World Senior Chess Championship 14 – 27 November 2022 Assisi – Umbria Italy

[Matt Mackenzie]

Kristiansen has lost

Tragic game for him, needing only a draw for the title and losing a drawn opposite bishop ending. He had an impregnable position but it looks as though he tried to change it to something even more impregnable, which turned out to be lost.

Something we have surely all done at least once, I think it has been described as trying to "over-draw".

[Keith Arkell]

Is there any group of players that is not systemically underrated? Maybe we should fix the system by just adding 100 to everyone.

The answer to this is very clear, of course. The over-rated players are those who are inactive , and in my opinion they can be very over-rated indeed, if inactive for a long time.

There are two forces at work here 1) Standards are continually rising, so active players need to improve a little each year if they are going to maintain their ratings, and 2) Although there may be rare exceptions, in general we can expect inactive players to neither continually improve, nor even , due to lack of practice, to maintain their level.

One way to fix this is to deduct points annually from inactive players. Perhaps 10 per year, or a little less if they play a very small number of games. That way they are more likely to have realistic ratings. What's the point of someone being, say 2500, if in reality their playing level, by today's standards, is 2350?

But instead FIDE do silly things like making k-factor 10 for their blitz or rapid ratings if someone has ever been over 2400. There was nothing wrong with a K-factor of 20 for everyone. If it ain't broke don't fix it! I've never been a fan of k - factor 10 for any kind of chess - it's too sluggish - and it's good to see that the ECF uses the far better k-factor 20 for everyone.

[NickFaulks]

But instead FIDE do silly things like making k-factor 10 for their blitz or rapid ratings if someone has ever been over 2400. There was nothing wrong with a K-factor of 20 for everyone. If it ain't broke don't fix it! I've never been a fan of k - factor 10 for any kind of chess - it's too sluggish - and it's good to see that the ECF uses the far better k-factor 20 for everyone.

Interesting points here.

1. I agree that k=20 for Rapid & Blitz seemed to work well enough and there was no particular need to change it. However, there is logic in bringing it into step with Standard ratings. GMs who take part in a one day, six round rapidplay tournament could easily have gained or lost 40 points in that day, even more in blitz - is that what you want? I'm fairly ambivalent, but some people have strong feelings about that.

2. You will probably remember that in 2008 Makro's Presidential Board rammed through a doubling of the k-factor for top players to 20. There was furious outrage from the elite - inconsistent players like Ivanchuk and Morozevich were racing up and down by 50 points anyway and neither they nor their peers wanted it to be 100 - and PB were forced into an humiliating reversal before the new policy ever came into effect.

If you want a player's rating to be the best estimate of their current playing strength, ie their expected result in their next tournament, then for players who are neither in a broad phase of improvement nor of decline, my own work suggests that even k=10 is far too high. Of course I would never suggest that it should actually be reduced, because that would take out too much of the fun.

[Keith Arkell]

But instead FIDE do silly things like making k-factor 10 for their blitz or rapid ratings if someone has ever been over 2400. There was nothing wrong with a K-factor of 20 for everyone. If it ain't broke don't fix it! I've never been a fan of k - factor 10 for any kind of chess - it's too sluggish - and it's good to see that the ECF uses the far better k-factor 20 for everyone.

Interesting points here.

1. I agree that k=20 for Rapid & Blitz seemed to work well enough and there was no particular need to change it. However, there is logic in bringing it into step with Standard ratings. GMs who take part in a one day, six round rapidplay tournament could easily have gained or lost 40 points in that day, even more in blitz - is that what you want? I'm fairly ambivalent, but some people have strong feelings about that.

2. You will probably remember that in 2008 Makro's Presidential Board rammed through a doubling of the k-factor for top players to 20. There was furious outrage from the elite - inconsistent players like Ivanchuk and Morozevich were racing up and down by 50 points anyway and neither they nor their peers wanted it to be 100 - and PB were forced into an humiliating reversal before the new policy ever came into effect.

If you want a player's rating to be the best estimate of their current playing strength, ie their expected result in their next tournament, then for players who are neither in a broad phase of improvement nor of decline, my own work suggests that even k=10 is far too high. Of course I would never suggest that it should actually be reduced, because that would take out too much of the fun.

I just want our ratings to reflect as accurately as possible our current playing levels, whether they be higher or lower than out actual ratings. There can be all sorts of reasons why any given player is better or worse than their rating of, say, 6 months ago.

However, I understand why the highest rated players would want to maintain the status quo, and why FIDE would put their wishes first. That's the way the world works.

There is nothing wrong with a player's rating reflecting their current level, and everything wrong with their current rating reflecting their level in the past. Just accept that in the name of accuracy there will be more fluctuations.

[NickFaulks]

There is nothing wrong with a player's rating reflecting their current level, and everything wrong with their current rating reflecting their level in the past. Just accept that in the name of accuracy there will be more fluctuations.

But what does "current level" mean? Does it mean how well you played yesterday, based on the result of one game ( because we are only looking at game results )? I think not.

As always with statistical analysis of time series, you have to balance two sources of error.

1. Too little data, so the results are dominated by random fluctuations.

2. Too much data, so genuine changes over time get missed.

As I wrote above, for players who are in no long term trend up or down ( you would expect only one of each in a career ) my work has found that k=10 is reasonable or on the high side.

Leaving out people who give up competitive chess for an extended period, nearly all players rise to a certain level, sit on a plateau for a period ( it can be a very long period ) and then decline. Any variances can usually be explained by random fluctuations.

I do accept that Keith's results have shown unusual variability, but the rating system cannot be calibrated to that - at least, not without excessive complication.

[Tim Harding]

I just finalised my report about Assisi - especially complaining about the food which many people found "weird" or just terrible.

http://www.chessmail.com/seniors/Assisi2022-report.html

[NickFaulks]

I just finalised my report about Assisi - especially complaining about the food which many people found "weird" or just terrible.

It was not until the 2006 Olympiad in Turin that I became aware that bad Italian food was even a concept - since then, it sounds as though FIDE events have been trying to spread it.

To balance this criticism, the Chettinad cuisine offered by our hotel at the Chennai Olympiad this year was consistently as good as I have eaten anywhere. Many of the players complained only that they had not expected to return from two weeks in India having gained a lot of weight.

[IM Jack Rudd]

If these events need a game-inputter going forward, I'm certainly interested.

[Tim Harding]

If these events need a game-inputter going forward, I'm certainly interested.

I thought of you when writing my report but no doubt hiring a game inputter is just one of many things that either were not considered by the organiser or were rejected because the cost would have dented her bottom line.

Getting the games into databases appears not to be something required by the FIDE Events Commission's contract with local organisers but some have done it in the past on their own initiative.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Getting the games into databases appears not to be something required by the FIDE Events Commission's contract with local organisers but some have done it in the past on their own initiative.

Well that seems rather unsatisfactory.

[Tim Harding]

Getting the games into databases appears not to be something required by the FIDE Events Commission's contract with local organisers but some have done it in the past on their own initiative.

Well that seems rather unsatisfactory.

There are many unsatisfactory issues to do with FIDE's running of senior events - with a few shining exceptions like the recent teams in Dresden, though games were not input there either.

Getting this changed is so low in the priority list that I am not sure I will even mention it in my complaints letter to the Events Commission. Some senior players may be quite happy that their games won't get into databases.

[Owen Phillips]

Many Congratulations to John Nunn on becoming the 2022 FIDE World Seniors 65+ Champion!

I know that the UK is suffering from a recession and all that, but one can't help think that maybe with our recent Team Successes in the Senior FIDE events and with John Nunn being Crowned World Champion, and with Sochi presumably a no no- that NOW would be a good time for The ECF to approach the UK Govt to suggest the UK takes on the mantle and offers to stage the 2023 FIDE World Individual Seniors Championships-it could all be part of a fresh campaign to raise the awareness of Chess in the UK and it might succeed on the back of our recent Senior's successes. It might even get ECF Chess some well overdue recognition from our Govt? Might?????.......Perhaps some of that Lottery money could even be used....

Just some thoughts to ponder over....I had better get my Mulled wine out!

Owen-PS As you can see I have woken up!

[Kirk Gornall]

British Chess seems to be on the up. Lots of up and coming younger players with potential to become GMs, as well as the older generation performing at a high level, with their vast wisdom. I'm not sure how much teaching of knowledge goes on between the two generations. It would be great to see some kind of training camp being funded by the ECF so that all that wisdom that the likes of John Nunn, Keith Arkell, Mark Hebden have, being handed down to the younger generation.

[Keith Arkell]

I agree, Kirk. For my part I have a few private students who are at the other end of the age spectrum, while Lorin D'Costa and myself sometimes give Endgame Masterclasses for ECF members, organised by Nigel Towers. We are currently looking at dates for the nest one - possibly in early Feb.

There is nothing wrong with a player's rating reflecting their current level, and everything wrong with their current rating reflecting their level in the past. Just accept that in the name of accuracy there will be more fluctuations.

But what does "current level" mean? Does it mean how well you played yesterday, based on the result of one game ( because we are only looking at game results )? I think not.

As an approximation I would say 'current level' equates to your performance over your last 40 or 50 FIDE rated games, as long as they took place inside the previous 12 months. This number can be tweaked a bit, of course, but I certainly don't mean last 10 games, nor indeed last 200!

I haven't done the maths, but my feeling is that the ECF's method of applying K-Factor 20 works out excellently. K-factor 20 would, for example result in the player's performance matching their rating after 36 games played in one rating period. This seems about right to me.