English Chess Forum

How often should ECF grading lists be published?

I like the 6 monthly idea, it stops teams from blatantly taking advantage of under rated players for an entire season when their grade has not caught up with their actual playing standard.

The only drawback is that the vast majority of players only play local leagues and so will be getting graded based on a handful of results played in the autumn. This can cause sudden jumps up or down, but on the plus side they only have to suffer that problem for another 6 months.

Frequent congress players like me would find it irritating if our eligibility for grade-limited sections couldn't be predicted in time to book cheap rail tickets and take advantage of cheap hotel deals. That's why I've voted for the status quo.

Sean Hewitt wrote:How often should ECF grading lists be published?

Doesn't it depend on what method they are using to compute the grades? If they are using a performance method as at present, you need enough games to make for a meaningful measurement, which implies six monthly even though even that has volatility and event mismatch disadvantages over annual. If you use an Elo style approach of new rating = old rating plus change, then as frequently as is practicable. That's probably monthly, but league reporting is going to be a headache.

Events using grades to determine eligibility wouldn't want an excessive number of grading lists to choose from.

The other option is to publish live but unofficial grades. That's best defined as what the grade would be if you didn't play another game and the new list were published immediately. The approach for new players and juniors would need to be changed to make that work.

Brendan O'Gorman wrote:Frequent congress players like me would find it irritating if our eligibility for grade-limited sections couldn't be predicted in time to book cheap rail tickets and take advantage of cheap hotel deals. That's why I've voted for the status quo.

Could you play in the appropriate section and take advantage of the same rail and hotel deals?

That thing with live but unofficial grades is what Yorkshire is basically doing. Coupled with a yearly 'official' one.

I think I actually prefer that to trying to work with official six monthly grading lists. Not that six monthly lists are bad. Anything more frequent than six months and official would almost certainly simply be ignored for team board order purposes/congress sections etc.

My one problem with how the six monthly lists work right now is that you're often throwing away perfectly good data for no particular reason. If someone has played >30 games in a season then they should all go into the July grade.

Joey Stewart wrote:I like the 6 monthly idea, it stops teams from blatantly taking advantage of under rated players for an entire season when their grade has not caught up with their actual playing standard.

That will depend on league rules, but don't most leagues adopt eligibility rules for restricted competitions based on the July grades? I'd agree that board orders within teams lack a consistent treatment as only some leagues would insist that the order reflected the January grade.

Joey Stewart wrote: The only drawback is that the vast majority of players only play local leagues and so will be getting graded based on a handful of results played in the autumn. This can cause sudden jumps up or down, but on the plus side they only have to suffer that problem for another 6 months.

There's a thirty game count back, so results from up to three years ago will be in the grade for the less active players and disappear if they play enough to get rid of them. Even for the more active players, events played in December such as the London Classic Open or Hastings are more likely to be included in two grading periods than ones in January, or for that matter July.

John Upham wrote:

Brendan O'Gorman wrote:Frequent congress players like me would find it irritating if our eligibility for grade-limited sections couldn't be predicted in time to book cheap rail tickets and take advantage of cheap hotel deals. That's why I've voted for the status quo.

Could you play in the appropriate section and take advantage of the same rail and hotel deals?

I could, but I wouldn't want to commit to playing in what I expected to be a Major only to find I had to play in the Open section because a new grading list had been published in the interim.

Brendan O'Gorman wrote: I could, but I wouldn't want to commit to playing in what I expected to be a Major only to find I had to play in the Open section because a new grading list had been published in the interim.

That's already a potential issue with e2e4 tournaments. The Sunningdale one over the May weekend used the May 1st list as reference point. International Elo ratings don't change dramatically and you can usually predict the change. If however you wanted to arrange travel and accommodation in March for an event in May, you don't know how you are going to perform in April tournaments that haven't taken place yet. I'd expect that pragmatic organisers would accept entries to limited sections based on the rating at the time of entry. Any event running a second section based on International Elo is likely to be a shark pond anyway compared to the corresponding one based on current ECF grades.

It would be... but at least us English players could get to be the sharks, he he

I agree with Brendan. It is annoying having to play in a different section from the one you entered because ones grade has changed between entering and the congress starting.

I like it every six months, but I would prefer both lists one month later, i.e August 1 to January 31 and February 1 to July 31.

I voted for every 6 months.

Barry Sandercock wrote:I agree with Brendan. It is annoying having to play in a different section from the one you entered because ones grade has changed between entering and the congress starting.

Is there anything that would stop an organizer to use for the entry criteria the rating at any chosen moment?
For example, an event is announced on June 1st that will run from October 1st to October 7th, could the organizer use the June 1st grading for admission at the minor events? Making sure this is clearly specified in the tournament rules.
That would work regardless of the frequency of the grading updates.

Paolo Casaschi wrote:

Barry Sandercock wrote:I agree with Brendan. It is annoying having to play in a different section from the one you entered because ones grade has changed between entering and the congress starting.

Is there anything that would stop an organizer to use for the entry criteria the rating at any chosen moment?
For example, an event is announced on June 1st that will run from October 1st to October 7th, could the organizer use the June 1st grading for admission at the minor events? Making sure this is clearly specified in the tournament rules.
That would work regardless of the frequency of the grading updates.

Indeed, and this is already common practice for the July and (to a lesser extent) the January lists. But it's not universal. Moreover, more frequent lists would mean extra effort for organisers to decide and publicise their entry criteria and greater uncertainty for potential entrants to events (and there will be many) that didn't consider this question.