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Thread: CFC Rating System Issues

  1. #11
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    Victoria BC
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    I remembered another detail about the limitation to 4 games per day for regular rated tournaments. When we updated the conditions for regular rating a few years ago, we were faced with a few junior organizers who had been submitting fast time control events for regular rating, contrary to the rules. When I started auditing them, there was considerable push-back and there were cases where they simply stopped advertising the time controls so that I could not enforce the rules.
    One way to spot fast time controls was to look for one-day events with lots of rounds.
    This is less of a problem today but I think it is important to be vigilant.
    There is always pressure to water down the requirements for regular rating. We are seeing this now with online chess. I agreed to the COVID-19 bonus and I think it is a sensible thing to do but the original concept that was presented to me was significantly more generous.
    There is also always pressure to pump up the ratings of "under-rated juniors". The bonus system was introduced primarily to address this issue and it has been working quite well.
    It took Bobby Fischer 5 years to get good. Today, many think that a single tournament is enough to identify the next Bobby Fischer.
    Paul Leblanc
    Treasurer, Chess Foundation of Canada
    CFC Voting Member

  2. #12
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    Aug 2008
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    Kanata, Ottawa, Ontario
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    Quote Originally Posted by Paul Leblanc View Post
    I remembered another detail about the limitation to 4 games per day for regular rated tournaments. When we updated the conditions for regular rating a few years ago, we were faced with a few junior organizers who had been submitting fast time control events for regular rating, contrary to the rules. When I started auditing them, there was considerable push-back and there were cases where they simply stopped advertising the time controls so that I could not enforce the rules.
    One way to spot fast time controls was to look for one-day events with lots of rounds.
    This is less of a problem today but I think it is important to be vigilant.
    There is always pressure to water down the requirements for regular rating. We are seeing this now with online chess. I agreed to the COVID-19 bonus and I think it is a sensible thing to do but the original concept that was presented to me was significantly more generous.
    There is also always pressure to pump up the ratings of "under-rated juniors". The bonus system was introduced primarily to address this issue and it has been working quite well.
    It took Bobby Fischer 5 years to get good. Today, many think that a single tournament is enough to identify the next Bobby Fischer.
    I agree with the sentiment that we seem to often consider over-rotating to "fix the problem" of "under-rated juniors". Whereas I of course support not slowing down the progress of rapidly improving players, I feel there is much to be said for the developmental value of battling upward through "plateau after plateau".

  3. #13
    Join Date
    Jul 2020
    Posts
    15

    Default Tony Li Rating Auditor Campaign

    I would like to thank Paul for his many years of service to the CFC. I am not running against him. The CFC needs every current and future volunteer to work together in order to reach the 10,000 member goal.

    Here are my ideals - The CFC rating system should do the following and no more:
    • Track improvement or deterioration in playing strength.
    • Be mathematically sound.
    • Only as last resort, take inorganic action in order to avoid significant inflation/deflation.

    The CFC rating system should not:
    • Need to be protected except against unsound rating mechanics such as participation bonuses.
    • Lag the strength of an improving player because that player should "earn it".
    • Discourage participation with mathematically unsound clauses such as the maximum number of games per day.
    • Need performance bonuses, when the organic mechanisms function well. In particular, the bonuses are excessive for tournaments with many rounds because the bonus threshold barely increases with number of rounds.

    Issues With the Current System

    1. Lack of a supporting anchor of stable adult players. We have fewer than 1000 active players, and most of them are improving juniors or declining seniors. Ratings will drift randomly until we get enough players with stable playing strength.

    2. The bonus system is deflationary at the lower end and inflationary at the upper end. This is because it pumps the same number of points to players of all strengths to reflect their improvement (with a lower bonuses for over 2200 that is consistent with the lower k factor). However, improvement occurs much more at lower ratings. This has resulted in inflation at higher ratings (obvious by comparing CFC spread vs FIDE spread), and deflation at lower ratings.

    3. The current rating system has no mechanism to deal with the improvement in the player pool's playing strength that happened and will happen while OTB chess is shut down for 1-2 years, and is not ready for the shock when OTB chess returns.

    Proposed Solutions

    1. Embrace the real core of the future CFC- adult players and stabilized juniors rated between 1200 and 1600. We can do this by the following:

    • Provide them value for their weekend. 5 games is not enough. Segregating them into quick rated games is not enough. We should provide them double rounds - 10 games in a weekend, at 1 hour time time control. The current system does not allow this by arbitrarily restricting the maximum number of games per day to 4. We should discuss removing the restriction, particularly at lower ratings (e.g. 1200 or 1400 cutoff), as the 1 hour minimum time is enough for predicting players' strength.
    • Allow them to see their improvement by starting them off at their real strength. Increase the maximum reduction in the provisional rating formula from 400 to 700 (a la FIDE). Right now a player with strength of 800 can walk into a club of 1400-1600s, lose all their games, and start with an 1100 rating. When they work hard and get to 1100 strength in a few years, their rating will barely change. Hard work and lack of visible improvement is hardly a recipe for membership renewal.

    2. Remove the bonus system, and increase the k-factor for juniors. This means that points are only pumped into the system when juniors outperform adults relative to their ratings. Simple and organic. No need to calibrate the threshold for bonus or multiplier for number of rounds in a tournament.

    3. Introduce a 12-month, 100-point rating floor when OTB reopens. Since a 100 point decline in playing strength is unlikely over a 1 year period, this should provide stable players protection against extremely underrated players when OTB returns. This will be a temporary measure to fight rating deflation.

  4. #14
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    Aug 2008
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    Kanata, Ottawa, Ontario
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    Tony, at first read, your proposals seems geared more towards juniors, vs. the entire spectrum of Canadian players. And I just don't know whether to believe statements like "and most of them are improving juniors or declining seniors". I don't know whether that's true or not, but intuitively, there seems to be many legitimate chess players between the ages of 20 and 55, some improving, some declining, some not moving around much. Anyway, as important as it seems to yourself to recognize rapidly improving juniors, issues like class rating floors (it seems to work in the States) could make a huge difference in player retention?!


    Regardless, thank you for your passion and interest, which is great for the CFC!

  5. #15
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    Jul 2020
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    15

    Default Rating Floors

    Quote Originally Posted by Aris Marghetis View Post
    Tony, at first read, your proposals seems geared more towards juniors, vs. the entire spectrum of Canadian players. And I just don't know whether to believe statements like "and most of them are improving juniors or declining seniors". I don't know whether that's true or not, but intuitively, there seems to be many legitimate chess players between the ages of 20 and 55, some improving, some declining, some not moving around much. Anyway, as important as it seems to yourself to recognize rapidly improving juniors, issues like class rating floors (it seems to work in the States) could make a huge difference in player retention?!

    Regardless, thank you for your passion and interest, which is great for the CFC!
    Hi Aris,

    This could vary by geography but you might be thinking of Ottawa which has a great chess culture and has managed to maintain more adult chess players. In Kitchener, we tend to attract over 80% juniors/seniors, and this appears to be the mix in GTA as well.

    I would not be in favor of a lifetime rating floor as sandbagging is not yet a problem in Canada. I would be interested to examine the data for whether a 2-year, 200-point rating floor would be a good practical solution. I would also be in favor of a lower k-factor for seniors.

    My main idea for player retention is more rounds for lower rated players (more so for juniors and new adult members). I myself appreciate longer time controls - at my last weekender, I played over 13 hours on Saturday over 3 rounds - on Sunday morning the TD jokingly apologized for all the delayed round start times and said he will charge me a higher entry fee next time because I was so getting so much out of it. But 5 rounds over a weekend is a terrible value proposition for 1200s who only get about 5-7 hours of game time. I discussed this issue with Hal a few years ago and he brought up the idea of double rounds. Last year, Egis in Aurora began running a one-day tournament for the lowest section as part of a weekender. We need more ideas to keep this group engaged.

    Specifically focused on seniors - they could benefit from more rest in between rounds. A lot of seniors are complaining about blundering. It would make sense to set the time control so that for players have at least 1 hour in between rounds. It may involve shortening the time control a little, but seniors need the rest between rounds.
    Last edited by Tony Li; 08-13-2020 at 01:05 AM.

  6. #16
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    I support Tony on the item to allow to rate standar junior tournaments with more than 5 rounds per day and shorter time controls. I don't believe that it would ruin the standard rating system. However it would attract more young players who would reach their actual rating much faster.


    On other items like changing the math -- sorry too hot here to think if they have merit and would make anything better. I don't see that the rating system is broken at all.
    .*-1

  7. #17
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    Jul 2020
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    Quote Originally Posted by Egidijus Zeromskis View Post
    I support Tony on the item to allow to rate standar junior tournaments with more than 5 rounds per day and shorter time controls. I don't believe that it would ruin the standard rating system. However it would attract more young players who would reach their actual rating much faster.


    On other items like changing the math -- sorry too hot here to think if they have merit and would make anything better. I don't see that the rating system is broken at all.
    On average the rating system is fine. But looking at Roger Patterson's chart suggests to me that rating spreads are current 600 points instead of 400 - this is a natural effect of the bonus systems which reward higher rated players more vs their slower improvement.

    For 2021 the system will have a shock because games haven't been for so long while playing strength would have increased dramatically in many pockets.

    http://www.victoriachess.com/cfc/stats/expected.JPG

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