A FIDE Rating System for Canada??

[Valer Eugen Demian]

There is a method behind what seems to be madness. Everyone knows today we are bombarded with all sort of ratings from several sites and organizations, local, national and international. Approximately 90 something % of those ratings are simply meaningless (not to use the word "crap"). Unifying everything under one accepted rating is not as far fetched as it might seem...

Large pool of players being under the FIDE rating floor - this floor has been lowered over the years, so I see it only a matter of time during a transition period until everyone will qualify for their FIDE rating. At keast at the end of it a player would have one meaningful rating value! This is no small thing...

The only REAL problem I see is the loss of revenue; everything else could be worked out!

[Garland Best]

What we should be doing is using EXACTLY the same rating formulae as FIDE uses to calculate ratings, with the exception of allowing the rating floor to go below 1000. Other than that, no exceptions.

Everything we have done to tinker with the ratings (bonus points, activity points etc) have only served to muddy the waters. All of the tinkering has been done without any scientific basis. Roger Patterson's calculations are the first REAL statistical studies I've ever seen done on Canadian ratings. And they just scratch the surface.

People should be more concerned about their RANKING among their peers, and not the absolute value of their rating.

[Ed Seedhouse]

Large pool of players being under the FIDE rating floor - this floor has been lowered over the years, so I see it only a matter of time during a transition period until everyone will qualify for their FIDE rating.

This wouldn't make the ratings any more or any less accurate. Statistically Canada remains isolated from the rest of the chess world and there is nothing in FIDE rating system to keep the Canadian ratings in line with the rest of the world. You have to have a lot of Canadians with FIDE ratings playing people with FIDE ratings from the rest of the world to do that.

If Canadians don't do that (and there is no reason to think they will in any large numbers) then there will be little or no relationship between Canadians with FIDE ratings and the rest of the chess world. Canadian's relative isolation from the main chess world will not change just by being part of FIDE's system.

There may be good reasons to rate Canadian chess games and players via FIDE, but bringing our ratings in line with the rest of the world is not one of them.

[Valer Eugen Demian]

This wouldn't make the ratings any more or any less accurate. Statistically Canada remains isolated from the rest of the chess world and there is nothing in FIDE rating system to keep the Canadian ratings in line with the rest of the world. You have to have a lot of Canadians with FIDE ratings playing people with FIDE ratings from the rest of the world to do that.

If Canadians don't do that (and there is no reason to think they will in any large numbers) then there will be little or no relationship between Canadians with FIDE ratings and the rest of the chess world. Canadian's relative isolation from the main chess world will not change just by being part of FIDE's system.

There may be good reasons to rate Canadian chess games and players via FIDE, but bringing our ratings in line with the rest of the world is not one of them.

Hi Ed,

You make some very fine points; thank you!

Theoretically Canadians have access to the FIDE rating pool of US players by participating in tournaments across the border. I would venture to say the opportunities to play this way are at least equal with the opportunities European players have to play in tournaments around Europe.

Of course we are talking about 2 different pools of players: the European vs the North American one. There's not much you can do when the geographical contrains have to be taken into consideration; still I think the fact both are quite isolated from one another is not so alarming.