Problems Accessing the ECF Grading Database?

General discussions about ratings.
Jonathan Bryant
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Re: Problems Accessing the ECF Grading Database?

Post by Jonathan Bryant » Tue Jan 27, 2015 11:23 am

Angus French wrote:
Jonathan Bryant wrote:Which is not to say I think F grades are a bad thing per se. You just need to have a think about how you’re going to present them.
... and how you're going to use them: Should they be used in competitions to determine player eligibility and board orders?
I would say proceed with caution.

Seems to me the only real solution is to have two lists. One 'official' which excludes F grades. A second would include F grades. I suppose it’s a bit like being able to sort between people with grades and people registered but without grades as you can do now.

Borrowing terminology used by BV a few posts ago, the idea of the first would be to aim - as much as possible - for "accuracy" in terms of reflecting playing strength. The idea of the second would be provide the "correct" raw data in terms of all the people included in the calculations.

I suppose that would beg the question why have F grades at all, but it seems to me there could be circumstances when it would be useful to have access to them.

On the other hand, presenting somebody as rated third highest in the country based on 5 games played begs the question why have a grading system at all.

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Problems Accessing the ECF Grading Database?

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Tue Jan 27, 2015 11:28 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Christopher Kreuzer wrote: Still, I doubt your grade dropped as much as mine did last January. I lost 26 points in Jan and gained 22 in July.
Presumably you had a run of bad results between July 2013 and December 2013. It's still a bit odd, as your July was an X grade and December an A. Perhaps your December A just included a 30 game count back, rather than all the available games from 2013..
It is getting off topic, but yeah, that was how grades were calculated back then. You are welcome to look in more detail at that when the game lists are back up. It was really just an atrocious run of form, starting with some undergraded juniors at the Torquay 2013 British (well, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it - some people at the time pointed out I could have entered some U150 tournaments with that grade, but I never did).
Roger de Coverly wrote: The rule now is that a whole year of your most recent games will always be counted. So your performance from July to December 2014 will determine in part your grade in July 2015.
Yeah. I thought that applied to January 2015 as well (that the Jan-July 2014 performance was included), but I can't really tell as I performed at 167 and was 166, so I suspect I ended up 167 either way you calculate it. I am also trying to work out what the use of the 173F grade is of the person I played earlier this month. Previously, I would have looked at their part-results from the previous list if they were ungraded, to get an estimate for what to put into the calculation of my grade. It seems I still have to do that and the F grade isn't that useful as it may be an over-estimate or under-estimate?

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Problems Accessing the ECF Grading Database?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Jan 27, 2015 11:47 am

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: I am also trying to work out what the use of the 173F grade is of the person I played earlier this month.
Eligibility, board orders (and ranking lists). It's a formalised version of what is likely to happen anyway. For new players, individual organisers and controllers may not have access to all their results, making private estimates unreliable. It's promotional for new players to give them some idea of how they are doing and how they compare to everyone else.

MartinCarpenter
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Re: Problems Accessing the ECF Grading Database?

Post by MartinCarpenter » Tue Jan 27, 2015 12:12 pm

The old strict 30 at most count back was rather prone to allowing for +-20 jumps. I did it too :)

I've definitely got all my games from Dec 13 to Dec 14 included in my grade this time - it takes me over 30 in terms of numbers so easy to tell.

My July grade intrigues me slightly - I'll have ~15 ecf games from this season so I'll need some extras. Will that use my July 2014 grade, a total average of my games over 2014 or something else? Not going to make a huge difference either way of course :)

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Problems Accessing the ECF Grading Database?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Jan 27, 2015 12:32 pm

MartinCarpenter wrote: My July grade intrigues me slightly
The plan is to use the games from July 2014 to June 2015 provided there are at least 30 of them. If you have n, where n is less than 30, I believe the intent is to use all the games from that period plus (30-n)/30 times the performance from July 2013 to June 2014. So if your average performance was 150 for 13-14 and you had 28 games for 14-15, it's an extra 2 games at 150. On the old system it would have been the last two games of 13-14 however good, bad or incorrectly dated they might have been.

Reg Clucas
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Re: Problems Accessing the ECF Grading Database?

Post by Reg Clucas » Wed Jan 28, 2015 9:07 am

F category grades aren't necessarily unreliable - account needs to be taken of the length of time a person has been in the category. Obviously that won't work at the moment because the category has only just been created. But there are many people who play only a few games a year, but seem to stay at a fairly stable grade within category D & E for example. Such grades can be assumed to be fairly reliable. In time the same will apply to F category.

MartinCarpenter
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Re: Problems Accessing the ECF Grading Database?

Post by MartinCarpenter » Wed Jan 28, 2015 9:54 am

No, the unreliability of a given F grade is intrinsic and fairly large. Some of them will of course be reasonably close to being right :)

If you stay long term in one of the lower grade categories then you're only replacing 1/3'rd of your grade every year so it will automatically be quite slow to move.

Long term F category grades are I suspect not meant to exist. It represents 5 games every 36 months, so anyone staying there long term would only be playing ~1 game a year!

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Adam Raoof
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Re: Problems Accessing the ECF Grading Database?

Post by Adam Raoof » Wed Jan 28, 2015 11:04 am

Given the nature and purpose of the F grade, are there plans to make this grade 'live'?

The reason I ask is that most of those players, rather than having to wait six months for their first grade, would love to see it straight away. Immediate publication would really encourage them to play more graded games, and make their next grade more accurate .

There should be a separate calculation for anyone who has previously held a grade.
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Roger de Coverly
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Re: Problems Accessing the ECF Grading Database?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Jan 28, 2015 11:14 am

Adam Raoof wrote: The reason I ask is that most of those players, rather than having to wait six months for their first grade, would love to see it straight away. Immediate publication would really encourage them to play more graded games, and make their next grade more accurate .
I believe it was during your watch as Home Director that you approved the process whereby Juniors are treated as new players every grading period. If you inherited the process, you didn't take any steps to reverse it. Using an estimation process for players with established grades rules out any form of real time update.

David Blower
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Re: Problems Accessing the ECF Grading Database?

Post by David Blower » Wed Jan 28, 2015 7:14 pm

Personally as one of the players with an F grade (in rapidplay) it was nice to get a published grade for rapidplay (I only played 8 games in total.) As for if its reliable or not I think I'm capable of a bit better, but couldn't say it wasn't about where I was exepcting it to be.

Reg Clucas
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Re: Problems Accessing the ECF Grading Database?

Post by Reg Clucas » Thu Jan 29, 2015 1:58 pm

You can now view your games on the database, one event at a time. I notice that the Manchester League is missing from the selection menu for 2014/15 - is this due to 'work in progress' or is it an error?

David Blower
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Re: Problems Accessing the ECF Grading Database?

Post by David Blower » Fri Jan 30, 2015 12:17 am

Everything appears back now. It appears that part of the Wolverhampton Summer League has being missed out!

Reg Clucas
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Re: Problems Accessing the ECF Grading Database?

Post by Reg Clucas » Fri Jan 30, 2015 4:23 pm

David Blower wrote:Everything appears back now.
No, still can't view Manchester League games, although they have been included in the grading calculations.

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Greg Breed
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Re: Problems Accessing the ECF Grading Database?

Post by Greg Breed » Thu Feb 05, 2015 11:26 am

Reg Clucas wrote:You can now view your games on the database, one event at a time. I notice that the Manchester League is missing from the selection menu for 2014/15 - is this due to 'work in progress' or is it an error?
This is a great idea, but can we also have an "All" link in case we want to see all the listed games as it used to be?
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Re: Problems Accessing the ECF Grading Database?

Post by Richard Haddrell » Thu Feb 05, 2015 4:00 pm

Reg Clucas wrote:You can now view your games on the database, one event at a time. I notice that the Manchester League is missing from the selection menu for 2014/15 - is this due to 'work in progress' or is it an error?
An error, I think. I missed Reg's post when it first appeared, and wasn't aware of it till now. It wants looking at.
Greg Breed wrote:..Can we also have an "All" link in case we want to see all the listed games as it used to be?
No. Not at present, anyway. "One-event-at-a-time" was part of the slimming-down exercise without which the site couldn't have been resurrected after the crash of 23rd January. See bottom of online Help page. It's not ideal, and it's being worked on. But, for the moment at least, all-events-at-once isn't possible.

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