Underrated juniors thread 2.0

The topic of underrated Canadian juniors was briefly raised again at this year's (Outgoing) CFC AGM (under Executive/Officer reports), with the following exchange:


Originally Posted by Victor Plotkin:
Every player from our team gained rating points. We gained more than 80 points overall. Rating points will be donated to Canadian underrated juniors in the nearest future.

Originally Posted by Vlad Drkulec:
This is too true.

Assuming these CFC officers are not entirely joking, I had thought, based on this AGM's (and on not-too-distant past AGM's) CFC Rating Auditor report, that the CFC rating system is neither inflated nor deflated, at least in recent times. Is it really still the case in 2018 that Canadian juniors (of about what percentage, I`d hope to ask) are underrated to some degree? If so, what exact consequences may this be having for the CFC rating system, I'd again hope to ask? Should there be adjustments made to the way juniors' ratings are calculated?

They are definitely underrated on the FIDE side. A 300 point difference between CFC and FIDE ratings is not unusual.

I think the CFC bonus system addresses this a bit in that if your rating gets pounded down too low then it is easy to regain some of the points just by playing at your old level. Even with a higher k factor, I think FIDE ratings lag CFC quite a bit.

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Originally Posted by Kevin Pacey

The topic of underrated Canadian juniors was briefly raised again at this year's (Outgoing) CFC AGM (under Executive/Officer reports), with the following exchange:


Originally Posted by Victor Plotkin:
Every player from our team gained rating points. We gained more than 80 points overall. Rating points will be donated to Canadian underrated juniors in the nearest future.

Originally Posted by Vlad Drkulec:
This is too true.

Assuming these CFC officers are not entirely joking, I had thought, based on this AGM's (and on not-too-distant past AGM's) CFC Rating Auditor report, that the CFC rating system is neither inflated nor deflated, at least in recent times. Is it really still the case in 2018 that Canadian juniors (of about what percentage, I`d hope to ask) are underrated to some degree? If so, what exact consequences may this be having for the CFC rating system, I'd again hope to ask? Should there be adjustments made to the way juniors' ratings are calculated?

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Kevin. The Rating Point gain was on the FIDE rating system. There was no comment here concerning Juniors being underrated in the CFC system.

A gaffe on my part, I now realize. Still, I wonder if Canadian juniors' CFC ratings all the same happen to be significantly a bit low on average, even nowadays. If that were the case, another set of CFC rated players (i.e. some high rated adults players perhaps) would be overrated (as there is apparently no overall inflation or deflation in the CFC rating system currently, the Rating Auditor has indicated). Don't know if this possibility has been looked at, but it could prove difficult/impossible to keep all age groups at once from being neither significantly inflated nor deflated.

I don't think our juniors are CFC-underrated, they are FIDE-underrated. I see it as a very serious problem, but I don't see any good solution to this problem. The CFC-FIDE gap for many juniors is around 200-250 points, sometimes even 300 points, which is much more than average 130 points.

Extra gap of 100 points means that they are FIDE-underrated by 100 points, which makes Canada a very difficult place to gain or even to maintain FIDE rating.

From my experience, it's easier to play against 2200 European senior than against 2000 Canadian junior, which means gap of more than 200 rating points. With my current rating, I need to score 85% against 2000 junior to maintain my rating, which is almost impossible for me. Probably, I can score like 70%. So, in 10 games against 2000 juniors, I am going to lose about 30 rating points.

In the last 10 years, I "imported" to Canada more than 200 FIDE rating points total from different tournaments (Gibraltar, Reykjavik, World Senior, USA events). At the same time, my rating remains at the same level, around 2250-2300 FIDE.

Canadian strong players, who needs rating to cross 2400 to become an IM, play almost only abroad (Shiam, Kleinman). I am not talking here about IM norm opportunities (obviously, much more opportunities abroad), I am talking about rating only. For example, Shiam had more than 3 IM norms, but could not cross 2400 FIDE while playing mostly in Canada.

This problem has a significant impact for the strength of Canadian tournaments, as many strong players prefer to play less in Canada.

Unfortunately, as I said before, I don't know the immediate solution.

This might be part of the explanation why my FIDE rating dropped from a peak of close to 2300 in the 1980's (when living in Brampton, and not playing juniors) to now below 2100 (if I recall correctly - afraid to check FIDE site due to possible infestation), after I moved back to Ottawa in 1989, and when FIDE-rated weekend events there (with juniors playing, too) started up as of circa 1990s - early 2000s. Then again, part of the explanation could be due to slow natural decline due to my aging (now in late 50s).

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Originally Posted by Kevin Pacey

to now below 2100 (if I recall correctly - afraid to check FIDE site due to possible infestation)

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It's 2058 now.


I don't think that there is any magic solution except by playing more outside your pond. The Canadian chess pool is quite small, hard to grow sharks there.

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Originally Posted by Egidijus Zeromskis

I don't think that there is any magic solution except by playing more outside your pond. The Canadian chess pool is quite small, hard to grow sharks there.

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This is exactly right. The more that the Canadian "bubble" interacts with the rest of the FIDE rating pool, the more accurate the ratings will be.

I do wonder if the increase in the number of Canadian events FIDE rating lower sections is hurting however - before, players wouldn't get their initial FIDE rating until they were already above 2000 or even higher, but now they might get one much lower while they are still rapidly improving.