FIDE grading..curiosities

[Peter Shaw]

Thats why I think the rating system might be better if it was based on `plus or minus 25 points` rather than the 50 at present,

What difference would this make? It doesn't matter if you choose 25 or 50 (or any other number), it is still exactly the same system except that everyones grade is divided by 2, unless I'm missing something?!

[LozCooper]

Now that you can get three game part ratings (provided you score 1 or more point in your first part rating) and the ratings go down to 1200 it is a lot easier to get one. You can get them at FIDE rated weekend tournaments, 4NCL, so you don't even need to take time off work to do it. There isn't a guarantee that you will play three rated players but that's life.

Whenever I see a player is unrated I think it is purely a player who hasn't played many rated tournaments as opposed to any reflection on playing strength.

[Mick Norris]

Personally, I think there is nothing wrong with the current system of getting a rating

The problem is that people think the 3rd Division (including the Northern League) is a sure fire event to get a full FIDE rating, in reality in all depends how well the team you play for is doing, if they are performing badly you are likely to only get a handful of games against already rated players, and then it is down to yourself to get the necessary score for those games to count towards a possible part rating.

Alan

Agree with that

I thought I would manage a FIDE rating by playing 11 games this season, but by the time I took the default in round 10 I knew that I wasn't going to play enough rated players (on boards 1, 2 or 3)

However, that wasn't the point and if I really wanted a FIDE rating I could find a weekender to get the missing part rating

Dave didn't get a part rating as he was playing many unrated players on a lower board than me, and his results against them were much better than against rated players - you could argue he played well in the wrong games

[Sean Hewitt]

There is a factor of strength involved in this as higher graded players are more likely to have a rating than lower graded ones. This is probably due to the fact when the rating floor was 2205 (and subsequently 2000) lower graded players could not achieve a high enough performance to get a rating and now, even though the floor is 1201, many events in England are either not rated at all or, where they are, only the Open is rated.

Of course, that's not the case with e2e4 events where we FIDE rate the Open and the Major (as do a small number of others) but a quick look at the Suningdale entrants makes the point

Open : 52 players, 46 rated and 6 unrated
Major : 44 players, 25 rated and 19 unrated
Minor : 25 players, 6 rated and 19 unrated*

* There are 7 rated players graded below 140 who could play in the Minor but are playing up instead. I suspect it will not be long before we are FIDE rating the Minor.

[Roger de Coverly]

What difference would this make? It doesn't matter if you choose 25 or 50 (or any other number), it is still exactly the same system except that everyones grade is divided by 2, unless I'm missing something?!

I think what he is suggesting is this :-

You play 30 games against an average opposition of 150 scoring 50%. If your grade is currently 150, your new grade is 150. If your previous grade is 175, your new grade is 163. If your previous grade is 125, your new grade is 138. On the current ECF system, equal performance is rewarded by equal grades.

This is what happens in practice for players who only play 15 games in a grading period.

The ECF system is more ruthless in discarding prior grades for very active players than Elo style systems.

[David Pardoe]

I think the point I am making is that a grading system should try to include all relevant games. If that means using a combination of data from different but reliable sources then so be it...
Hence, in my case, I have played 9 games against genuinely rated players..ie, they all have known ECF grades. Some may say that playing 9 games against players averaging 165 (FIDE 1925ish), and scoring 50% is pretty mediocre, and by top GM standards it probably is....but nevertheless, it ought to be a sound enough sample to form at least an estimated or partial rating under the FIDE regime. Just a matter of including the right level of intellegance in the FIDE rating system I think. And now that we have powerful computers to assist with conversion factors, etc, surely we should employ these tools to give us better information & grades....and stop living in the dark ages.
To play in 9 rounds of a good standard FIDE rated event against recognised players with known national grades, and not be able to obtain some kind of `indicative` FIDE rating is rather poor in my opinion, even allowing for the fact that we played some slightly lower order teams in the 4NCL Div 3 Finals w/e...., which might have brought the averages down a tad. To suggest that I play in other stronger event in the hope that I avoid the same pitfalls and actually obtain a FIDE grade seems rather strange.
Maybe I`ll just stick with our ECF grades (despite my reservations...) and leave FIDE to others prepared to accept its obvious curiousities.
I`m sure there is scope for some improvements though, to bring this up to a better rating standard/methodology.....

[Kevin Thurlow]

Gradings don't measure strength at all - they give a measure of "performance", not necessarily of great reliability, especially where people don't play many games.

[Paul Sanders]

To play in 9 rounds of a good standard FIDE rated event against recognised players with known national grades, and not be able to obtain some kind of `indicative` FIDE rating is rather poor in my opinion.

I have wondered the same on many occasions. Has anyone at the ECF tried to agree with FIDE on a way to set a tournament rating for unrated players? That would at a stroke remove a big barrier to FIDE ratings for ECF players, and help tournaments manage pairing and attract the right players for sections/rating prizes.

[Alan Walton]

In an ideal world everybody will have a standard rating recognized throughout the world, and this is controlled by FIDE and calculated by submitting all games played (international, national, and local leagues and congresses)

Unfortunately this could be open to massive amounts of abuse, this is why FIDE only rate registered tournaments

To start using "national" ratings for unrated players would also be a very dangerous policy, as we have seen in the past certain countries have tried to manipulate the current system, so what is stopping them manipulating their national ratings which FIDE have no control or influence over to benefit their players

We are fortunate in England that we have a half-decent rating system all ready, but one downside of this is that it is easy for people sand-bag their grade (say somebody, a 150 player, throwing games against and average grade of 150 to achieve a grade of 120), it is alot harder and more expensive to try and sand-bag a FIDE rating

[Ian Thompson]

Has anyone at the ECF tried to agree with FIDE on a way to set a tournament rating for unrated players? That would at a stroke remove a big barrier to FIDE ratings for ECF players, and help tournaments manage pairing and attract the right players for sections/rating prizes.

The ECF publishes its own table of conversions, which tournament organisers can use if they want, and which the ECF does use for grading Direct Member overseas results - http://grading.bcfservices.org.uk/help.php#elo.

[Gareth Harley-Yeo]

You see FIDE ratings bandied around all over these events, on results sheets, tables, etc...which make it look like these are official numbers, but in fact are full of `estimates`. Maybe they could put an `E` in front of such figures.

The estimates are already highlighted at the 4NCL. You can distinguish them from actual FIDE ratings because they are written in italics

[Alan Walton]

Gradings don't measure strength at all - they give a measure of "performance", not necessarily of great reliability, especially where people don't play many games.

I would have to agree that ECF grades measure only prior year performance, but you could argue that FIDE rating measure strength due the incremental method of adding performances onto your next rating

[Sean Hewitt]

Gradings don't measure strength at all - they give a measure of "performance", not necessarily of great reliability, especially where people don't play many games.

I would have to agree that ECF grades measure only prior year performance, but you could argue that FIDE rating measure strength due the incremental method of adding performances onto your next rating

Especially as it is possible to have a FIDE rating that is higher than your performance (TPR) in any single tournament.