CFC Membership Stats

[Bob Gillanders]

We have updated our annual membership stats for 2023.

CFC memberships as of May 1, 2023 - 4,046

Details here.....
https://www.chess.ca/en/cfc/membership-statistics/

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Nice!
Kudos to those who joined, and those who encouraged and created the environment them to join :)

[Bob Gillanders]

Crunching some ratings data from the membership data as of May 1, 2023

I was interested in breaking down the membership by age and also between Pre-Covid members vs. Post-Covid new members.
To get to a reasonable stable base, I am including only
1. Members with annual memberships (excluding tournament fee and life members).
2. Established regular ratings only.
3. We have a date of birth in database.


I get the following average Regular Ratings

Before COVID membership (CFC # < 173000)

Juniors (U20) 1501
Adults (20-50) 1754
Seniors (over 50) 1658

After COVID membership (CFC # 173000 +)

Juniors 1192
Adults 1522
Seniors 1362

Next step will be to do the calculations from 3 years ago, before COVID, and then going forward.

[Bob Armstrong]

Crunching some ratings data from the membership data as of May 1, 2023

I was interested in breaking down the membership by age and also between Pre-Covid members vs. Post-Covid new members.
To get to a reasonable stable base, I am including only
1. Members with annual memberships (excluding tournament fee and life members).
2. Established regular ratings only.
3. We have a date of birth in database.


I get the following average Regular Ratings

Before COVID membership (CFC # < 173000)

Juniors (U20) 1501
Adults (20-50) 1754
Seniors (over 50) 1658

After COVID membership (CFC # 173000 +)

Juniors 1192
Adults 1522
Seniors 1362

Next step will be to do the calculations from 3 years ago, before COVID, and then going forward.

Below is my post response to Bob G's above post with respect to two questions I've raised on ChessTalk: CFC Rating Stats: Adult Member Av./Junior Member Av. (Post # 26)

Does Bob G's Post # 2 (In the ChessTalk thread) help with my Questions?

1. What is the average rating of the adult paid-up member pool?
2. What is the average rating of the junior paid-up member (U 20) pool?

A. Unfortunately Bob G has divided each of the two pools into two parts: Pre-COVID; Post-COVID.
Also, Bob G has split the adults into 2 groups: Adults; Seniors.
Without knowing the total number in each group, we cannot just join the groups as Bob G has counted them and calculate a correct average for my 2 pools.

B. Also, Bob G includes fewer members in his calculations than I want: All paid-up adults (Including those in Family, Honorary, Life, etc.); all junior members (Including in Family membership). I would exclude members due to only tournament memberships. I would exclude those with only provisional ratings, since they are generally lower earlier on that when the permanent rating is finally calculated.

Bob G stated:

To get to a reasonable stable base, I am including only:

1. Members with annual memberships (excluding tournament fee and life members).
2. Established regular ratings only.
3. We have a date of birth in database

C. Lastly in my Post # 16, in the thread "Chess by Age Using FIDE data", I deal with estimating membership of my 2 pools using old CFC stats (May, 2022):

My CFC Member Calculation (22/5/1 CFC Stats)

As a sample (The May 2023 stats were not posted yet):

Total Membership - 2,547

1. Adults - 1,571

Adult - 968
Life - 503 (Assuming most adult)
Honorary - 86 (Assuming most adult)
Family - 14 (Assuming 2 members per family; assuming 1 adult & 1 Junior)
Total - 1,571

2. Junior (U 20 y.o.) - 976 (Approx. 40 % of total membership)

Junior - 962
Family - 14 (Assuming 2 members per family; assuming 1 adult & 1 Junior)
Total - 976

So my two questions are still unanswered.

Bob A

[Hugh Brodie]

Any idea as to how many Life members are removed each year due to death? What about Life members with whom you have lost contact? Are they assumed to be Life members until their death is confirmed (although they may be very much alive)?

The td list file contains many deceased players (most with expired memberships) e.g. Bryon Nickoloff. Is that intentional? I would like to extract a list of Quebec Life members and I could tell you if some are deceased or not.

[Bob Armstrong]

Bumping - hope to have someone explain how the CFC database can produce the somewhat simple stats I am seeking:

1. Av. rating of adult members;
2. Av. rating of junior members.

Bob A

[John Brown]

To Bob A.

If the Tdlist listed who are juniors then I think you could do your questions yourself Bob. The main question is the tdlist up to date? Also as Hugh suggested indicate what players Life and current are deceased.

[Bob Armstrong]

To Bob A.

If the Tdlist listed who are juniors then I think you could do your questions yourself Bob. The main question is the tdlist up to date? Also as Hugh suggested indicate what players Life and current are deceased.

Hi John:

I'm not familiar with the CFC Stats Database, and so I'm not really sure how to go about it (And you've said that the stats seem to have some deficiencies).

I'm afraid I'm going to need some help.

Here is the current status of the issue as far as I can tell:

Adult Rating Pool/Junior Rating Pool

This thread includes in it my two initial rating questions:

1. What is the average rating of the adult paid-up member pool?
2. What is the average rating of the junior paid-up member (U 20) pool?

To date, no one has used the CFC Ratings Stats to provide us with the answer to these two questions.

Is it that the CFC Stats are so set up, that they cannot be used to answer these 2 questions?

Bob A

[John Brown]

Hi Bob A
just go to cfc site click on Organizers and you get to a page that has the TDlist. As I said before if the Juniors were indicated you could do your own calculations. But I'm really confused why you want this data unless you are writing a book as to me it seems like useless information.

[Bob Gillanders]

This thread includes in it my two initial rating questions:

1. What is the average rating of the adult paid-up member pool?
2. What is the average rating of the junior paid-up member (U 20) pool?

Bob A

I crunched some numbers at 3 points in time, because I am interested in any trends.
This is for Established regular ratings only.
Pool, is the current annual memberships only.
Pool split into Adult vs. Junior, and only including those where we have a date of birth.
I am not including any Life members, as many are not active anymore.

So, average established regular ratings for current members

as of May 1, 2018
Junior 1,461
Adult 1,838

as of May 1, 2020
Junior 1,368
Adult 1,815

as of May 1, 2023
Junior 1,406
Adult 1,690

[Bob Armstrong]

Thanks Bob G.

The Pool for Adults & for Juniors have some limits on who is in and who is out....but this seems what is possible, and likely the variation is small enough that the sample is generally valid.

As of May 1, 2023 membership stats:

Adult Rating Pool - Av. Rating - 1690
Junior Rating Pool - Av. Rating - 1406

Bob G also gave stats for the pre-pandemic period (The start of the pandemic in Canada is generally dated in March, 2020; Bob G's stats are as of May 1, 2020 - this is 3 years before the current statistics):

Adult Rating Pool - Av. Rating - 1815
Junior Rating Pool - Av. Rating - 1368

Conclusions:

Between the end of the pandemic (Summer of 2022) and May 1, 2023, numbers of on-line players from during the pandemic came out to try OTB tournaments. After 25 games, they had a permanent rating.

A. In the junior pool, the joining of the newbies raised the average pre-pandemic rating by 38 points!
B. It is quite different in the Adult Pool. The Average Adult Rating dropped a full 125 rating points (Down to 1690 from 1815). Clearly the newbies are the main factor in this drop of the average rating.

Questions:

1. What are the factors/dynamics that led to such a sharp drop in the Average Rating of the Adult Pool as of May 1, 2023?
2. Why did these factors/dynamics not also significantly affect the Average Rating of the Junior Pool?

[Note: According to Bob G's number crunching, the Adult pool average rating remained totally stable for the three years prior to the pandemic:

As of May 1, 2018: Adult 1838

As of May 1, 2020: Adult 1815]

Bob A

[Bob Armstrong]

Average Ratings of 2 Pools (Adult & Junior) - First Defined Group

Bob G., CFC Exec. Dir., has done some number crunching from the CFC stats.

The Pool for Adults & for Juniors that he has used have some limits on who is in and who is out:

1. Member must be fully paid up;
2. Member must have been active within the last 2 years;
3. Members for whom no birth date has been given have been eliminated;
4. Members with only a "Provisional Rating" have been eliminated.
5. Juniors are under 20 y.o.

Given this, Bob G's pool stats:

As of May 1, 2023 membership stats:

Adult Rating Pool - Av. Rating - 1690
Junior Rating Pool - Av. Rating - 1406

Bob G later conscripted me in order to test some rating education ideas he had, and so we had a somewhat lengthy Zoom meeting.

Provisional Ratings

One thing that we realized was that the Provisional Rating membership is quite large recently! Almost the same number of members as those with ordinary ratings. And, of course, the majority of these provisional ratings are quite low.

Our Conclusion: If criteria # 4 above is deleted, then the average rating of both pools would drop significantly.

Question:

Which of these methods of forming the pools seems most relevant to you?

My Answer: I want to know the Average Rating of both pools as they were for ALL members on May 1, 2023. This gives us a good idea of the full range of ratings among the members as of that date. So I'd like to see the second set of Average Ratings of the 2 pools with the Provisional Rating Members included.

Bob A

[Bob Armstrong]

Rating Deflation?

https://www.fide.com/news/2538?fbclid=IwAR0mFt5TUepPLr0AqDCKZVrEAFo7XzE7xQEY Kr_3YNOGCuAIVHM2-uUQGJU

Bob A

[Bob Gillanders]

Average Ratings of 2 Pools (Adult & Junior) - First Defined Group

Bob G., CFC Exec. Dir., has done some number crunching from the CFC stats.

The Pool for Adults & for Juniors that he has used have some limits on who is in and who is out:

1. Member must be fully paid up;
2. Member must have been active within the last 2 years;
3. Members for whom no birth date has been given have been eliminated;
4. Members with only a "Provisional Rating" have been eliminated.
5. Juniors are under 20 y.o.

Given this, Bob G's pool stats:

As of May 1, 2023 membership stats:

Adult Rating Pool - Av. Rating - 1690
Junior Rating Pool - Av. Rating - 1406

Bob G later conscripted me in order to test some rating education ideas he had, and so we had a somewhat lengthy Zoom meeting.

Provisional Ratings

One thing that we realized was that the Provisional Rating membership is quite large recently! Almost the same number of members as those with ordinary ratings. And, of course, the majority of these provisional ratings are quite low.

Our Conclusion: If criteria # 4 above is deleted, then the average rating of both pools would drop significantly.

Question:

Which of these methods of forming the pools seems most relevant to you?

My Answer: I want to know the Average Rating of both pools as they were for ALL members on May 1, 2023. This gives us a good idea of the full range of ratings among the members as of that date. So I'd like to see the second set of Average Ratings of the 2 pools with the Provisional Rating Members included.

Bob A

I crunched some more numbers this morning. Early Sunday morning with coffee, perfect environment for some math. :)

Okay, so when you include all the provisionally rated players, which was your question, the averages do drop significantly.

Adult rating pool - average rating - 1,436
Junior rating pool - average rating - 1,079

[Bob Gillanders]

Rating Deflation?

https://www.fide.com/news/2538?fbclid=IwAR0mFt5TUepPLr0AqDCKZVrEAFo7XzE7xQEY Kr_3YNOGCuAIVHM2-uUQGJU

Bob A

Yes, FIDE has some proposals for combating rating deflation.
Our rating auditor, Ian, has already alerted the CFC Rating SWAT team, so we are already on the case.

I'm looking forward to reading their proposal. Interesting stuff.

[Bob Gillanders]

Anybody wondering why we have so many kids under the age of 3 in the CFC?

Go to the player search page, scroll to the bottom for top players.
Enter age group 0 to 3, switch to quick ratings, change to 500 players.

Are we running a day care centre? More than 500 kids under age 3!
The answer is No.

Please please please, I am asking nicely, when you want us to add new players (your club, or tournament) please supply the CFC office with their date of birth.
Otherwise, for Juniors we enter 2022-01-01 and you get this ridiculous scenario of hundreds of toddler members.

Help us out here. If you know somebody on the toddler list, please ask them to update their profile in JustGo.

[Hugh Brodie]

Shouldn't FQE members be included as per the CFC-FQE agreement of 2012 (which I believe has been renewed with no changes over the years)?

Item 4: "FQE membership numbers would be included in the CFC’s membership tally."

Sub-item of item 9: "The FQE will pay a 9$ fee per adult membership and 4$ for junior and cadet
membership. The payment will occur in the following fashion: On the anniversary date
of the agreement, FQE will report its membership per category and pay an annual fee
according to those numbers."

Is/has this amount being paid/collected, and has it been adjusted since 2012?

The original agreement: https://www.fqechecs.qc.ca/pj/documents/1/11333/cfc-fqeagreement.pdf

[Vladimir Drkulec]

Shouldn't FQE members be included as per the CFC-FQE agreement of 2012 (which I believe has been renewed with no changes over the years)?

Item 4: "FQE membership numbers would be included in the CFC’s membership tally."

Sub-item of item 9: "The FQE will pay a 9$ fee per adult membership and 4$ for junior and cadet
membership. The payment will occur in the following fashion: On the anniversary date
of the agreement, FQE will report its membership per category and pay an annual fee
according to those numbers."

Is/has this amount being paid/collected, and has it been adjusted since 2012?

The original agreement: https://www.fqechecs.qc.ca/pj/documents/1/11333/cfc-fqeagreement.pdf

If we had the information, we would be very happy to include those numbers in our membership totals.

There have been some changes in the agreement over the years. The fees paid to the CFC have gone down. I spoke to FQE president Eric Bopala and Richard Berube just recently via a Whatsapp video call and Richard is on vacation for a few more days and the FQE will be sending the CFC a cheque to cover payments for the past two years. I believe that the CFC and FQE enjoy a good relationship and we intend to keep that good relationship going.

It is important that we continue to row the boat in the same direction and I think we have been doing so.

[Hugh Brodie]

From downloading the FQE rating list (select "Exporter" at the right) from https://fqechecs.qc.ca/cotes/categorie/index.php
I get approximately 1149 members in good standing (memberships expiring September 2, 2023 or later). It's hard to break it down by age groups, since birth dates aren't always there, or are some garbage value.

From the same site if I select from "Categorie des membres" I get: 1636 adults; 309 juniors, 1545 cadets, and 924 seniors. However this includes many with expired FQE memberships.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

From downloading the FQE rating list (select "Exporter" at the right) from https://fqechecs.qc.ca/cotes/categorie/index.php
I get approximately 1149 members in good standing (memberships expiring September 2, 2023 or later). It's hard to break it down by age groups, since birth dates aren't always there, or are some garbage value.

From the same site if I select from "Categorie des membres" I get: 1636 adults; 309 juniors, 1545 cadets, and 924 seniors. However this includes many with expired FQE memberships.

It would be interesting to see these numbers for non-expired memberships. Are the adult numbers separate from seniors? Depending on the exact definitions the combined numbers for CFC and FQE would be over 8000 at the high end and 5200 at the low end though more likely in the 6000 players with paid up memberships range if the traditional ratio holds true where about one third to one quarter of the Canadian tournament players reside in Quebec.