Why do/ did we count "half-games"?

[Mike Gunn]

(2 half-games =1 game). I'm trying to understand the reason for this. I presume it must be connected to either the way game fee (or what came before game fee) was collected, but I'm struggling to work out why the distinction between a half-game and a full-game was needed. Can anyone explain why?

[IM Jack Rudd]

It's because for any given game, different levels of game fee were payable related to which of the players were ECF members.

[Brian Valentine]

I think half games goes back way beyond Game Fees. It was the basic piece of data for grading and nothing is changed by ratings. The point is you need to split the results into half games to create data to rate a game from both perspectives