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Re: 2010-2011 Grades?

Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 5:54 pm
by Christopher Kreuzer
Alex Holowczak wrote:
Christopher Kreuzer wrote:Did the ECF publish this change somewhere official that people would be able to find it easily, or did the news spread by word-of-mouth? Or did the news of this change get buried in amongst the discussion about the proposed chage to two standardplay lists a year?
I believe it was on the ECF website. Also, it was mentioned on this very Forum, many months ago.
I've looked on the ECF website but can't find it. Can you find the item? I may be looking in the wrong month. I was specifically excluding mention on this forum because (obviously) not everyone reads it. Thanks for pointing out that the long-term intention might be to do away with the e-mail check. Hopefully that change (if it happens) will be announced in some official summary of the new system at some point.

Re: 2010-2011 Grades?

Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 5:58 pm
by Christopher Kreuzer
Talking of which, in another thread someone talked about some stats they obtained from the data they had. I assume they are a grader and have access to more data than is published online. Is the current published grading data for the ECF available for download in the same way that the FIDE rating list is? I'm asking because I was wondering if there is a way to identify players that have made the most improvement as an adult over a period of 10-20 years?

Re: 2010-2011 Grades?

Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 6:08 pm
by Alex Holowczak
Christopher Kreuzer wrote:Talking of which, in another thread someone talked about some stats they obtained from the data they had. I assume they are a grader and have access to more data than is published online.
There is someone with more data than you, yes. It was probably either Richard Haddrell or Howard Grist. They have access to every piece of information I've ever wanted to know...
Christopher Kreuzer wrote:Is the current published grading data for the ECF available for download in the same way that the FIDE rating list is?
If you go to the grading database website, and look at the "Downloads" link, I wonder what you'll find there? :wink:

Re: 2010-2011 Grades?

Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 6:33 pm
by Christopher Kreuzer
Alex Holowczak wrote:If you go to the grading database website, and look at the "Downloads" link, I wonder what you'll find there? :wink:
Thanks. I really must stop being so lazy as to not go and check things like that...

I do have a question about the grades that appear on the grading 'check' list. I don't want to bother the graders as they are busy people at the moment, but various asterisks (*) appear on the list. Some of the asterisks are right in front of the grades, and these appear to be juniors and ungraded players.

For these players, are my results against them calculated using their *grade, or the published grade at the time I played them (which would be no grade for ungraded players, and sometimes different for junior players)?

The other asterisks appear between the name and the grade, and I don't know what these asterisks signify. Anyone know the answer to that?

Re: 2010-2011 Grades?

Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 6:46 pm
by Roger de Coverly
Christopher Kreuzer wrote: The other asterisks appear between the name and the grade, and I don't know what these asterisks signify. Anyone know the answer to that?

The * after the club name means that it isn't a club name but a place.

The * in front of the grade means the graders have made up the grade rather than looking it up in last year's list. The "making it up" consists of running the recursion or matrix process which has been discussed at some length in this very forum.

Re: 2010-2011 Grades?

Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 7:42 pm
by E Michael White
If a player lapses his membership mid year he should probably get a playlist up to lapsepoint. Will this happen ? If not why not as its a member benefit ?

Re: 2010-2011 Grades?

Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 8:27 pm
by Christopher Kreuzer
Roger de Coverly wrote:
Christopher Kreuzer wrote: The other asterisks appear between the name and the grade, and I don't know what these asterisks signify. Anyone know the answer to that?

The * after the club name means that it isn't a club name but a place.

The * in front of the grade means the graders have made up the grade rather than looking it up in last year's list. The "making it up" consists of running the recursion or matrix process which has been discussed at some length in this very forum.
Thanks. Which grade is used for calculation purposes?

Responding here to what E Michael White said above: how can a membership lapse mid-year? I thought the minimum amount of membership was one whole chess year (the renewal date on my card is 31st August). Or is it one year from when you join, and I happened to first join in August?

Re: 2010-2011 Grades?

Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 9:06 pm
by Alex Holowczak
Christopher Kreuzer wrote:How can a membership lapse mid-year? I thought the minimum amount of membership was one whole chess year (the renewal date on my card is 31st August). Or is it one year from when you join, and I happened to first join in August?
Your membership lasts for 12 months + the month you signed up in. So if I became a member on April 15th for 1 year, my membership would expire on April 30th the following year.

Re: 2010-2011 Grades?

Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2011 11:53 pm
by Matthew Lunn
Just going back to a point Ben made earlier: How will they calculate the 2010/11 grades for players who have played fewer than 30 games? My understanding was that they would top up the 2010/11 performance rating with last season's grade, so that if you had a 2009/10 grade of 150 and had played 25 games in the 2010/11 season then they would add 5x150 to your performance rating, divide by 30 and consequently have calculated your 2010/11 grade. Or would they in that scenario attempt to ascertain which were the last five games played in the previous season and use those to make the calculation? I assume the latter method would be extremely difficult to implement (and the former method seems incredibly sensible anyway!), but I'm curious :) Apologies if this question has been answered in another thread!

Re: 2010-2011 Grades?

Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 12:09 am
by Roger de Coverly
Matthew Lunn wrote:Or would they in that scenario attempt to ascertain which were the last five games played in the previous season and use those to make the calculation? I assume the latter method would be extremely difficult to implement (and the former method seems incredibly sensible anyway!)
Every event is (or should) be properly dated, so it's not that difficult. The story seems to be that they are intending to switch from the averaging approach to the count back method. The potential problem with the count back method is that you end up counting some of your results twice. So if you play an event in May (5 games) and 20 other games, the May result is always going to be counted for two seasons running whilst all the other results only count for a single season.

Re: 2010-2011 Grades?

Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 7:41 am
by Sebastian Stone
Roger de Coverly wrote:
Matthew Lunn wrote:Or would they in that scenario attempt to ascertain which were the last five games played in the previous season and use those to make the calculation? I assume the latter method would be extremely difficult to implement (and the former method seems incredibly sensible anyway!)
Every event is (or should) be properly dated, so it's not that difficult. The story seems to be that they are intending to switch from the averaging approach to the count back method. The potential problem with the count back method is that you end up counting some of your results twice. So if you play an event in May (5 games) and 20 other games, the May result is always going to be counted for two seasons running whilst all the other results only count for a single season.
In a season long club championship where the only thing the grader has is the league results table I'm not sure how this will be possible. For example, my last 5 games this season go.

Congress-Round 5
Club championship
Club league game
Club championship
Club championship

Where the grader has no way of telling when the club championships were played as all he has are the results.

Re: 2010-2011 Grades?

Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 8:55 am
by Roger de Coverly
Sebastian Stone wrote:In a season long club championship where the only thing the grader has is the league results table I'm not sure how this will be possible. For example, my last 5 games this season go.
It shouldn't be difficult to report the dates of matches, many leagues already do this.

For club championships, you need the playing dates to be reported. Failing that, you need a dating convention.

To be fair the ECF grading administrator has flagged this issue as a potential problem, the solution to which is to collect the missing data.

Re: 2010-2011 Grades?

Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 10:11 am
by Alex Holowczak
Sebastian Stone wrote:Where the grader has no way of telling when the club championships were played as all he has are the results.
The radical solution to this problem is to tell the grader when the game was played, as well as the result.

Re: 2010-2011 Grades?

Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 10:49 am
by Sebastian Stone
Alex Holowczak wrote:
Sebastian Stone wrote:Where the grader has no way of telling when the club championships were played as all he has are the results.
The radical solution to this problem is to tell the grader when the game was played, as well as the result.
It's a good thing the ECF is so good at giving out information, after all if they hadn't the player would have no idea that the date is required and the games would have been sent off without the required dates. :roll:

Re: 2010-2011 Grades?

Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 1:56 pm
by Adam Raoof
Sebastian Stone wrote:
Alex Holowczak wrote:
Sebastian Stone wrote:Where the grader has no way of telling when the club championships were played as all he has are the results.
The radical solution to this problem is to tell the grader when the game was played, as well as the result.
It's a good thing the ECF is so good at giving out information, after all if they hadn't the player would have no idea that the date is required and the games would have been sent off without the required dates. :roll:
Linked from the ECF front page is the information on grading, which takes you to;

http://www.sccu.ndo.co.uk/GradingGuide.htm