Irish ratings revaluation

[Roger de Coverly]

According to a post on lichess, the Irish Chess Union has gone even further than FIDE in revaluing players at the lower end of the scale.
https://lichess.org/@/teokajlibroj/blog ... s/rJkHAJZw

I read that the ICU start all new players at 700. I cannot but think that this is extremely silly and will result in recurring problems. It's something that's been a feature of English rating and grading systems that they attempt to bring in new players at a sensible starting rating so that the initial estimate is a reasinable first stab at their ultimate rating level.

If an initial estimate is too high, it will over time inflate the ratings of established players. Set too low and it just takes points away from opponents of these newly rated players.

In the ECF's system, the usual rule is that the dummy opponent is 10^player age, capped at 1800. I think this get modified when there's an expired ratimg from some years previously. I think there's also some modification when bringing in players with established FIDE ratings playing their first English rated game.

[Pete Morriss]

According to a post on lichess, the Irish Chess Union has gone even further than FIDE in revaluing players at the lower end of the scale.
https://lichess.org/@/teokajlibroj/blog ... s/rJkHAJZw

I read that the ICU start all new players at 700.

This claim about new players is quite false: the system is explained here. This link might be restricted to ICU members. If so, the gist is that a player's initial rating is calculated based on their results in their first tournament (or even first game, if they first play in a league match). I have heard this canard of 700 quite often; it may have been the system in the past, perhaps, but the current system has been in place since at least 2012, so there is no excuse for continuing to repeat it.

But much of what the article says specifically about the recent revaluation of Irish ratings is correct.