track this improvement much better.
Mick Norris wrote:
Tim Spanton wrote:
FM Jack Rudd wrote:Beware the Law Of Unforseen Consequences. A large proportion of English chess is played in events that take the best part of a year to complete, and if the grades were to update within the period covered by the event, there would be the issue of deciding what was the relevant for the purposes of the competition.
How about the grades in force when each game was played?
2 problems with that - we have a league where all players have to be graded U100 (soon to change to U125 I guess) - if a fixture is postponed a player may become eligible or ineligible in the meantime

We already have a problem with the Manchester Rapidplay (1 March) with players entering in advance of the grading revision in January/February and having to be moved up sections because their grades have gone up - I wouldn't want this to be a monthly occurance

Alos, the current system allows graders until end June to submit results for grading, useful for leagues in particular like Manchester where some results take ages to come in
You can just use the grade at the time of the game in league matches (if adjournments, the date when the game finishes). If League results get submitted all at once, instead they would just be submitted monthly. If grades go up/down and sections change, you can just ask on tournament entry forms to for their grading reference, rather than their grade, and then check their grade in the latest publicised data which is practical for the timing of the event. Just specify on the entry forms that that would be the case.
Roger de Coverly wrote: So it can be done but only with an Elo style methodology.
I don't understand why the methodology makes a difference. If it is allowing for games in the past 12 months, then it won't make any difference.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Monthly Grading Lists

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Jul 21, 2009 4:35 pm

Rob Thompson wrote:Would it be possible to do the Standard play grades after 6 months, like the rapidplay ones? This is beginning to move towards the idea of monthly grades, but without being a massively drastic change.
This was proposed (and rejected) about eighteen months ago. There would be a problem with this where players didn't play in one of the six month periods. You see this in the rapid grades. In the latest list, I was among a number of players whose grade went up by a decent amount despite not playing a single game in the "most recent" six month period.

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IM Jack Rudd
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Re: Monthly Grading Lists

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Tue Jul 21, 2009 4:38 pm

Rob Thompson wrote:Would it be possible to do the Standard play grades after 6 months, like the rapidplay ones? This is beginning to move towards the idea of monthly grades, but without being a massively drastic change.
That seems likely to give you the worst of both worlds; you still get most of the drawbacks of rating lag, while removing the advantage of not having players' grades change through the middle of a grading-limited event.

Tim Spanton
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Re: Monthly Grading Lists

Post by Tim Spanton » Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:31 pm

Mick Norris wrote:
Tim Spanton wrote:
FM Jack Rudd wrote:Beware the Law Of Unforseen Consequences. A large proportion of English chess is played in events that take the best part of a year to complete, and if the grades were to update within the period covered by the event, there would be the issue of deciding what was the relevant for the purposes of the competition.
How about the grades in force when each game was played?
2 problems with that - we have a league where all players have to be graded U100 (soon to change to U125 I guess) - if a fixture is postponed a player may become eligible or ineligible in the meantime

We already have a problem with the Manchester Rapidplay (1 March) with players entering in advance of the grading revision in January/February and having to be moved up sections because their grades have gone up - I wouldn't want this to be a monthly occurance

Alos, the current system allows graders until end June to submit results for grading, useful for leagues in particular like Manchester where some results take ages to come in
Players' ratings frequently change during the course of Fide-rated tournaments - Hastings being a good example. The answer is that the ratings in force when the tournament began are used for the purposes of rating prizes, tiebreaks, etc.

In correspondence chess, it is unusual to have the same rating at the start and the end of a single game, never mind a tournament!

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Carl Hibbard
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Re: Monthly Grading Lists

Post by Carl Hibbard » Tue Jul 21, 2009 6:30 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:Maybe linking them then would be an improvement? It'd make the task of publishing grades much quicker.
Doh, had not thought of that :roll:
homercrawl.gif
On a more serious note the two systems are worlds apart technology wise making this idea more complicated than it should be
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Alex Holowczak
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Re: Monthly Grading Lists

Post by Alex Holowczak » Tue Jul 21, 2009 9:29 pm

Carl Hibbard wrote:
Alex Holowczak wrote:Maybe linking them then would be an improvement? It'd make the task of publishing grades much quicker.
Doh, had not thought of that :roll:
homercrawl.gif
On a more serious note the two systems are worlds apart technology wise making this idea more complicated than it should be
Is it at all possible to create a new united system then? While a pain at first, it could be very useful in the long-term.

Brent Smith
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Re: Monthly Grading Lists

Post by Brent Smith » Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:38 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:
Carl Hibbard wrote:
Alex Holowczak wrote:Maybe linking them then would be an improvement? It'd make the task of publishing grades much quicker.
On a more serious note the two systems are worlds apart technology wise making this idea more complicated than it should be
Is it at all possible to create a new united system then? While a pain at first, it could be very useful in the long-term.
I sympathise with Carl here. While almost well-defined requirements can be accomplished with suitable computing methods (and this would be no exception), often the history of what already exists makes this very time-consuming (and expensive!).

We (Berks Juniors) record all results in a single database and compute grade changes immediately, and make it all available through the website (bjca.org.uk). However (and it's a big however), the number of results I have to cope with is comparitively small, and the community of players is also an order of magnitude (or two) smaller. Also, as Roger points out, the constant re-calculation of grades is simpler with an Elo system (at least the variant we created for ourselves). This is because the calculation uses only starting grade and result - there is no time period. We operate very few grade-defined events which removes one of the big potential problems for a national system.

Obviously improving players (mostly juniors) would like to see their new grade on a more regular basis, but I suspect there is a very large community who are not too bothered for such instant knowledge.

David Haydon
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Re: Monthly Grading Lists

Post by David Haydon » Wed Jul 22, 2009 1:33 am

Why don't we just have a ranking system like they do in tennis?

ECF grades totally suck. ranking systems would be way more fun. 200 ECF means nothing to me, apart from when i put myself on the scales..... and considering they are inflating grades, ECF are a JOKE.

Get it Sorted!

David