CFC to launch new website

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Um, I'm not sure what that would look like...

That due is a robot. At the end of its message is "regard click speed test" with the link to who knows where, and the half text in white color to hid from the view. Ignore.speed test

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[Erik Malmsten]

Can a portrait picture be added like on the FIDE site? And perhaps a favourite chess quote or saying.
From the rating list can a table of the history of results between two players be generated?
Can I see a link to a player's chess.com rating?
Can I see the difference in rating between playing tournaments at home versus when travelling?
Can I see the difference in performance rating between playing in a morning round versus an afternoon round or evening?
Can I see the difference in rating playing White versus playing Black?
Can I see an asterik to mark when my opponent staring taking lessons from an IM? 2 for a GM.
Can there be a link to my opponent's games in Hugh Brodie's database?
Can I see how my opponent does against the Alekhine?
Can I see if my opponent knows the four move checkmate?

[Don Parakin]

Can historical tables be used to create rating progressions or opponent statistics?

Um, I'm not sure what that would look like. Can you be more specific? Coming sometime is a line graph of a player's ratings vs time: would that be a "rating progression"?

What are the percentages of opponents who play up that actually lose rating points to the mainstays in a section?

Unfortunately, the CFC doesn't capture the data on which players played-up into a higher rated section, or even what were the intended ratings ranges of each section.

[Laim Noah]

Can historical tables be used to create rating progressions or opponent statistics? A junior who has been playing professional basketball for a few months will have trouble stepping up when the OTB reopens. What are the percentages of opponents who play up that actually lose rating points to the mainstays in a section?
regard click speed test

[Don Parakin]

I have a request :) ... indicate in the tournaments ... how many players took part.

Great idea. I'm tinkering in that area now (fixing organizers & arbiters) so I'll see what I can do.

[Larry Bevand]

Hi Don,

Thanks for all that you are doing!

I have a request :)

As we do on the CMA website and as the FQE does also, we indicate in the tournaments rated section how many players took part. Ideally I would like to see a tournament with multiple sections be listed as one tournament but I can live with that :).

I still know how to add...and if that doesn't work, I have a calculator :).

If you can do something, that would be appreciated!

Here is an example of what I would like to see:

https://fqechecs.qc.ca/tournois/index.php?page=1

[Lucas Davies]

To re-apply for your lichess.org title, I have added an NM list with your name here: https://www.chess.ca/en/elite/cfc-titles/

The challenge is that the title lists on the old website were several years out of date. Your name was not on the old NM list. I did research to bring most of the FIDE titles up to date but did not get to the CFC titles as they require verifying a minimum highest rating as well as three norms excluding matches. Not easy to do manually.

After the ratings data is migrated (which has had some unexpected challenges too), I plan to write a small program to find all players meeting the requirements for NM and NCM titles. Once automated, it will be easy to keep the list up to date. It will likely run after each weekly ratings update.

Once again, thanks all for your patience while the website is migrated.

Thank you for the assistance!

[Steve Douglas]

Hi Don:

I just wanted to thank-you again for taking on this task. And also to thank-you for your prompt, informative replies to people asking questions.

Steve

[Don Parakin]

... nominations of the NM title. The process was on the old site.

Yes, that's another thing to sort out. Section 438 of the Legacy CFC Handbook does not mention anything about applying or nominating to get an NM or NCM title. Reading 438 one could conclude the titles are automatically awarded. The old website, however, did have this one sentence: "Apply for NM/NCM to: Victor Plotkin, CFC Masters' Representative". When this floats to near the top of the priority list, I planned to ask before I build anything. Note that getting the title and getting the certificate (piece of paper) are two different but related things. Getting a certificate may require applying.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

the CFC titles as they require verifying a minimum highest rating as well as three norms excluding matches. Not easy to do manually.

I think there was an appointed person to supervise nominations of the NM title. The process was on the old site. Maybe it is now on the new as well. Sorry, done that long time ago. irc I submitted when and where played well, then it was confirmed and the diploma was sent to me.

[Don Parakin]

Are there plans to list national titles on the new site?

To re-apply for your lichess.org title, I have added an NM list with your name here: https://www.chess.ca/en/elite/cfc-titles/

The challenge is that the title lists on the old website were several years out of date. Your name was not on the old NM list. I did research to bring most of the FIDE titles up to date but did not get to the CFC titles as they require verifying a minimum highest rating as well as three norms excluding matches. Not easy to do manually.

After the ratings data is migrated (which has had some unexpected challenges too), I plan to write a small program to find all players meeting the requirements for NM and NCM titles. Once automated, it will be easy to keep the list up to date. It will likely run after each weekly ratings update.

Once again, thanks all for your patience while the website is migrated.

[Lucas Davies]

Are there plans to list national titles on the new site? I tried to get a title on lichess, but they have DENIED me:

Hi there!
Regarding your title application.
Unfortunately, we had to reject your application on the grounds that we cannot verify your claim.
CFC's new website doesn't list any NM players like the old one did and archived copy of the old site doesn't list you as NM.
The only thing that we can suggest is that you take contact with CFC and ask them to update the site.
Best regards,
mod team

[Tony Li]

Apologies for the delayed response; I was unexpectedly busy in August. Right now the same 20+ year old Ratings program is in use. It does its mysterious magic and saves the results in an ancient MS-Access database. I extract from that MS-Access to get a copy of the data for the website. Btw, why the website doesn't have tournaments before 2006 is because the MS-Access doesn't have tournaments before 2006. I'll have to recover that from the old (hideous) Drupal database (on my to-do list).

Modernizing the Ratings program will likely start once the website is in a happy place. There's much to think about for that. Providing data for analyzing the ratings & trends should be in-scope. I'm not so sure about re-rating tournaments as we wouldn't want player's ratings to mysteriously change as we un-rate cheaters, for example, causing secondary, tertiary, etc effects.

Thanks for your great work on the website. It's looking great!

Maybe actually re-rating tournaments would be undesirable, but it would be a great for backtesting the current variation of the rating system vs other possibilities.

[Kerry Liles]

If it was desirable (which I don't think it is), create a "checkpoint" that captures the ratings as of 6 months ago. As tournaments arrive, re-rate all tournaments after the checkpoint in end-date sequence. When the checkpoint starts getting old ~18 months, create another checkpoint as of 6 months ago.

Agreed. I don't think it is practical to worry about this situation other than as an interesting puzzle. Checkpointing and reprocessing is clearly the way to go but there would potentially be a lot of explaining to do. I don't think Bob is interested in that sort of activity... :) Besides, now that tournaments can be and often are reported electronically there is less of a barrier to getting results in to the CFC office in a timely fashion - although Bob would certainly point out that a LOT of submissions still need work (by him) to be able to be fed into the rating 'system'.

[Don Parakin]

... I wondered whether the rating system could essentially re-rate everything when a late arriving result arrives and is inserted in the correct spot?

Current process is in sequence of when the tournament results arrive at the CFC, grouped into a weekly batch. Within the batch, tournaments are in end-date sequence. I think this is what we want. If we inserted late arriving tournaments into their end-date sequence, then players might see their ratings mysteriously change.

Say there were tournaments T1, T2, T3 and T1 was reported well after T2, T3. After T2 is submitted, players get a new rating. Some of them play in T3 and all get new ratings after T3 is submitted. Now along comes T1. Someone who played in T3 and not T1 or T2 checks his rating before T1 arrives and then after T1 arrives and sees that his rating has changed because he played against someone who played in T2 and/or T1. And what if that newly calculated rating would've affected pairings or bumped him to a different section maybe disqualifying him from prizes. Of course, they would email Bob for a detailed explanation and a resolution. Poor Bob!

As a programmer, I have had some long thought experiments with myself about ways to do this (database transaction timestamping and replay come readily to mind) but this is more of a whimsical concept I suspect.

If it was desirable (which I don't think it is), create a "checkpoint" that captures the ratings as of 6 months ago. As tournaments arrive, re-rate all tournaments after the checkpoint in end-date sequence. When the checkpoint starts getting old ~18 months, create another checkpoint as of 6 months ago.