Hi all,michele clack wrote:I must have a look at the European reports. I noticed there is a prominent link on the ECF homepage, which is excellent.That's about a par result for him as his true strength is probably about 190 at the moment.
By the way he's leading the European Union Youth Championships at the moment with 6/7
If there is a 10 point junior uplift for a 13 year old, which I think is the figure, then your estimate of 190 +10=200 is just 6 points shy of his published grade. Since he played 142 games I'd have said that his grade is probably pretty accurate. A 3% variance could just be sampling error as you won't have seen all his games.
Ian (my husband) thinks Brandon was a little unlucky at Bromsgrove as he played Lawrence Cooper as black in the first round, which was his only loss. I was tied up in a long battle in my first game but Ian finished early and watched a lot of it and he was impresed with Brandon's play even though he lost in the end. It would be interesting to hear what Lawrence thinks his current strength is likely to be.
To me the inference seems to be that the new grades are OK for juniors who have played a fair few games.
To be fair to Brandon, I don't think he played as well as he can in that game. I won an exchange fairly early on but let him back into the game and was relieved (owing to my time shortage)to be able to sac it back into a winning ending. Having lost to a junior in rd1 of my previous weekend tournament (Dominic Rabbitte at Heywood) I was somewhat apprehensive about playing Brandon and so I concentrated harder than maybe I would have against an adult opponent! His only other dropped half was in a game that he was winning from the opening. I did ask him what he expected his grade to be and he said about 180 (he was 148 I think on the wallchart at Worcs). I did sense he was a dangerous opponent who could take advantage of any tactical chances.
He's clearly very promising and is performing well at the European as we speak. I'm sure it won't be long before he overtakes my grade and I wish him well for the future.