My boycott of CFC Active events

[Kevin Pacey]

The CFC was losing members everywhere. We lost fewer per capita in Quebec than anywhere else.

The CFC may have lost even fewer Quebec CFC members if not for the FSQE.

Considering all they ever did was ask for money and volunteers I can understand what anyone says after the fact.

I'm not sure, but I vaguely recall FSQE mailing tactics to Quebec CFC members being mentioned on a discussion board some years ago. Such mail may have been offputting to at least some Quebec CFC members. In any case, once the CFC gave the FSQE its blessing, the reputation of the CFC may have become intertwined with that of the FSQE inside Quebec, at least to some extent. That may have been what Neil Sullivan was refering to.

[Kevin Pacey]

Here's something I've posted on chesstalk this morning:

"I've played in another Active event (the 2010 RA Spring Open). Had to collect another cheque at my club .

One thing that I noticed afterwards was that the current CFC rating system for regular ratings:

http://chess.ca/ratings_system.htm

appears to be being also currently applied to CFC Active ratings, i.e. both participation and bonus points are being awarded, as the crosstable for the 2010 RA Spring Active seemed to reveal when I checked the pre- and post-event Active ratings for just Joey Qin and I:

http://chess.ca/xtableSQL.asp?TNum=201003056

so one might say my little boycott of Active events was much ado about nothing (in the interest of transparency I am prepared to seemingly have to eat some humble pie ).

However that still leaves the matter of Active rating points that had/have been lost due to deflation.

For the regular CFC ratings, a ratings committee a few years ago did adjust the rating system AND add in 'free' activity points for games played in what the committee deemed to be the deflationary period of approx. 2004-2006. However the committee did neglect to add such activity points to the Active ratings of players who played in that period (or any other such period).

The current Rating Auditor W. Doubleday is still looking intently at correcting the Active ratings, I happen to know.

Taking all this into account, and the fact that I may need to continue to collect cheques at the RA club, I am happy to formally end my one man boycott of Active events ."

[Christopher Mallon]

As posted earlier, the script that was run on the database to add the bonus points accidentally added the points intended for Active ratings to the Regular ratings. So you DID get the points, they just went onto your regular ratings.

To my knowledge, the CFC never ran the corrected version of the script submitted almost immediately after the discrepency was noticed. I'm not sure it's really fixable anymore.

[Kevin Pacey]

As posted earlier, the script that was run on the database to add the bonus points accidentally added the points intended for Active ratings to the Regular ratings. So you DID get the points, they just went onto your regular ratings.

To my knowledge, the CFC never ran the corrected version of the script submitted almost immediately after the discrepency was noticed. I'm not sure it's really fixable anymore.

Interesting. If you did look at the linked crosstable for the 2010 RA Spring Active which I provided, and did calculations, I would think you might conclude Joey Qin (for example) did receive Active rating bonus AND Active rating participation points according to the current (regular!?) CFC rating system, and thus the CFC's Active rating system appears to me to be likely to be the same as for regular ratings nowadays.

My own (rough) calculations were based on knowing that the current regular rating system can, in the execution of it's first step of calculating new ratings after events, be approximated by Step 1) of an older CFC rating system, as applicable for established ratings (25+ games played), which was, I believe:

Step 1) (Initial New Rating) = (Old Rating) + 16 * (W-L) + .04 * (rating difference [maximum of 350 per opponent]) for players rated under 2300 (co-efficents were halved for 2300+ players formula).

Step 2) (Penultimate New Rating) = (Initial New Rating) + bonus points.

Step 3) (Final New Rating) = (Penultimate New Rating) + participation points.

For Steps 2) and 3) bonus points and participation points were awarded a bit differently than they are nowadays, I seem to recall. However in Joey's case I thought he received bonus and participation points for his Active rating as explained in the link I gave for the CFC's current (regular!?) rating system.

[Paul Leblanc]

Can someone explain the formula for bonus points? What do the percentages mean? The following is article 714.d from the CFC Handbook and I don't see an explanation of how to apply it.

B: Result Bonus (Performance Rating must exceed highest CFC Rating ever)
0% - 59% No points
60% - 70% 5 Points
71% - 89% 10 Points
90% + 15 Points

[Kevin Pacey]

As posted earlier, the script that was run on the database to add the bonus points accidentally added the points intended for Active ratings to the Regular ratings. So you DID get the points, they just went onto your regular ratings.

To my knowledge, the CFC never ran the corrected version of the script submitted almost immediately after the discrepency was noticed. I'm not sure it's really fixable anymore.

Actually, I was assuming you mean literally 'bonus points'. If by "...the bonus points..." you meant the 'free' rating points awarded as a boon on a one-time basis as 'activity points' for games played in the approx. 2004-2006 deflationary period (as deemed by your ratings committee) for regular (and Active?) ratings then your post makes better sense to me.

[Steve Douglas]

Actually, I was assuming you mean literally 'bonus points'. If by "...the bonus points..." you meant the 'free' rating points awarded as a boon on a one-time basis as 'activity points' for games played in the approx. 2004-2006 deflationary period (as deemed by your ratings committee) for regular (and Active?) ratings then your post makes better sense to me.

That's how I read Chris Mallon's post. Which means that anybody that had an active rating got "more" extra-super-special-don't-you-just-love-them bonus points. This is the first I've heard of this fubar. And it probably doesn't amount to much since it just inflated (errr, un-deflated?) some of the regular ratings more than others (all ratings were born equal, etc.).

But this does beg two questions: why has this not been heard of before? And what exactly is the point of having a ratings auditor if this sort of nonsense just "happens"??

Steve

[Kevin Pacey]

Can someone explain the formula for bonus points? What do the percentages mean? The following is article 714.d from the CFC Handbook and I don't see an explanation of how to apply it.

B: Result Bonus (Performance Rating must exceed highest CFC Rating ever)
0% - 59% No points
60% - 70% 5 Points
71% - 89% 10 Points
90% + 15 Points

I believe it means you can get bonus points firstly only IF your event Performance rating exceeds your highest CFC Rating ever (regular or Active depending on the event being rated)

and if so then you may get bonus points as follows:

If your actual score for an event is:

0% - 59% of the number of rounds (say you score 1 out of 5 in a five round weekend swiss, you've got 20%)

then you are awarded no bonus points,

but if your actual score for a five round event is 3 out of 5

then you fall into the 60% - 70% category and are awarded 5 bonus points

etc.

[Christopher Mallon]

That's how I read Chris Mallon's post. Which means that anybody that had an active rating got "more" extra-super-special-don't-you-just-love-them bonus points. This is the first I've heard of this fubar. And it probably doesn't amount to much since it just inflated (errr, un-deflated?) some of the regular ratings more than others (all ratings were born equal, etc.).

But this does beg two questions: why has this not been heard of before? And what exactly is the point of having a ratings auditor if this sort of nonsense just "happens"??

Steve

That's correct.

I'm not sure very many people ever got THAT many points out of it, who really plays in that many active events anyway? But it DID keep the active ratings down.

[Fred McKim]

This is another area that has to be addressed by the RA and the Rating committee.

Rating deflation will genrally happen when more Standard events are held than Active events.

Probably PEI is one of the least deflated areas, and our Active ratings may actually be inflated. I presently run pretty well all of the CFC events here. Right now that is 3 standard and 3 active, each year.

I know that NB has one or two a year and I don't think that NS has had one for several years.

The first step back is the adjustment: I would suggest that as of Sept 1, everybody's active rating be set to their CFC rating - 100, unless they are already at that level or better. This could be done on an annual basis (with some tweaking), until we find a better solution. This might be sufficient.