15. 2012-O Rating of Junior Events (Vlad Rekhson)

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Will this motion damage the rating system?
A better question - Did this practice damage the rating system? (as it was practiced for several years) IMHO - no
vs Did it contribute to the Canadian chess and to the CFC? IMHO - yes.

As a parent I had some benefits from this practice: a track of son's results with regular and prompt updates. Personally I would not care the system used - CFC, CMA or a local rating system.

As Fred McKim wrote once, to process juniors' ratings the CFC looses monies through Director's time. (imho, it should not be a case, on other hand for a non-profit organization it might be a plus to support juniors.) Indirectly the website should generate monies when players/parents check ratings. Thus the CFC should be financially neutral on this matter in a semi-ideal world.

I'll support this motion. While I'm not sure that about the amendment. Why is it December 1, 2011? Not May, 1 or July 1 (Canada Day)

[Christopher Field]

Please allow this clause to be presented as an amendment to this motion.
Here is the rationale:
Until 2009, and spring of 2010, I ran 2 junior-only, quick-play (30 minutes / player or slightly slower) tournaments each year. They were always regular-rated, whether or not there was a clause in the rules preventing this.

In 2010-2011, I was sick and did not run any of these tournaments. Although I was at the annual meeting in 2011, and heard Paul Leblanc state that as Rating Auditor he would enforce the rule regarding no regular-rating of quick-play events, I simply did not expect that he meant to include the CYCC Qualifier events.

I ran a CYCC Qualifier at G30 control on Dec 3 2011. I did not advertise it as an "active" event. The players and parents all expected it to be regular-rated. Instead, Mr Leblanc instructed Gerry to active rate it.

The result is that a lot of players (we had over 60) and their parents are not happy. Also, the active ratings produced are extremely inaccurate. IN the one section, they are based on 1 player with a pre-tournament active rating out of 29 players, whereas 13 of these players had pre-tournament regular ratings. In the other section, the active ratings are based on 5 out of 33 players with pre-tournament active ratings, whereas 16 of these players had pre-tournament regular ratings.

The pairings were of course based on the regular ratings. Also, all of the pre-tournament active ratings were extremely out-of-date.

These are the reasons why - based on there being a need to have junior-only events regular-rated - this change needs to be retroactive to Dec 1, 2011, so that the CYCC Qualifier on Dec 3 2011 may be re-submitted and regular-rated, to correct these errors.

Chris Field.

[Christopher Field]

As I stated above, the amendment is primarily to allow the CYCC Qualifier of Dec 3 2011 to be regular-rated.
1. It was not advertised as an "active" rated event.
2. It had been the practice of the CFC Office to regular-rate junior-only events.
3. The players involved, and their parents, expected it to be regular-rated.
4. The active ratings produced are extremely unrealistic, based on very few pre-tournament ratings - in one section, only 1 player out of 29; in the otehr, 5 players out of 33 - and based on very out-of-date ratings in any case.

Chris Field.

[Christopher Field]

First of all, we allow junior-only events to be rated, at a nominal fee of 50 cents / player, and without requiring players to be members, in order to attract more junior players to the CFC.
The main attraction is getting a regular CFC rating.

The CYCC Qualifiers, in particular, are expected to be regular-rated.

Does this effectively attract players? -- Yes.

Do some of these new players go on to play in regular tournaments and become members? -- Only a small number, but it is certainly a source of new members.

Does regular-rating these tournaments adversely affect the rating system? -- I submit, NO. In the first place, only a small number of the players in these events go on to purchase memberships and play in regular tournaments. In the second place, most - not all - young players really can play quality games quickly.

How do we fix the situation of having junior members whose ratings are lower than their playing strength? -- This problem, as has been noted, is a long-term problem, pre-dating the issue of quick-play regular-rated tournaments by 30 or more years. Simply put, once a junior becomes a member, if he is studying (with or without a tutor), his playing strength will rise faster than his rating simply because he can only play a few tournaments, while he studies every day. Perhaps a special formula can be used for junior players, to give a higher post-rating based on a high performance rating, and hence move their regular ratings up faster to reflect improvement.

Chris Field.

[Christopher Mallon]

It seems that the unhappiness of the parents is more over semantics than anything else. They want their kids to have a "regular" rating. We should change the names to "Rapidplay" and "Longplay" ratings, that way one is not better than the other just by name bias.

[Chris Felix]

I do see the point of giving them regular ratings, as their rating will grow rapidly once they start playing regular events (if they do).

Even these G30 ratings will be roughly equivilent to what they will be playing at later in life.

But isn't the problem that they are given regular ratings to begin with? If no CYCC events are rated as regular, they do not have a regular rating until they play in a longer event. Their rating will be accurately reflected at that point through the provisional rating system.

Upon further thought, if this was the regular CFC practice to regular rate Qualifiers, then these small statistical errors are already in the system anyway, and it most likely isn't going to hinder the rating system in any kind of noticeable way.

I also didn't realize how much having a regular rating really promotes them to playing chess later in life, and in all honesty if the parents are fighting this much for them to have a regular rating and to continue playing chess, the method must be working.

Maybe it's an exception that has to be made for the eventual greater good of getting these kids to continue playing chess.

EDIT: I don't see the issue with regular/active/blitz or regular/rapid, or classical/rapid etc. I don't think it's necessary to change regular/classical to longplay.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Chris:

The actual CYCC itself is not Game/30, but Game/90 I believe.

However, some of the provincial/regional qualifiers were played at Game/ 30 ( though the 2011 OYCC was at Game/90 ).

Bob A

Bob A

[Chris Felix]

Thanks for that clarification Bob.

I find it a little weird that provincial qualifiers are ran as an active tournament to qualify for a regular rated event, but I imagine it's the best way to get the games over in a decent amount of time.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

I don't think the aim should be to get the qualifiers over in a decent period of time. I understand that some kids' parents are hung up on getting a regular rating but I do think that this does damage the integrity of our rating system. Game in 30 minutes is totally different from game in 60 minutes though they do share some common characteristics. I would be more comfortable with making game in 60 minutes active rather than making game in 30 regular rated for anyone.

I will be voting against this motion.

[Vlad Rekhson]

The main point of my proposal is to deal with reality of most kids tournaments. For kids that are under 1400, whether the time control is G/30 or G/60 doesn't really seem to matter too much as they finish their games long before reaching that. On the other hand, the higher rated kids obviously use more time.
Now, I don't think that we should be complicating things by saying that if the rating of juniors is below 1500 then G/30 would be regular and if their rating is above its active. This will complicate things further both for participants and organizers.

I realize that taking more time to think would typically raise a level of a child, but I don't think that having two different ratings would necessarily encourage them to do so.

Instead, I think that it would simply make the organizer's lives easier if they use the same rating for the G/30 and G/60 events and it would be easier for kids and parents to understand what the rating is, rather than looking for two different (and if you include Chess N'Math 3 different) rating systems.