My boycott of CFC Active events

[Christopher Mallon]

Yes I remembered later that that was around the time they changed the rule to allow Junior events of any time control to be Standard rated.

[Jason Lohner]

There is currently 3 active events posted on the BCCF webpage. One for May, June and July. All of them Non-CFC events. This is a prime example of why adding barriers to CFC events is a bad idea. 3/6 events posted are not CFC rated.

Personally in the last 6 months I have played in 2 non cfc events and only one CFC event.

[Kevin Pacey]

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.

[Kevin Pacey]

It would be nice to know if at this year's CFC Annual Meeting any governors/executives are going to raise the matter of the CFC Active rating system being deflated - as Chris Mallon's first post in this thread acknowleged.

The CFC's Rating Auditor has an especially shameful role in this typical piece of CFC neglect .

[Kevin Pacey]

Now that the new CFC Executive has been elected at the CFC AGM in Edmonton, I would hope that the new Rating Auditor would expeditiously place the CFC Active rating system under scrutiny and subsequently correct its evident and serious deflation.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Kevin:

I'd suggest you also e-mail Bill Doubleday a copy of this post - direct communication may also help.

Bob

[Kevin Pacey]

Hi Bob

I sent Bill a request on the subject at hand, by email just now. It's sort of nice to see the new CFC Executive is listed under the 'Contacts' link on the CFC website already. I previously was unsuccessful sending an email to Bill on a different matter, possibly because I had technical difficulties (I can't quite remember). Anyway I'll see what comes of the email I sent him today.

[Kevin Pacey]

Hi Bob

I sent Bill a request on the subject at hand, by email just now. It's sort of nice to see the new CFC Executive is listed under the 'Contacts' link on the CFC website already. I previously was unsuccessful sending an email to Bill on a different matter, possibly because I had technical difficulties (I can't quite remember). Anyway I'll see what comes of the email I sent him today.

No reply yet from Bill. Now that my memory has been jogged, this isn't the first time my e-mails have been ignored, i.e. not because of technical problems.

Complaining to friends can be awkward, especially if you owe them favours . I'll give Bill (and Eric by extension) more time to straighten out the CFC's Active rating system. It seems too late for me not to avoid playing in my club's first Active event in September though.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Kevin:

My practice is usually to give someone a week to respond. Then I forward the original message with a new note : " in case you may have missed this in your " inbox ", since I have had no reply after one week "...........

We all miss things from time to time, or put off replying 'til later, and then it falls off the radar - I don't think a jog after one week is harassment.

Bob

[Pierre Dénommée]

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.

They are not deflated, they are statistically not significant. Go to the crosstable section and you will see that there are almost no rapid rated tournaments in Canada. If you play 100 regular games and 6 rapid games in a year, your rapid rating cannot follow your true playing strength. This does not mean that the rating is deflated : it only means that it is based on a too small number of games to be significant. Regular and rapid games are as different as a 5 000m and a marathon : proficiency in one does not necessary imply proficiency in the other. You can get an accurate rapid rating only by playing many rated rapid games.