Frequency of League Result Reporting

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John Upham
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Frequency of League Result Reporting

Post by John Upham » Sun Oct 17, 2021 10:13 am

Do we have an idea of the decisions from League AGMs on the frequency of their result reporting for the new OTB season?

I have been made aware of a number of AGMs whose Rating Officers have declared they will continue to submit biannually.


Will the players of those leagues be content with that or expect monthly submissions from their Rating Officers?
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Dragoljub Sudar
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Re: Frequency of League Result Reporting

Post by Dragoljub Sudar » Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:01 pm

I can't answer that but I have noticed that my result from Tuesday's league match, verified on Wednesday in the LMS, is already in my record on the ECF rating database.

I am curious about how new players are handled.
A new club member joined the ECF and I noticed he already has a grading code but don't know if that was automatic or performed by someone in the office.

What happens if new players' results are entered into the LMS before they have been allocated a grading code and haven't yet taken out ECF membership?

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John Upham
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Re: Frequency of League Result Reporting

Post by John Upham » Mon Oct 18, 2021 10:40 am

Could I ask Leagues to state in this place if they are planning to report results biannually or monthly?

It would seem that SCCA, Surrey Border League, Berkshire Chess Association, London Chess League, Thames Valley Chess League, Chiltern League are minded to report twice a year. There must be more than I'm not aware of.
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MartinCarpenter
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Re: Frequency of League Result Reporting

Post by MartinCarpenter » Mon Oct 18, 2021 11:39 am

John Upham wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 10:13 am
Will the players of those leagues be content with that or expect monthly submissions from their Rating Officers?
Having seen how much work grading officers do for free, I'd be hesitant to complain if they only submitted every other year :)

Leagues are presumably going to work with fixed annual grades for board order etc, so I don't suppose the practical impact will be too bad.

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Re: Frequency of League Result Reporting

Post by Ian Thompson » Mon Oct 18, 2021 12:27 pm

MartinCarpenter wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 11:39 am
Leagues are presumably going to work with fixed annual grades for board order etc, so I don't suppose the practical impact will be too bad.
There could be dissatisfaction from congress players as a result though. Either:
  • I was runner up in the Major section of the XYZ congress. Now late league results have been submitted the winner's rating has been retrospectively recalculated. He was way over the rating limit for the Major when it was played. I was robbed.
  • I had to play in the Open section of the XYZ congress as the bottom seed. If my league results had been submitted monthly, I'd have been eligible for the Major and been one of the top seeds.

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Re: Frequency of League Result Reporting

Post by John Upham » Mon Oct 18, 2021 12:57 pm

I'm told that the SCCA Rating Officer was not able to attend the AGM and therefore this matter did not get discussed.

As Ian hints I'm pretty sure that there are leagues that are storing up problems for themselves.
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Paul Buswell
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Re: Frequency of League Result Reporting

Post by Paul Buswell » Mon Oct 18, 2021 1:41 pm

A look at the Events Received list on the grading (OK, rating) database suggests that some Leagues are submitting not annually, not bi-annually, but almost match by match.

PB

Ian Thompson
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Re: Frequency of League Result Reporting

Post by Ian Thompson » Mon Oct 18, 2021 1:56 pm

Paul Buswell wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 1:41 pm
A look at the Events Received list on the grading (OK, rating) database suggests that some Leagues are submitting not annually, not bi-annually, but almost match by match.
That's easy if you're using the ECF LMS, where I think it will report results to the rating database once a week if you tell it to. The interesting question is how many organisations are reporting results frequently, but not using the ECF LMS?

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Re: Frequency of League Result Reporting

Post by MartinCarpenter » Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:17 pm

Ian Thompson wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 12:27 pm
MartinCarpenter wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 11:39 am
Leagues are presumably going to work with fixed annual grades for board order etc, so I don't suppose the practical impact will be too bad.
There could be dissatisfaction from congress players as a result though. Either:
There could, but it'll be rare and really won't seem like a priority from the leagues perspective. Graders aren't so easy to get that they'll want to push them too much if reluctant.
(Aren't congresses going to want to use quite stable/historically based grades so people know which section they're entering when they enter?).

Not that I don't think having leagues seemingly even refusing to discuss more frequent result reporting is precisely ideal when we've notionally moved to a live scheme :)

Brian Valentine
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Re: Frequency of League Result Reporting

Post by Brian Valentine » Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:42 pm

It is too early to tell overall how frequently leagues will report. Leagues tend to be faster than internal club results and while these are a single digit percentage of the whole, they will affect rating reliability of a significant pool of players who don't play elsewhere. It's not clear what new members in these circumstances will feel about this kind of the welcome to competitive chess, especialy those coming from an online platform.

I'd be interested to hear from graders who think that the new system is more onerous than the old, with reasons. My feedback so far has universally been the other way. More frequent reporting is no more difficult than biennial; it's just more spread out. Those sticking to half yearly reporting seem to prefer avoiding the family over Christmas.

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Re: Frequency of League Result Reporting

Post by Roger de Coverly » Mon Oct 18, 2021 4:02 pm

MartinCarpenter wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:17 pm
(Aren't congresses going to want to use quite stable/historically based grades so people know which section they're entering when they enter?).
Certainly, but they aren't going to want historic ratings being revised because of late submission of league results. At least I think that revision of ratings is the plan. So ratings for 1st November will be published regardless of whether October's club results are included. If cub results for October, November and December don't show up until mid-January, I think that has a cascading effect, changing ratings retrospectively for 1st November, 1st December and 1st January.

Congress entry forms may need to be more precise about what ratings they will use for section eligibility, seedings and rating prizes.

As a League Secretary, it's become the welcome standard practice that match captains report the results of matches on the night of the match or the next day. Also that they establish spellings, past codes etc for new players before the match starts. That prevents opposition captains making up names from what they thought they read on the team sheet.

The weak link is the transmission of results to the ECF rating system

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Re: Frequency of League Result Reporting

Post by Ian Thompson » Mon Oct 18, 2021 9:55 pm

Brian Valentine wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:42 pm
I'd be interested to hear from graders who think that the new system is more onerous than the old, with reasons. My feedback so far has universally been the other way. More frequent reporting is no more difficult than biennial; it's just more spread out.
Has your feedback come from graders reporting results entered in the ECF LMS, or those using other systems?

I wouldn't be surprised that graders using the ECF LMS think it's less onerous. It largely does the rating for them.

If you're not using the ECF LMS then the process required to generate the grading submission file hasn't changed much, but you're now expected to do it monthly, so that's 8 or 9 submissions a year instead of 2. That's more work in total, but more important is the timing of it. Doing it twice a year you've got at least 2 or 3 weeks to get it done. Doing it monthly, you'd want it doing as close to the end of the month as possible every month, so you have very little time to do it. I'm not prepared to make a commitment to a league to set aside some time at the end of the month, every month, to do it because there'd likely be some months where I had other things to do.

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Re: Frequency of League Result Reporting

Post by Roger de Coverly » Mon Oct 18, 2021 10:28 pm

Ian Thompson wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 9:55 pm
If you're not using the ECF LMS then the process required to generate the grading submission file hasn't changed much, but you're now expected to do it monthly, so that's 8 or 9 submissions a year instead of 2.
It ought to be no more complex than going to a menu item and clicking "download data to ECF rating", but I'd suspect it isn't. If one assumes that users of other LMS systems are comfortably familiar with them and have no desire to convert to the ECF version, there's an impasse.

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Re: Frequency of League Result Reporting

Post by Brian Valentine » Tue Oct 19, 2021 8:35 am

Ian Thompson wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 9:55 pm
Brian Valentine wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:42 pm
I'd be interested to hear from graders who think that the new system is more onerous than the old, with reasons. My feedback so far has universally been the other way. More frequent reporting is no more difficult than biennial; it's just more spread out.
Has your feedback come from graders reporting results entered in the ECF LMS, or those using other systems?

I wouldn't be surprised that graders using the ECF LMS think it's less onerous. It largely does the rating for them.

If you're not using the ECF LMS then the process required to generate the grading submission file hasn't changed much, but you're now expected to do it monthly, so that's 8 or 9 submissions a year instead of 2. That's more work in total, but more important is the timing of it. Doing it twice a year you've got at least 2 or 3 weeks to get it done. Doing it monthly, you'd want it doing as close to the end of the month as possible every month, so you have very little time to do it. I'm not prepared to make a commitment to a league to set aside some time at the end of the month, every month, to do it because there'd likely be some months where I had other things to do.
A handful of non LMS graders were involved in testing. Other than that I have not sought feedback and have not analysed the anecdotes. LMS does more than rating and should be seen from that point of view.

I recognise the voluntary work carried out by graders and the diligence they show. The Board were very aware of this and instructed us to accept submissions on the old timetable. I think we have moved on from the position when that decision was made, given Queens Gambit and the opportunities the lockdown now gives us. Many potential members will come from the very different world with instant online rating.

I was very careful in my wording above not to imply a diktat from on high of a monthly schedule. I'd like to grading community to be open to moving in the direction of travel. In the end it's not me that sets the standards, it is for the organisations to find the balance between player requirements and the resource available to do the work.

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Re: Frequency of League Result Reporting

Post by Neill Cooper » Tue Oct 19, 2021 6:09 pm

Are those of us who were 'graders' now 'raters'? Or is there a better term?

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