English Chess Forum

I recently returned to competitive chess after being absent for several years through illness. There was virtually no OTB chess and I wanted to generate an online standardplay rating. So I have been playing in a number of online events. These included the later rounds of Season 3 of the London Online Chess League.

I discovered today that my online standardplay rating does not draw on any of the LOCL games that I played. I took this up with the ECF and I understand that the LOCL organisers decided some time ago not to submit any games for online rating. So this is not an ECF-online rated event. I wonder how many of the 436 participants in Season 3 knew that. There is nothing at all in the LOCL rules and regulations to suggest that games will (or will not) be submitted for rating.

This is the first league I have ever played in whose detailed structure turns out to support an ongoing series of casual games whose outcome makes no difference to one's rating. I would not have entered if I had known.

Will the organisers reconsider their decision and submit the results of Season 3 for online rating? I understand they use the League Management System and this should reduce the amount of work involved.

Will the organisers commit to submitting the results of future LOCL events for online rating?

James,

I suggest you discuss this with John Sargent.

When I set-up the online seasons on the LCL LMS I enquired if rating was a requirement.

It remains a possibility to rate the online seasons if LOCL require it.

The games were played on the Tornelo platform and results recorded on the LCL LMS which currently supports both OTB and OL seasons even concurrently.

Are you involved with Pimlico these days?

John

I have had an exchange of emails with John Sargent. He may post a clarification. Not to draw attention to the small print showing that most people (not me) realised this event would not be rated but decided to play in it anyway. I don't understand why people would want to do that. Rather I hope that John would address the two questions in the original post. I expect the answer to the first to be No and I hope the answer to the second will be Yes.

In response to your final point, I am in touch with some members of Pimlico but I am not currently involved in any of the club's OTB or online activities.

James Toon wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 22, 2021 1:40 pm

most people (not me) realised this event would not be rated but decided to play in it anyway. I don't understand why people would want to do that.

I suspect the majority see online competitions as a stopgap until OTB fully resumes, and are not bothered about online ratings.

James has beat me to it We originally had plans to rate the third season of the online competition, but changed those when we had stability issues with the Tornelo platform, which many participants will know about from my email communications throughout the season so I won't bore you with them here. I personally view Tornelo as being potentially (key word there) superior to other platforms for League and tournament play for several reasons, but stability is a pretty core requirement, and on balance we decided not to rate Season 3 because of this. Note we made this decision before signups even started, so this wasn't a mid-season change or anything like that. We had over 400 people sign up anyway!

A decent number of the players who joined the online competition as non-ECF members have also subsequently joined member clubs, and are likely to become members to play in OTB competition moving forward, so despite being unrated this is continuing to have a net positive effect in terms of enticing new players to the game and our member clubs.

No further online competition is currently planned until OTB chess is underway (mainly time / energy limitations), but I intend on restarting this at some point in the future, and the intention is to rate those too, probably on another platform as Tornelo has sadly not proven to be a reliable partner for tournament or league play.

So, in short: No, and Yes!

I sympathise with James over the rating/non-rating issue, (and it should be clear what that status is beforehand) but take John's point. I played in Surrey's (non-rated) online event on Tormelo and in one game, the server kicked me out for 15 minutes, leaving me to make all remaining moves in about 1 minute instead of 16. I think I still managed to win, but was fairly cross anyway - I would have been very cross if it had been a serious game (although I regard online ratings as even less important than OTB ones).
Not picking on Tormelo, chess.com defaulted me for no reason whilst I was awaiting a move a couple of weeks ago, and last night, it disconnected me, announcing "error 502 - our fault", then when it came back after 5 minutes, it had put all the missing time on my clock. If I had paid anything, I would have demanded my money back.

Basically, online chess should be regarded as some entertainment until real chess returns.

I think the other consideration is that there is no easy way for a league grader to verify results beyond a slow and painstaking search through every individual players online account history - something that is far too much to expect of any unpaid volunteer.

I sympathise with Kevin over the technical problems that can arise in online chess. But this form of the game is here to stay. Like a virus, it has mutated from the original game and developed a life of its own. You do not have to travel long distances to sit at a board in a room which is cold, or noisy, or hard-to-find, waiting for an opponent who does not turn up (this happens at least once a season in league chess), making you question the meaning of life. Instead you cut travelling time completely, and if your opponent takes forever over a move, you can check the football or dash off a few emails without causing offence because no-one can see you doing it.

The downside is that you can never be sure your opponent isn't consulting the relevant volume in the Grandmaster Repertoire series. But if people want to do that, let them. It doesn't affect how I play my game. If it really matters, the organisers can put stringent security measures in place – as anyone who played in the British Online Chess Championships will know.

The technical side is improving all the time and most of the events I play in run without any issues. The current 4NCL individual and team online tournaments are exemplary. Even as OTB returns in force this autumn, I predict the online game will continue to flourish.

I don't play much online anyway, but would not do so if the games gave me any sort of official rating, with my real name attached.

"Instead you cut travelling time completely, and if your opponent takes forever over a move, you can check the football or dash off a few emails without causing offence because no-one can see you doing it."

Yes - I got sufficiently bored in the longer online games to do sudoku whilst waiting for a move!

I think it was made clear that the LL would not be rated.

Credit to John Sargent for the work involved.

One of the pleasant things I discovered when I started playing 'serious' (County, 4NCL, LL, 45+15 or 60+15) online chess was that the games could be just as competitive if they were not rated as if they were. My original expectation on starting out this form of online chess was that the games would be less meaningful, but this very soon turned out not to be the case at all.

I have played a wider variety of players and had more interesting and hard-fought games online than OTB. Of the 97 'serious' online games I have played I think one player definitely cheated, and one or two others may have done so. That is a small number and the best attitude is just to accept it.

(I find blitz chess against unknown players completely unsatisfactory, but that is another subject)

James Toon wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 22, 2021 5:03 pm

I sympathise with Kevin over the technical problems that can arise in online chess. But this form of the game is here to stay. Like a virus, it has mutated from the original game and developed a life of its own. You do not have to travel long distances to sit at a board in a room which is cold, or noisy, or hard-to-find, waiting for an opponent who does not turn up (this happens at least once a season in league chess), making you question the meaning of life.

Although in the London League (in particular) this is often
a dream outcome... . Point for the team and an early bath! (drink)

Joey Stewart wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 22, 2021 4:52 pm

I think the other consideration is that there is no easy way for a league grader to verify results beyond a slow and painstaking search through every individual players online account history - something that is far too much to expect of any unpaid volunteer.

Do they verify the results of games played OTB in clubs? I don't. I assume that if one captain has submitted the result and the other hasn't corrected it, then they aren't lying.

While I appreciate this is less easy on some other platforms, one of the things we do have on Tornelo is an instant download PGN of every game played. If the platform improves and becomes more stable and practically usable for future rated games, I imagine organisers and arbiters will be happy for this function, which is useful for both Fair Play analysis and results verification.

John Sargent wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 28, 2021 3:35 pm

While I appreciate this is less easy on some other platforms, one of the things we do have on Tornelo is an instant download PGN of every game played. If the platform improves and becomes more stable and practically usable for future rated games, I imagine organisers and arbiters will be happy for this function, which is useful for both Fair Play analysis and results verification.

lichess has an API which presumably facilitates PGN downloads of games. Might the 4NCL already be using the API for that purpose?