CFC Rating Stats: Adult Members Av./Junior Memb. Av.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Fred:

I think you are right about new OTB players (Both Adult & Junior).

I think they often have an initial difficulty with scoring, the clock, Face-to-Face, etc., and perform a bit poorly in their first tournaments. But I think they catch on and by the time their provisional rating becomes permanent (25 games), it is likely pretty close to their actual playing strength.

But in getting their ratings to where they should be, they are underrated initially and do take points from higher rated players (Who are not playing weakly). And both pools are growing in players.

Thus the Average Rating of both pools (Adults & Juniors) goes down.

It is my belief that one now needs to realize that the CFC rating numbers no longer represent the playing strength of yesteryear. Here is my new chart:

1000 = 1300 20 years ago
1600 = 1800 20 years ago
2000 = 2150-2200 20 years ago
2300 = 2400 20 years ago

Like to know whether there is agreement on this, or if I am somehow calculating wrongly.

Bob A.

[Bob Armstrong]

Adult Rating Pool/Junior Rating Pool

This thread is about my two initial 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

[Erik Malmsten]

Hi Fred:

I think you are right about new OTB players (Both Adult & Junior).

I think they often have an initial difficulty with scoring, the clock, Face-to-Face, etc., and perform a bit poorly in their first tournaments. But I think they catch on and by the time their provisional rating becomes permanent (25 games), it is likely pretty close to their actual playing strength.

But in getting their ratings to where they should be, they are underrated initially and do take points from higher rated players (Who are not playing weakly). And both pools are growing in players.

Thus the Average Rating of both pools (Adults & Juniors) goes down.

It is my belief that one now needs to realize that the CFC rating numbers no longer represent the playing strength of yesteryear. Here is my new chart:

1000 = 1300 20 years ago
1600 = 1800 20 years ago
2000 = 2150-2200 20 years ago
2300 = 2400 20 years ago

Like to know whether there is agreement on this, or if I am somehow calculating wrongly.

Bob A.

Bob, i would say that CFC ratings in the late 1990s were inflated, 2300 was really 2200. Better to make a comparision with only 5 years ago.

[Bob Armstrong]

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....but this seems what is possible, and likely the variation is small enough that the sample is generally valid.

His Stats:

As of May 1, 2023 membership stats:

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

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

My 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?

Bob A

[Fred Henderson]

Hi Fred:

I think you are right about new OTB players (Both Adult & Junior).

I think they often have an initial difficulty with scoring, the clock, Face-to-Face, etc., and perform a bit poorly in their first tournaments. But I think they catch on and by the time their provisional rating becomes permanent (25 games), it is likely pretty close to their actual playing strength.

But in getting their ratings to where they should be, they are underrated initially and do take points from higher rated players (Who are not playing weakly). And both pools are growing in players.

Thus the Average Rating of both pools (Adults & Juniors) goes down.

It is my belief that one now needs to realize that the CFC rating numbers no longer represent the playing strength of yesteryear. Here is my new chart:

1000 = 1300 20 years ago
1600 = 1800 20 years ago
2000 = 2150-2200 20 years ago
2300 = 2400 20 years ago

Like to know whether there is agreement on this, or if I am somehow calculating wrongly.

Bob A.

What's this got to do with online play? I can think of no reason why lots of online play during the lockdown should lower the standard of play. Online play has been far more popular than OTB for over twenty years.

What are you looking for agreement on? Your breakdown of the numbers or your assumptions about the causes?

A lot of assumptions and guesses about reasons. That ain't statistics or market research.

Why don't you survey these people? With a proper unbiased survey. Don't design it yourself.

And why we are at it, why are you doing this?

[Bob Armstrong]

I am interested in this issue because many of us aging players have seen our ratings plummet over the years. And we discuss this.

Maybe we are just suffering the natural consequences of aging.

But it may be that there are other factors involved as well that are contributing. Maybe the strength of our play is not falling as fast as the stats might seem to indicate.

So there is some interest among some players in this topic.

I am not looking for any scientific study........just asking CT'ers if they have any opinions on this issue, for those of us following it.

Bob A

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Bob, that's your rating plot over 28 years. You had great years (~2001, 2007-2010) and not good ones, however, the overall trend is negative.
I recall that you did Scarborough, after that Toronto newsletters. Does it coincide with your better performances?

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Egis:

Thanks.

Re: 2001 - likely my best play is partly due to my improving and expanding the Scarborough News Letter since I revived in 1999. But as Can. chess players know, I stopped playing chess from 1996 to 1999 due to my Bi-Polar Disorder becoming severe. Between 1999 and 2001, I was finally starting to be able to manage my challenge, and I think being able to focus again was a big help.

Re: 2007-2010 - this peak is because of my playing a lot of chess during these years. The reason for this is a bit unfortunate........my wife, and her two sisters, were going back to their family home, in shifts, to care for their father, while awaiting a place for him in a long-term care home in Toronto. As they say: "When the cat's away, the mice will play.....chess!"

If my memory serves me well, I believe in the calendar year 2007 I played the most CFC-rated games of any player in Canada! And in 2008, I believe I stood 5th.

Lastly, my rating trend is definitely down for many years......and during that time, my body has been telling my Spirit that it is aging (My Spirit seems very dubious about all this aging stuff).

But my question is this........there is a very steep drop after the pandemic (I did not play from early 2020 to the late summer of 2022). Why is this? There are likely some easy answers, and perhaps one unclear factor:

1. Continued decline due to aging (77 y.o. in the summer of 2022);
2. Rust from the 2-year lay-off;
3. A shift in the relationship between the rating number and actual playing strength of CFC players after summer 2022.

Re # 3: This shift, I argue, took place because of the increase in the number of members (E.g. The Queen's Gambit factor) and that the newbies, after their 25 game provisional wait, at least the adult group, ended up with ratings below the traditional playing strength that had been in place for about 20 years (One CT'er argued that the actual period that should be under discussion is only the last 5 years). It is my conclusion that in this time, my actual playing strength (And I acknowledge the traditional erratic quality of my play :) ) did not decline to the extent of the rating drop. And I guess I'm arguing that the grid changed the most, and rather dramatically, between the summer of 2022 and the summer of 2023 (Though the trend to ratings becoming lower than traditional playing strengths associated with them, started earlier, with the introduction of so many technological study aids, and the online chess explosion).

So for example, it is my contention that the lowest newbies only ended up with ratings around 1000, when their playing strength is equivalent to 1300 players of 20 years ago. Note that in my yesteryear, anyone of 1000 didn't have a clue what they were doing, and just gave away pieces! Is that the case today? I don't think so. 1000 players know openings, they are using lots of modern technology to study, they often have coaches, and take chess lessons like I took piano lessons in 1955, they are playing in many more tournaments per year now, etc.

Bottom Line: If I am 1300 today, and I was 1800 + in my prime, and falling, what is the real playing strength of my opponent?

If I think 1000 about 20 years ago, is this the playing strength of my opponent in 2023? It is my argument, that my opponent, at 1000 today, is likely as strong as a 1300 player was 20 years ago, and I am today. I am declining much more slowly re playing strength than my rating. So I have a 50% chance of losing! And if I do, I'll likely lose around 28 rating points! And over time, if my playing strength may weaken just a bit, my rating is going to plummet til my rating matches today's grid. I will be rated 1000, but still playing at my 1300 playing strength of years earlier. The decline in my rating will be much faster than the actual decline in my actual rating strength.

So the question........is this just an aging player looking for excuses for the drop in his quality of play? Or.......is there a modern, recent factor about the rating/playing strength grid, as well, that is currently contributing to rating decline (It seems to be affecting the adult pool rather than the junior pool)?

Bob A

[John Brown]

If the rating system would stop taking 4% of the differences in ratings and Just change it to -16 loss +16 win -8 for draw with lower rated player and +8 for draw with higher rated player and give bonus points to the lower rated player who wins or draws with a higher rated player. Then Higher rated players would not get decimated when they lose to a very lower rated player.

If getting older was the main factor then why do some older GM's play as strong as they did years ago. I think the older players have to play more and study more. But sometimes when you get your rating decimated you tend not to play as much..

[Erik Malmsten]

If the rating system would stop taking 4% of the differences in ratings and Just change it to -16 loss +16 win -8 for draw with lower rated player and +8 for draw with higher rated player and give bonus points to the lower rated player who wins or draws with a higher rated player. Then Higher rated players would not get decimated when they lose to a very lower rated player.

.

I'm a sloppy player and i don't know if it's age and health issues that make me occasionally overlook one-move threats, but I'm regularly losing to 1300 players (like one out of 5 games). It is easy to drop 50 ratings points in a tournament and impossible to get them back. There is a bonus for gaining. Maybe there should be a corresponding bonus to soften the blow of a big rating drop.

[John Brown]

To Erik;
It's just time to revamp the rating system and make it more player friendly. The original system of calculating ratings was back in the dark ages when they did not have so many unrated juniors that needed to get a rating. I look back to 1973 you could not play up you could not play in a tournament section until your rating allowed it. Then some way along the way the powers to be made paying to move up a norm and added more calculations to bonus points and if I'm expected to beat a lower rated player and I don't then I get a lot of rating points taken away from me.

That to me is not right. I'm not against losing 16 points for the loss or 8 for the draw but why do I have to supplement a more than likely underrated player by losing extra rating points. Use the bonus system to reward the winners but stop taking more points away from the losers.

[Bob Armstrong]

Clarification

I will not play less because of my steady rating decline (Whatever the reasons). I will play when my rating is zero, if my mind and body allow.

I just love to play rated tournament chess! I have always been unable to study (Unless the modern definition of "study" includes analyzing your own games with an engine).

But the dynamics between a rating system, and actual playing strength, has always fascinated me. I know I have rather relentlessly been pursuing this topic recently. It is because I am very interested to understand the dynamics operating within this system. Of course, I do have a personal interest to see if my life rating decline is just due to aging, or whether there are other system factors that are also contributing to this decline. But I am just generally interested in learning more about how it operates.......as I said previously, I am not seeking a complete scientific and statistical report. I am just looking for some layperson's executive summary statements, if they exist, that might help the ordinary player grasp better the concepts behind the current rating system, and whether current new trends are affecting the way it operates.

I am pleased to see that the discussion has raised the topic of whether our system has aged well, or whether it now needs some type of reform........surely this is a good topic to discuss, even if it eventually turns out that the status quo is quite fine.

Bob A (Rating Dropper )

[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?fbcli...uAIVHM2-uUQGJU

Bob A

[Bob Armstrong]

The Answer

Bob G [Slightly edited] - 23/7/23 - on CFC Forum

"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 [Without Provisionals - 1690]
Junior rating pool - average rating - 1,079 [Without Provisionals - 1406]"

Thanks Bob G!

Bob A