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Thread: My boycott of CFC Active events

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  1. #1
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    Angry My boycott of CFC Active events

    Since the CFC Ratings Auditor/Committee nor the CFC Governors/Executive seems to be in any hurry to do anything about the longstanding obvious deflation of CFC Active ratings, I will now be boycotting CFC Active events until a correction to the CFC's Active rating system is made. I do not wish to pay an Active rating fee in order to continue to receive a clearly deflated rating.

  2. #2
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    Actually, the Active ratings WERE supposed to be corrected at the same time, but an error in the script prevented this. This was pointed out to the Exec and the Ratings Auditor at the time but apparently ignored - despite the fact that we also provided a corrected script which would have fixed it.

    I had totally forgotten about all of that.

  3. #3
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    Arrggg!

    On chesstalk, Egidijus Zeromskis posted figures [for the possible decline of] the number of Active chess events held in Ontario since 2007 [That's about the year regular (but not Active) CFC ratings were adjusted by the CFC]:

    "Crosstable Selector allows to choose Regular or Active.

    For ON:
    2009 first half year - 5
    2008 first half year - 14
    2007 first half year - too many to count
    etc
    --"

    Did demand for CFC Active events in Ontario drop at least partly because CFC members saw that Active ratings weren't going to be adjusted too? I recall one chesstalk poster back then inquired whether Active ratings were going to be adjusted as well. I believe he got no reply and he asked no further.

    At least here in Ottawa the number of Active events held at the RACC has remained at about half a dozen a year, but the EOCA seems to be about the healthiest league in the province in terms of CFC member levels.

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    I ran 5 Actives per year when I was in Brantford but I think they discontinued that when they lost access to their good site. I'm not sure that the overall decline is caused by people not liking their ratings or what it might be.

    Perhaps we should allow Active ratings to cover Blitz games as well? Blitz ratings were approved by the CFC years ago, but the money was never spent on the website/database/software to allow for them to be displayed and, to my knowledge, only three events were ever rated - all by me, using a ratings calculator program, one player at a time.

  5. #5
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    An extended table of tournaments numbers for three provinces (different sections or age groups counted as separate tournaments. Y - total in that year.):

    Code:
    
     		Y		Y		 Y
    	AB		BC		ON	
    2009 1	21		2		5	
    2008 2	5	13	0	1	22	36
    2008 1	8		1		14	
    2007 2	10	11	0	0	28	57
    2007 1	1		0		29	
    2006 2	8	18	0	29	25	60
    2006 1	10		29		35	
    2005 2	7	13	3	18	19	54
    2005 1	6		15		35	
    May somebody explain the "active rating deflation" problem? Is it based on a long complicated formula (long variation - wrong variation) To my understanding, the rating system is good only for actively participating players.
    .*-1

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    The real problem is that active events are so few and far between. So a young player might play a few events, get an established active rating around 1400-1600, then not play again until they're an FM but still have that ridiculously low rating, which takes a ton of points out of the system if they play in an event. This is actually a true story... and I'm sure it's repeated a number of times.

    From the table it looks like BC lost a very active organizer, just as a guess.

    Random thought thrown out: What if active ratings were re-set to be identical to everyone's current Standard ratings, blitz time controls were allowed (so Active is 5-59 minutes per player) and perhaps a $1 reduction in rating fee for these events?

  7. #7
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    In Ottawa I'd say there is a fairly stable longstanding population of members with Active ratings, besides a fairly constant number of Active events as I mentioned previously. The only player I've encountered who was grossly underrated relative to myself (and other players that I know) came from the maritimes to our city recently. So for me personally a good enough solution would be for the CFC to impliment an Active rating boon similar to the one performed with the regular ratings about a couple of years ago, along with participation points being added to the Active rating system. In fact I would take these steps first and see how they work out before possibly tinkering with Canadian Active chess further in other ways.

    A reduction in Active rating fees would be nice too, if the CFC thinks it can afford it, or would win according to whatever cost/benefit analysis might be performed. My guess is that the revenue the CFC receives from Active events is relatively small at the moment, but trying to improve member satisfaction with Active chess in general is still important to the CFC's image since the CFC still appears to be committed to providing Active chess ratings.

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    A couple of other things related to Active chess that may be of interest:

    A number of years ago Larry Bevand did a poll on chesstalk asking how many people cared about both their Active & regular CFC ratings, just their regular rating, or just their Active raing. There were at least some respondents who indicated by one answer or another that they cared about their CFC Active rating. My vaguest of memories tells me it was at least 33% of respondents, which flies in the face of what one Governor here in Ottawa recently told me. His off the cuff rejection of my concern about CFC Active rating deflation was that nobody other than myself cared about their CFC Active rating. Another Governor here whom I spoke with said nothing but gave some slight appearance of being sympathetic.

    Also a number of years ago, I used to play in some of the Active events organized in Ottawa at Strategy Games, which were run by the CMA and ratings were based on CMA's Active rating system. The CMA Active rating system was even more prone to rapid deflation than the CFCs Active rating system at the time. However I didn't play long enough in such events while they were still being run to have a terrible CMA Active rating compared to my CFC one, and the CMA offered gift certificate prizes, which is more than the CFC Active events here offer to this day ($0 in prizes, no CFC gift certificates, but sometimes trophies as of this year depending who runs them).

  9. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christopher Mallon

    Random thought thrown out: What if active ratings were re-set to be identical to everyone's current Standard ratings, blitz time controls were allowed (so Active is 5-59 minutes per player) and perhaps a $1 reduction in rating fee for these events?
    It's not so much the rating fee of $3 that is the killer - It's the tournament membership fee. That fee is the same as a weekend event even tough the typical active event is 5 hours of chess versus ~15-20 hours of chess for a standard weekend tournament. The active tournaments out here that I know of are run as non CFC events for that reason. It's unrealistic to have a tournament with a $10 or $15 entry fee and expect non CFC members to show up and fork over double or triple that. Especially as the only benefit that is received by players is an active rating, which despite what Kevin says, many people do not care about. And it was too expensive BEFORE the tournament membership fee was recently raised.

    Another reason there are few active tournaments is that organizers are creatures of habit. They've organized 5 round weekend tournaments since time immorial and have not thought about doing so similarly with active tournaments. The Ottawa situation that Kevin speaks of has the RA organizing them because they somehow got put onto the club calender once and now are a permanant fixture year after year.

    I find that active tournaments are a good way to transition casual club players into tournaments. They may feel they are just not good enough for full tournament play or are unwilling to pony up the full cost of entry fee and CFC membership and/or commit a full weekend. An active event for $10 gives them a taste and is not a hard sell.

    BTW Chris, there are presently 2 active events a year in Victoria and about 1 a month in Vancouver, all non CFC events. Ironically, the ones in Victoria this year were even fundraisers for CFC causes (Olympiad and CYCC) but cannot afford to be CFC tournaments.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by roger patterson
    It's not so much the rating fee of $3 that is the killer - It's the tournament membership fee. That fee is the same as a weekend event even tough the typical active event is 5 hours of chess versus ~15-20 hours of chess for a standard weekend tournament. The active tournaments out here that I know of are run as non CFC events for that reason. It's unrealistic to have a tournament with a $10 or $15 entry fee and expect non CFC members to show up and fork over double or triple that. Especially as the only benefit that is received by players is an active rating, which despite what Kevin says, many people do not care about. And it was too expensive BEFORE the tournament membership fee was recently raised.

    Another reason there are few active tournaments is that organizers are creatures of habit. They've organized 5 round weekend tournaments since time immorial and have not thought about doing so similarly with active tournaments. The Ottawa situation that Kevin speaks of has the RA organizing them because they somehow got put onto the club calender once and now are a permanant fixture year after year.

    I find that active tournaments are a good way to transition casual club players into tournaments. They may feel they are just not good enough for full tournament play or are unwilling to pony up the full cost of entry fee and CFC membership and/or commit a full weekend. An active event for $10 gives them a taste and is not a hard sell.

    BTW Chris, there are presently 2 active events a year in Victoria and about 1 a month in Vancouver, all non CFC events. Ironically, the ones in Victoria this year were even fundraisers for CFC causes (Olympiad and CYCC) but cannot afford to be CFC tournaments.
    Now the tournament fee is $20 as of May 1, in case anyone doesn't know. Recent discussion on chesstalk indicates that an interesting alternative for organizers might be to have seperate section and/or entry standard for non-CFC players at regular [or Active] events, with cheap entry fees and no cash prizes, but with trophies offered for those who do well in the tournament/their section.

    There were actually only a couple of Active events on the RA club calender last year - the others were one day weekend Active events, now organized by Aris, which have a different format than when you left town. I don't particularly like the format for these myself: only 3 rounds for a higher fee, and no cash prizes still (there are now trophies for these events - but I have little desire for any more of these personally, especially living in a small apartment, unless perhaps I am standing beside a VIP or, say, Miss Canada, being photographed or filmed for posterity when I receive a trophy, which hopefully would be a major one).

    For the record, I didn't imply that it's untrue many people don't care about their Active rating. Instead I offered my admittedly vague recollection of a chesstalk poll which showed that many people do care. At least more than a few.

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