English Chess Forum

Here is an unusual one from an Oxfordshire player -
http://grading.bcfservices.org.uk/getre ... ef=115308A
Over the couse of 17 years, Graham McInnes has gone from 196, down to a low of 136 and then back up to 201.

Noticing that this is an E rating over 14 games, is it possible that he scored an exceptional high percentage ? It has been suggested that the calculation used to work out grades for new players can sometimes converge to a strange value particularly where other ungraded players are featured.

Yes, he scored 10/10 in the league (his team was in division 3). His opponents were no mugs - they were graded between 136 and 153, and scoring 10/10 over that sort of opposition is pretty impressive. I don't know where his other four games came from.

It is lucky that this chap is not a Chiltern League regular as he would not be permitted to play in the League this season.

For some reason there is a rating cap of ECF200, (standard play) for Division One.

The justification from one of the Captains was "I can't persuade anyone over 200 to play so we'd better have a cap"

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Graham's other 4 games were from the Kidlington U180 in Feb:
http://home.btconnect.com/OCA/U180%20%2 ... e2010.html

I actually played him in the last round, and from the way he played I did reckon he was way above his estimated grade of 150. Well done to him getting a 200+ grading this season though!

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Michael Bennett
Hendon Chess Club: http://www.hendonchessclub.com
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The most unusual I've seen is a player graded 26, 85 and 139 in successive seasons. In his first year at university his sheer awfulness became a standing joke in the club, then suddenly in his second he started beating all comers in division 3 of the local league, and in his third he moved up to division 2 and did likewise.

I suspect that this is the guy who I remember playing for Rochdale at about the time his grade went down. I know that there were some comments at the time about the way he won a couple of majors (from memory, certainly at least one) shortly after his grade dropped down.

That's a pretty sh**ty comment unless you are 100% sure it is him.

Of course, I should have checked the Kidlington crosstable as it is the only longplay tournament in the area.

I see you lost to the eventual winner of Kidlington, Georgs Vikanis. I played him when he was about 13 and had just arrived from Latvia. He had won his first four games in the Oxford league and I was terrified of the prospect of meeting him with black! I played the King's Indian for the first time in my life, got thoroughly outplayed, fought back well when he missed a winning move and then offered him a draw in an easily won position when I had one minute left on my clock to finish the game. He thought about it for about five minutes, obviously wondering whether he could blitz me off the board if he continued, but then accepted. By then I had worked out a simple winning plan for me which I reckon I would have had time to execute.

[Event "Banbury vs Cowley, Oxford League div 1"]
[Date "2007.11.27"]
[Round "-"]
[White "Vikanis, Georgs"]
[Black "D'Souza-Eva, Jon"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]

1. Nf3 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 g6 4. Nc3 Bg7 5. e4 O-O 6. Bd3 e5 7. d5 a5 8. O-O
Na6 9. Nd2 Nc5 10. Bc2 Bd7 11. Nb3 b6 12. Nxc5 bxc5 13. f4 exf4 14. Bxf4
Ng4 15. Qd2 Ne5 16. b3 Qe7 17. Bh6 a4 18. Bxg7 Kxg7 19. Rae1 axb3 20. Bxb3
h6 21. Ne2 Qg5 22. Qc3 Kg8 23. Nf4 Rfe8 24. Re3 Qe7 25. Rg3 Kh7 26. h3 Rf8
27. Kh2 f5 28. Bc2 g5 29. exf5 Qf6 30. Nh5 Qf7 31. f6+ Kg8 32. Ng7 Rxa2 33.
Nf5 Qxf6 34. Ne3 Qg7 35. Nf5 Bxf5 36. Bxf5 Kh8 37. Bd3 Rxf1 38. Bxf1 Qf6
39. Qb3 Rb2 40. Qa3 Qf2 41. Qc3 Kg8 42. h4 g4 43. h5 Nf3+ 44. Rxf3 gxf3 45.
Qf6 fxg2 46. Qg6+ Kf8 47. Qxh6+ Ke7 48. Qg7+ Qf7

I felt reasonably pleased about being the first person to avoid losing to the new wunderkind on the block, but Georgs rather took the luster off my result by losing five and drawing two of his remaining seven league games.

If we assume the league performance as being against an average of 145, then 100% is 195 over 10 games. The Kidlington performance was 194 over 4.

As his grade came out higher than this, we could suspect the estimation program as converging to a too high value (the 40 point rule can cause this). He played at least one junior, so there was at least one other estimate running in parallel with his.

Used to play him in Liverpool about 30 years ago ,he was about 180 then,
the 150 grades are probaly due to inactivity,and the 130 an anomaly. He
used to call me a bad chess player which might be true!

Played him in the final round of the British Rapidplay U170 Major section in 1997 in Leeds which, now I think about it, had an astonishing prize of 1000 for 1st. Losing to him cost me a share of 1st which would have been £750. I recall the game very clearly and he did seem like a fairly good player!

I found another unusual history, for those interested.

http://grading.bcfservices.org.uk/getre ... ef=127690G

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They thought he was dead.
They were dead wrong!

If I was this guy, I think I'd prefer to be asked about my grading history, rather than have it pointed out like this. But if you follow the link from the ECF grading database, you can see his FIDE rating history (and birth year) here:

http://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=401790

That means that in 2000, he was rated 2195, while also being rated 130 ECF, which might be some record for disparity in grades between ECF and FIDE. But I see what you mean, to be graded 204 in the A band, you have to have played a fair number of games over the preceding years or that year. FWIW, the ECF grading database only goes back (I think) to 1994, but this guy was active in the 1980s as well, as can be seen here:

http://www.365chess.com/players/David_Knox

One of the reason it might be best not to speculate about reasons for wildly fluctuating grades is that some of the reasons for it could be private (e.g. illness). Unless people explain such grading histories themselves, it will likely always be a bit of a mystery.

I am getting old...

If you had watched some of David's games (especially the openings...) it would all make a lot of sense

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Cheers
Carl Hibbard