If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.
Policy / Politique
The fee for tournament organizers advertising on ChessTalk is $20/event or $100/yearly unlimited for the year.
Les frais d'inscription des organisateurs de tournoi sur ChessTalk sont de 20 $/événement ou de 100 $/année illimitée.
You can etransfer to Henry Lam at chesstalkforum at gmail dot com
Transfér à Henry Lam à chesstalkforum@gmail.com
Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
General Guidelines
---- Nous avons besoin d'un traduction français!
Some Basics
1. Under Board "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQs) there are 3 sections dealing with General Forum Usage, User Profile Features, and Reading and Posting Messages. These deal with everything from Avatars to Your Notifications. Most general technical questions are covered there. Here is a link to the FAQs. https://forum.chesstalk.com/help
2. Consider using the SEARCH button if you are looking for information. You may find your question has already been answered in a previous thread.
3. If you've looked for an answer to a question, and not found one, then you should consider asking your question in a new thread. For example, there have already been questions and discussion regarding: how to do chess diagrams (FENs); crosstables that line up properly; and the numerous little “glitches” that every new site will have.
4. Read pinned or sticky threads, like this one, if they look important. This applies especially to newcomers.
5. Read the thread you're posting in before you post. There are a variety of ways to look at a thread. These are covered under “Display Modes”.
6. Thread titles: please provide some details in your thread title. This is useful for a number of reasons. It helps ChessTalk members to quickly skim the threads. It prevents duplication of threads. And so on.
7. Unnecessary thread proliferation (e.g., deliberately creating a new thread that duplicates existing discussion) is discouraged. Look to see if a thread on your topic may have already been started and, if so, consider adding your contribution to the pre-existing thread. However, starting new threads to explore side-issues that are not relevant to the original subject is strongly encouraged. A single thread on the Canadian Open, with hundreds of posts on multiple sub-topics, is no better than a dozen threads on the Open covering only a few topics. Use your good judgment when starting a new thread.
8. If and/or when sub-forums are created, please make sure to create threads in the proper place.
Debate
9. Give an opinion and back it up with a reason. Throwaway comments such as "Game X pwnz because my friend and I think so!" could be considered pointless at best, and inflammatory at worst.
10. Try to give your own opinions, not simply those copied and pasted from reviews or opinions of your friends.
Unacceptable behavior and warnings
11. In registering here at ChessTalk please note that the same or similar rules apply here as applied at the previous Boardhost message board. In particular, the following content is not permitted to appear in any messages:
* Racism
* Hatred
* Harassment
* Adult content
* Obscene material
* Nudity or pornography
* Material that infringes intellectual property or other proprietary rights of any party
* Material the posting of which is tortious or violates a contractual or fiduciary obligation you or we owe to another party
* Piracy, hacking, viruses, worms, or warez
* Spam
* Any illegal content
* unapproved Commercial banner advertisements or revenue-generating links
* Any link to or any images from a site containing any material outlined in these restrictions
* Any material deemed offensive or inappropriate by the Board staff
12. Users are welcome to challenge other points of view and opinions, but should do so respectfully. Personal attacks on others will not be tolerated. Posts and threads with unacceptable content can be closed or deleted altogether. Furthermore, a range of sanctions are possible - from a simple warning to a temporary or even a permanent banning from ChessTalk.
Helping to Moderate
13. 'Report' links (an exclamation mark inside a triangle) can be found in many places throughout the board. These links allow users to alert the board staff to anything which is offensive, objectionable or illegal. Please consider using this feature if the need arises.
Advice for free
14. You should exercise the same caution with Private Messages as you would with any public posting.
Being a layperson, I would think that only pairing on Board 2 was correct, and there was no way any of the pairing software could produce the ratings that were actually used, given the starting rank data.
I'd be grateful if any of the experts who made this thread so fascinating could load the data file in their software and test the pairings. It'd be great if someone could explain why these pairings were produced and were fair to the participants.
Thanks in advance.
I can assemble the pairings in rating order using June 25th data if I make one fairly big assumption: Veronica Guo was registered under her Chinese name, but she shows as Veronica in the CFC database, so maybe whoever entered the data was working with a list of names instead of CFC ids, and failed to pick her up. If she was entered as unrated prior to round 1, I get the following pairings based on the June 25th data:
Ye (CFC 1406) - Boucher (CFC 794)
Siahou (CFC 871) - Pobereshnikova (CFC 711)
Vozian (CFC ACTIVE 867) - Liao (CFC ACTIVE 645)
Lin (CFC 817) - Zhou (CFC 606)
Tao (CFC 796) - Guo (unrated, should be CFC 1020)
These match the actual first-round pairings.
Last edited by Derek England; Monday, 3rd August, 2015, 11:04 AM.
Reason: cosmetic adjustments
I can assemble the pairings in rating order using June 25th data if I make one fairly big assumption: Veronica Guo was registered under her Chinese name, but she shows as Veronica in the CFC database, so maybe whoever entered the data was working with a list of names instead of CFC ids, and failed to pick her up. If she was entered as unrated prior to round 1, I get the following pairings based on the June 25th data:
Ye (CFC 1406) - Boucher (CFC 794)
Siahou (CFC 871) - Pobereshnikova (CFC 711)
Vozian (CFC ACTIVE 867) - Liao (CFC ACTIVE 645)
Lin (CFC 817) - Zhou (CFC 606)
Tao (CFC 796) - Guo (unrated, should be CFC 1020)
These match the actual first-round pairings.
I can confirm being copied on an email from the TD that they were having difficulty finding a rating for Guo Yu Han. It was later confirmed that it was indeed Veronica.
Pairings are a sensitive question, and it is understandable they generate strong emotions.
As an interested observer who didn't have a stake in any of the sections mentioned so far, I diligently read the arguments of both sides and was genuinely intrigued. As my custom is, I decided to do a bit of fact finding myself to try to better figure out an issue where I am not an expert. When I looked at the Girls U-08 section (again, the one where I didn't have any pecuniary interest), there was a peculiar anomaly.
there are 10 girls in the section, with starting ranks 1 through 10,
on Board 1, girl # 6 is paired with girl #8,
on Board 2, girl # 2 is paired with girl # 7,
on Board 3, girl # 9 with girl # 3,
on Board 4, girl # 4 with girl # 10,
and on Board 5, girl # 1 (!) with girl # 5,
Being a layperson, I would think that only pairing on Board 2 was correct, and there was no way any of the pairing software could produce the ratings that were actually used, given the starting rank data.
I'd be grateful if any of the experts who made this thread so fascinating could load the data file in their software and test the pairings. It'd be great if someone could explain why these pairings were produced and were fair to the participants.
Thanks in advance.
Vadim - How are you doing? it was nice of you to host me at your table during the tournament, thanks so much (sorry though late).
I am not an expert, however I am quite sure it is forced pairing. In the U-14 girls section example which I have shown, I had to force pair 2 boards to make the pairing identical to what was posted - boards 3 and 4, otherwise it would be all over the place messed up as is the case with U-8.
It seems only one board was force paired resulting in such a pairing, a few different forced pairing can produce a identical pairing to what they did for round 1. I will give it a try and hopefully I can produce an identical pairing with those ratings. If I am successful I will post the same. May be Mr Pretou may try and identify the forced pairing.
There is much I could say about this thread, but the executive summary is, the computer guy did not use the updated ratings for the start ratings, and so the first two or three rounds were effed-up.
It'd be great if someone could explain why these pairings (U8 Girls) were produced and were fair to the participants. Thanks in advance.
This section was the primary subject of my email to the chief arbiter on the second day of the event. One player's rating was inaccurate by over 700 points, meaning she was ranked first in the section, instead of near the bottom. I estimated that at least 20 Windsor players were playing with the wrong rating. No doubt other ratings were also inaccurate, so any current attempt to work with the revised ranking list on Chess-Results is doomed to failure.
Let me say it again: the computer guy effed-up. Unless there were any written appeals pending, this is all water under the bridge.
Amazing. I've manually looked up June 25th and July 1st dates for the three sections highlighted thus far, posited what I think is a completely reasonable hypothesis for the timing basis for the ratings used for first-round, found that the pairings exactly matched my expectations once those assumptions are taken into account, and still there's some doubt as to whether the pairings were manipulated.
One simply needs to stop looking at the ratings on chess-results.com and trying to base first-round pairings on them. Assume that the ratings you're seeing are not necessarily the ratings that were used for the pairings, but the last values entered before the final upload of the tournament data.
The initial ratings were set based on the data that was available when they were entered, and from what I can gauge, adjustments were made as soon as they could practically be made during the tournament. I wouldn't say it's perfect but having gone through this exercise with little more than a text editor, I see absolutely nothing that hints at intentional wrongdoing.
I can confirm being copied on an email from the TD that they were having difficulty finding a rating for Guo Yu Han. It was later confirmed that it was indeed Veronica.
This player entered on April 25, two months before the event, with her CFC id number. With last name, CFC number, city and province, I find it peculiar that there was some difficulty identifing her. Most people know that players of Chinese descent have an "English name" as well as their Chinese name.
I used to pair by hand and could explain the logic. Now with computers we look at a printout and try to figure it out. At a previous Canadian Open garbage was barfed out but wasn't noticeable by looking at the printout, whereas by hand pairing cards we would see rating, colour history and paired up history.
This is so obvious that I'm disappointed that others on this thread haven't pointed it out. And there is a related point. Let me tell a story.
We had [or maybe still have, I don't know] a Winnipeg TD by the name of Waldemar Schulz who always did pairings by hand. Now this can be a problem for a large, Canadian Open sized set of players, but the CYCC are grouped by age and relatively small. Pairing using pairing cards are not just for the TD, to overcome egregious errors, brothers playing each other in critical rounds, etc.. They are also for the educational benefit of the players. When the TD does the pairing right in front of the players, the latter are then educated about pairings and what goes into them. The general level of chess culture is increased. And every TD should be thinking about such things, and not just their own convenience. Anyway, Waldemar also played in many of the events he directed, and his practice of doing the pairings in front of the players helped to address any doubts the players had about his fairness. Once or twice as a newbie competitive player I asked about the pairings, and this helped me to understand what goes into the administration of a chess event, and it thereby led me to consider running an event myself. Which I did. Obviously, in the CYCC, there would not be a TD who was also playing.
So why not just use pairing cards for such small samples? I mean, you could have the software for backup, instead of the other way around. It might even be quicker, in the long term, that using the software. And then TDs might have a little extra time to make darn sure that they have the ratings right. I have seen the ratings used for players changed during the course of a Swiss event, sans comment from the TD, and it is very frustrating.
Another thing is having a cross table for public viewing, where players can congregate and learn about the admin of chess events, who they might play, all of that. Chess is not only a competitive sport. It has a culture that should be respected.
Last edited by Nigel Hanrahan; Monday, 3rd August, 2015, 12:40 PM.
Dogs will bark, but the caravan of chess moves on.
This section was the primary subject of my email to the chief arbiter on the second day of the event. One player's rating was inaccurate by over 700 points, meaning she was ranked first in the section, instead of near the bottom. I estimated that at least 20 Windsor players were playing with the wrong rating. No doubt other ratings were also inaccurate, so any current attempt to work with the revised ranking list on Chess-Results is doomed to failure.
Aha, I get it now, thanks John: Chess-Results doesn't keep a changelog, so when anyone accesses the starting rank list at present the data is not the same as the data that was there on Day One, and the only way to reconstruct the data that was indeed there is through forensic accounting, like Derek brilliantly did.
Let me say it again: the computer guy effed-up.
So we have collectively answered the "what happened" question, what remains is "why?"
Re: so what's wrong with using pairing cards anyway
Speaking as one who generally uses Swiss-sys to pair active tournaments, using software greatly speeds up the process. The only thing that perhaps takes more time is entering people at the start of the process. Once entered, I can pair up the next round within 30 seconds after entering the results of the previous round. I consider that essential for pairing 3 rounds a night.
That said, every TD should go through the exercise of manual pairings at least once or twice, to get an good grasp of the process. That way you can check for errors, as garbage in = garbage out. Otherwise, it's like people who cannot do basic arithmetic without a calculator. As a TD you should be able to show a player why the computer generates pairings as it did.
I can assemble the pairings in rating order using June 25th data if I make one fairly big assumption: Veronica Guo was registered under her Chinese name, but she shows as Veronica in the CFC database, so maybe whoever entered the data was working with a list of names instead of CFC ids, and failed to pick her up. If she was entered as unrated prior to round 1, I get the following pairings based on the June 25th data:
Ye (CFC 1406) - Boucher (CFC 794)
Siahou (CFC 871) - Pobereshnikova (CFC 711)
Vozian (CFC ACTIVE 867) - Liao (CFC ACTIVE 645)
Lin (CFC 817) - Zhou (CFC 606)
Tao (CFC 796) - Guo (unrated, should be CFC 1020)
These match the actual first-round pairings.
and it is the following line that caught my attention now:
Ye (CFC 1406) - Boucher (CFC 794)
I don't have a privilege to know Sarah Ye or her parents personally, and I apologize in advance for singling out her name in this example, but the question is:
you discovered that this player had a CFC rating of 1406 entered at the start of the tournament,
now her starting rating is listed as 700,
is it the same player John Coleman wrote about: "One player's rating was inaccurate by over 700 points, meaning she was ranked first in the section, instead of near the bottom."?
does it follow that the rating in a tournament file changed sometime between rounds?
didn't such change create more problems in subsequent rounds than leaving things as they were at the beginning?
If "yes" to all of the above, this appears to be a fairly significant mistake indeed, the second in the Girls U-08 section. :(
Could you and all the other experts share the following, please: what are the rules / established practices on dealing with similar errors found mid-way through the tournament, e.g., when a player was erroneously listed in a starting list with a much higher rating and paired accordingly for initial rounds, should the TD / arbiter correct this mid-way or leave things as they are to pair consistently? - Thanks.
I would consider her 1406 rating to be an anomaly moreso than a mistake. As of the June 25th data, her rating was indeed 1406. She had played exactly one CFC rated game under standard time controls in May, and she won. The player she played against was unrated and came out of the game with a 606 rating; I suspect (but don't know) that the magic number 1006 in between is a function of the overall strength of the players in the tournament. She then played two tournaments with dates near the end of June and her provisional rating got a bit more meaningful in the July 1st data.
Obviously provisional ratings can be misleading, and this is a fine example, but I don't know that entering some other rating would have been any less arbitrary under the circumstances. I see that active ratings were used for some players, but only if they had no regular rating.
Last edited by Derek England; Monday, 3rd August, 2015, 01:53 PM.
Reason: clarity
Looking at the data, I'd say that the same general procedure was used for U16 as U14G, except that the latest CFC data was used for the pairings. When I look up the July 1st CFC numbers, the July FIDE rating for Lee and FQE ratings posted up to July 2nd, then split the 26 players in half and pair them up, here's what I'd get (again, I'm leaving the higher-rated player on the left so it's easier to follow the rating trend).
Preotu (CFC 2636) - Nyayachavadi (CFC 1560)
Yu (FQE 2350) - Colvin (CFC 1553)
Zhu (FQE 2318) - Hay (CFC 1546)
Doknjas (CFC 2316) - Lee (FIDE 1541, current 1566 minus 25)
Shi (CFC 2214) - Du (CFC 1452)
Y Li (CFC 2211) - Richards (CFC 1395)
Zhong (CFC 2114) - Ban (CFC 1326)
Graif (CFC 2025) - Kanwal (CFC 1132)
Petersen (CFC 1898) - Mainville (CFC 1083)
D'Amore (CFC 1784) - Vu (CFC 1010)
Zhang (CFC 1763) - Gaudette (CFC 956)
Baskaran (CFC 1669) - Houle (CFC 950)
J Li (CFC 1653) - MacIvor (CFC 948)
I believe these are identical to the first round pairings in U16.
You have still failed to answer the question why did the U16 boys get to use the July 1st ratings and the U14 girls had to use the June 24th ratings. So you used different CFC data for different sections? How fair is that the U14 girls, many of which who played in tournaments a week before CYCC?
Within the U16 section their are big holes in your assertions. Joshua Du's rating of 1416 was from June 24th and not July 1. However all others played with their July 1st ratings? Pairings were done with others July 1st ratings except Joshua Du with June 24. This is evident as my son played with his 1560 rating (which was matched on July 1st) instead of his 1190 (of June 24th) rating which would have had him play someone other than Razvan Preotu. So why did Joshua Du have to play with his June 24th rating, instead of his July 1st rating? It should also be mentioned that the previous arguments about ChessResults not showing the June 24th ratings collapses when Joshua Du's June 24th rating shows up in ChessResults.
Derek you said FIDE ratings were pulled before the tournament, since Ellen Tao's rating on ChessResults is her FIDE rating not her CFC, if were FIDE ratings were used they would show up correctly on ChessResults. If Stefano Lee used his FIDE rating it would have shown up in ChessResults, but it is consistently his July 1st CFC rating shows up. So people clearly can elect not to use their FIDE rating though it is higher.
It is clear you are cherry picking the data in a irrational manner just to support your argument, though it clear there are major flaws in all of you and your fellow organisers assertions.
It is clear you are cherry picking the data in a irrational manner just to support your argument, though it clear there are major flaws in all of you and your fellow organisers assertions.
Heh heh heh, I'm not an organizer, and threads like this make me glad I'm not. I'm just a chess dad who saw your sensational headline and went looking to see if there was any merit to the claim of forced pairings you alleged. I have concluded that things are not as nefarious as you alleged, and that whatever logic was applied was applied in a reasonable way. If you think my methodology is irrational and cherry-picked, or can't follow the logic I've laid out, too bad. =)
I would have tried to use July 1st data for all sections if it was my job to set up the pairings, but I wouldn't run around trying to denigrate someone who used week-old data. Ratings are just numbers, and those who take them too seriously probably shouldn't.
Heh heh heh, I'm not an organizer, and threads like this make me glad I'm not. I'm just a chess dad who saw your sensational headline and went looking to see if there was any merit to the claim of forced pairings you alleged. I have concluded that things are not as nefarious as you alleged, and that whatever logic was applied was applied in a reasonable way. If you think my methodology is irrational and cherry-picked, or can't follow the logic I've laid out, too bad. =)
I would have tried to use July 1st data for all sections if it was my job to set up the pairings, but I wouldn't run around trying to someone who used week-old data. Ratings are just numbers, and those who take them too seriously probably shouldn't.
Well you have no logic whatsoever. I learnt long time back when one is wrong one resorts to diversions. Well every thread needs a Paul Bonham to come up with illogical arguments.
Last edited by Keerti Nyayachavadi; Monday, 3rd August, 2015, 03:21 PM.
Reason: Grammar
Tweet
Comment