Younger Players, Lower Ratings

[Gordon Ritchie]

Interesting piece on Chessbase today regarding Elo's underrating of young players. See http://en.chessbase.com/post/elo-rat...d-are-the-kids

[Paul Leblanc]

Re: Younger Players, Lower Ratings

The CFC bonus point system should help counter-act this since under-rated players in our system close the gap quite rapidly.
I'd be interested in hearing peoples' observations or opinions on whether the under-rated junior phenomenon has changed for better or worse in the 4 years since we introduced it.

[Bob Gillanders]

Re: Younger Players, Lower Ratings

For many years, I maintained a club rating system for the Mississauga Junior Chess Club. It was a lot of work, and the calculations were similar to the CFC rating system. But I was free to award whatever bonus points or adjustments I deemed appropriate. It worked well, except that it was a tremendous amount of work. Last summer, I decided to switch the junior club to the CFC rating (active) system. Then I started to worry that the kids rating pool might stagnate. The kids were learning, so their ratings should increase accordingly, but maybe not enough bonus points would be available to compensate. If the kids getting bonus points graduated out of the junior club, they could drain the rating pool. There are several other kids clubs across the country in similar circumstances.

I would like to run some statistical analysis on the Mississauga Junior Chess Club to see if there is rating pool is experiencing stagnation or even deflation. Perhaps Paul and Roger could do some analysis on these junior chess club rating pools that are somewhat less integrated into the larger pool.

My gut feeling, is perhaps we need an additional bonus system to recognize learning that is happening in junior clubs. It would be nice to see kids ratings go up gently as they learn. Our current bonus system is good for those juniors who are significantly underrated, but doesn’t address the problem I have identified here. But first, some analysis is needed to consider the veracity of my worries.

If time permits, I will crunch some numbers for the Mississauga Juniors.

I would love to hear if organizers of other junior clubs using CFC rating system have similar concerns.

[Roger Patterson]

Re: Younger Players, Lower Ratings

the article's hypothesis that the difference in score between theory and actuality is due to underated juniors is purely speculative. It's not at all convincing.

I would be more inclined to believe that the difference (which exists in both FIDE and CFC systems) is due to some mismatch between the assumptions underlying the rating model and reality.

[Roger Patterson]

Re: Younger Players, Lower Ratings

...... Perhaps Paul and Roger could do some analysis on these junior chess club rating pools that are somewhat less integrated into the larger pool.....
.

Previous statistical work did not directly address specifically juniors as the CFC database is hit or miss on having birth date information without which it is hard to come to any conclusions or do good analysis.

[John Brown]

Re: Younger Players, Lower Ratings

I would like to see that all players who start a CFC Rated tournament regardless of age be given a starting rating of 1400 If it is your first tournament you'd be no longer unrated you'd start at 1400.
If you have a low rating of U1100 ie 982 then you do not use that rating you use 1100.
When the tournament is over you'll get a realistic rating and you then might see more adults playing in tournaments where you have under rated juniors.
Yes you can still give bonus points and I'm a firm supporter of bonus points but right now I feel the lower end ratings are too low. Why not give bonus points up 1100 pts so the underrated won't stay under rated.

[John Brown]

Re: Younger Players, Lower Ratings

What you could also do is when a rating difference is really great say + 100 points or more you could just give the players the +16 -16 or +-8 and give the 4 % of difference as bonus points to the under rated player. That way the big rating difference would not deplete the higher rated player to the point that they no longer play.
There is nothing more frustrating to get your rating respectable and then you play an under rated player and you lose 100 points due to the calculation for a rated game.
We live in the 2000's now I think it is time that the CFC revamps their calculations.
I say that it is these rating calculations and great loss of rating points that are driving memberships down not to mention my post about no local or Canadian content in the news letter. Lets give up on the dinosaur ideals and start using modern ideas. The CFC is a joke the way it is now. No wonder we have no CFC members.
I'm going life when I turn 61 to support a organization that I think needs support but there is a lot of others who do not want to support the CFC.
Get rid of these lopsided rating calculations. They have proven they no longer work any more.

[Garland Best]

Re: Younger Players, Lower Ratings

John, Paul Leblanc has all the data and I'm just going by memory. But AFAIK, the average rating of CFC members has been stable for the past number of years, ever since they removed the excess bonus points.

I think I am a typical older CFC member. I play in a club where 1/3 of the players are juniors. My rating was historically around 1550-1650. During the bonus period it peaked at 1770. Now it has settled to below 1600 again.

I could try to explain away my loss of points as due to juniors, but this weekend I lost rating points where all the players were adults. And there is not one game that I can point to as where I played better than my rating would indicate. When I reflect on it honestly, while I don't feel less intelligent than 10 years ago, the evidence indicates otherwise. That's a hard admission for most of us to make.

So in my opinion, the current rating system is just fine as it is. No matter what system is put in place, someone will consider their rating to be incorrect and unfair. As long as it remains stable I think it is a good indicator of performance.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Younger Players, Lower Ratings

CFC membership has actually been creeping up lately, which is nice. Not sure if it's due to more people turned off by greater incidences of cheating with internet chess, or due to simply no major foulups by the CFC for a long while (afaik).

I lowered my regular rating by decreasing my chess study, before the full effect of the current bonus formulae for CFC ratings might have bitten into my rating (at least a little) anyway. In any case, few people, including older players, get anywhere near their natural rating ceiling, as GM John Nunn observed long ago. Study and better physical fitness are just two ways to help one improve at chess. No need to blame a fairly well functioning rating system.

[Nigel Hanrahan]

Re: Younger Players, Lower Ratings

Previous statistical work did not directly address specifically juniors as the CFC database is hit or miss on having birth date information without which it is hard to come to any conclusions or do good analysis.

Chess and Math seem to collect that information, more or less, but it would be an onerous task to combine the data.

[Paul Leblanc]

Re: Younger Players, Lower Ratings

The thesis for the article and the apparent interpretation of the graphs is that the actual results deviate from predicted results when the rating difference between players is large. Furthermore, when the same graphs are run for junior players the deviation increases.
As Roger points out, this is a theory, not a proven fact.
One related fact that I have observed is the propensity for many players to "play up" to higher sections, even when extra fees are payable. Perhaps they are seeking strong opposition to improve their game or perhaps they feel that they are under-rated but they do seem, on average, to gain a few rating points by doing this and the younger ones perhaps even a few more rating points. This is, of course, like the article, far from proven.
As Garland points out, our system has been in a very stable equilibrium since the bonus point system was introduced. I would be very careful about introducing a radical change such as the one John is suggesting. Some players actually deserve their 800 rating; why start them at 1400 or 1100?

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Re: Younger Players, Lower Ratings

I would like to see stats with a parameter of "time between tournaments". If kids practice (and I assume those who play in FIDE events do on regular bases) they definitely improve between tournaments.

imho, the best way to improve rating is to play a lot and practice even more LOL

[Mathieu Cloutier]

Re: Younger Players, Lower Ratings

I don't understand why people obsess so much about ratings. Especially about the meaningless, raw number. If it was possible to sell my rating points, I'd do it and would probably find a bunch of buyers.

[John Brown]

Re: Younger Players, Lower Ratings

I have a question. What is the exact rating difference a player needs to play up a section. Is it 100,200,300,400, or 500 points? For an example I'm 1525 today what is the highest difference I can move up? I believe that I would not Qualify for a U2000 that I could only play in a U1600 or U1800 section?
So what is the lower end Qualifications for a 800 player? Are they not required to pay a play up fee? Seems to me even at a 500 rating point spread that a 800 player can only play in a 1300 section or smaller.
Maybe this is why the lower end players lose so many rating points when they lose a game against the under rated players?