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