Participation Points - Inflation

[Kevin Pacey]

If there is inflation of regular CFC ratings, participation points may not be the problem. The awarding of these points is (I think) identical to what it was back in the 1990s and long before, until they were eradicated for some time, which brought on deflation (apparently obvious circa 2004-2006, the latter year when anti-deflationary measures instituted by the CFC took effect).

What's different from the CFCs regular rating formula used back in the 1990s and before would include first and foremost an entirely different way of awarding bonus points. It used to be if you played 4 rounds and your rating was going to improve by more than 24 points, each rating point above 24 would be doubled. Similar story for if you played 5 rounds and your rating improved by more than 26 points, etc. Plus in the old days you could not get any bonus points if you were rated over 2300. Now there is no such upper limit.

Now bonus points are awarded on how well you perform in an event, expressed as a percentage of how many points you score out of the number of rounds in an event, if your performance rating exceeds your all time high. If you score 90% or better in even a five round event you possibly can get 15 bonus points. This is not halved even if you are over 2200. It seems to me hard to predict whether this is causing inflation, but I hope the CFCs rating reform committee acted thoughtfully and responsibly when it thought up this seemingly radical change to the awarding of bonus points.