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CFC ratings database: some analysis for ratings & activity
I have now posted pages dealing with the statistical likelihood of a tournament result. http://victoriachess.com/cfc/extremes.php allows the reader to request a list of all tournament performances in a given year that are 2 sigma or more (either positive or sadly negative) away from the player's rating expectation.
Some people appear multiple times on that list. For example, both Benjamin Blium and Jason Cao have 3 tournament performances >2 sigma above expectations - a roughly 1/10,000 likelihood. Seem like a good bet to be underated :-)
Interesting data, though it does not take into account unplayed games in an event.
Example:
-2.534 Josh Guo,
He only played one game in the event, against a 1900, so it should really only be -.9 or so, by my reckoning.
Interesting data, though it does not take into account unplayed games in an event.
Example:
-2.534 Josh Guo,
He only played one game in the event, against a 1900, so it should really only be -.9 or so, by my reckoning.
Yeah, I saw a few others like that - should probably filter those out and only count if at least n games played
Hhmmm, Interesting. I expected more of the underperformances to dissappear.
Out of curiosity I took the sum of Test Stat column... it is -3.624.
Very close to zero.... looks like there are as many underperformers as overperformers...
Hhmmm, Interesting. I expected more of the underperformances to dissappear.
Out of curiosity I took the sum of Test Stat column... it is -3.624.
Very close to zero.... looks like there are as many underperformers as overperformers...
The mean of the entire distribution (established ratings) is positive but is not statistically significant. But overall, one should probably expect that as it is a zero sum operation on individual games. I have to admit, I was expecting some positive skew to reflect improving players.
Re: CFC ratings database: some analysis for ratings & activity
Hi Roger, Can you check the following query for me?
First we'll need the current CFC budget (don't know that number).
average number of players per adult tournament x number of tournaments (in other words, how many CFC rating fees are collected at the adult level).
The same for tournaments at just the junior level (number of Junior CFC rating fees).
What I'm interested in knowing is: What would rating fees need to be increased to such that the CFC could cover its current budget without an annual membership fee. You could just provide the tournament numbers and I'll do the math of this part myself (the easier math of course).
One thing I've learned from running tournaments at a University is that the greatest impediment to a lot of new people playing is the CFC membership fee. No one really notices the rating fee except the TD, who is already comfortable with the CFC. It would be much easier to convince people to play if we could get rid of the membership fees and just increase the rating fees, provided the required increase isn't prohibitive.
As for juniors, the situation is the same, TDs would feel the pinch of a rating fee increase, but the parents of the juniors wouldn't notice anything different.
Interestingly enough, the two distributions are fairly similar. It's the union of two bell curves. One for regular chess where the peak is about 1600 or so and the other for junior chess where the peak is around 800.
Hi Roger, Can you check the following query for me?
First we'll need the current CFC budget (don't know that number).
average number of players per adult tournament x number of tournaments (in other words, how many CFC rating fees are collected at the adult level).
The same for tournaments at just the junior level (number of Junior CFC rating fees).
What I'm interested in knowing is: What would rating fees need to be increased to such that the CFC could cover its current budget without an annual membership fee. You could just provide the tournament numbers and I'll do the math of this part myself (the easier math of course).
One thing I've learned from running tournaments at a University is that the greatest impediment to a lot of new people playing is the CFC membership fee. No one really notices the rating fee except the TD, who is already comfortable with the CFC. It would be much easier to convince people to play if we could get rid of the membership fees and just increase the rating fees, provided the required increase isn't prohibitive.
As for juniors, the situation is the same, TDs would feel the pinch of a rating fee increase, but the parents of the juniors wouldn't notice anything different.
Thank you.
you can get the number of games played for any 12 month period up to sept. 2010 at: http://victoriachess.com/cfc/activit...s_distribution ( give the end date that you are interested in and use the "Games Played By Rating option)) You get the number of games played in every 50 point rating bin.
Of course, since each player's game is counted as 1, this means that these numbers add up to twice the number of actual games.
The CFC rating database does not record if an event was an all junior event (i.e. brings in only $0.50/player with no memberships) or a normal event ($3 per player plus membership required). You might use the number of games played by under rating 1200 as a proxy for all junior events. (and that total is conveniently also calculated for you)
e.g. for the 12 months ending Sept. 2010, ~ 12,010 games (half of 24021) were played by U1200 players and ~17,784 by over 1200 rating players
BTW, the situation you describe for collecting only per player per tournament fee is what the BCCF moved to several years ago. (charge is $4)
Last edited by Roger Patterson; Thursday, 7th July, 2011, 04:34 PM.
Reason: mispoke games for tournament...
Interestingly enough, the two distributions are fairly similar. It's the union of two bell curves. One for regular chess where the peak is about 1600 or so and the other for junior chess where the peak is around 800.
more or less my impression. You might find this distribution interesting: which is distribution of ratings by gender.
Some problems however with the data for this graph. I just did the distribution for all people with ratings (i.e. includes people going back a long way in time so may distort the current picture). A bigger problem is that gender is not always indicated in the database (only if female in fact - no one is actually listed as male just undefined :-) ). Probably there is a systematic issue with gender not being recorded in regular tournaments.
Distribution of ratings by gender in CFC database.
(note: only F and null entries are in the database in the gender field).
Last edited by Roger Patterson; Thursday, 7th July, 2011, 09:07 PM.
Reason: inserted image (unable to earlier)
some work I am doing for the rating auditor had the incidental byproduct of calculating how many games were played by each person from Jan. 2006 to Sept. 2010. For reasons I won't go into, people who had an established rating at Jan. 1 2006 were started as 26 games so the numbers aren't exactly right but do give a good impression of what the typical CFC 'customer' 'consumes'. As with other data, it also includes all those junior tournaments.
In combination with other graphs I have given showing turnover rates, it is clear that lots of people try tournament chess but not so many stick with it. You should note that for most parts of the country, it is not possible to play the number of games that the most active people do. I play pretty much every chance I get and my total is only 163 games.
The graphs are shown with both regular and semilog scales. Below the graphs is a list of the top 50 active players and the number of games they played. That Bob Armstrong, no wonder he doesn't understand the virtues of a tournament membership for occasional players.... :-)
Robert J. Armstrong 558
Roman Sapozhnikov 539
Robert Gillanders 520
Roy Yearwood 497
Alex T. Ferreira 483
Rick Pedersen 469
Micah Hughey 461
Mario Moran-Venegas 445
Aaron Sequillion 430
Doug Gillis 419
Nathan Farrant-Diaz 413
Jesse B Wang 413
Joe Bellomo 411
Mike Zeggelaar 410
Robert J. Gardner 402
Alexander Martchenko 392
Mark Plotkin 391
Mate Marinkovic 376
Gordon Cui 370
Zi Yi (Joey) Qin 363
Arthur Milne 358
Tim Knechtel 358
Nikolay Noritsyn 355
Agastya Kalra 354
Jerry Xie 349
Nicholas Wong 346
Arthur Calugar 344
Jerry Xiong 338
Eric Hansen 336
Paul Gelis 335
Michael Humphreys 332
Keven Eyre 328
Brian Oliver 327
Yuanling Yuan 327
Keith MacKinnon 326
John Doknjas 324
Vladimir Drkulec 323
Liam Henry 322
Pavel Popov 322
Terry Seehagen 322
Jacob Mongenais 320
Karoly Szalay 319
Ruokai (David) Li 316
Jonah Lee 316
Nikita Gusev 315
Dale Haessel 314
David Gordon 313
Justin Gagnon 312
Samir El-Gohary 310
Samantha Powell 309
Last edited by Roger Patterson; Saturday, 20th August, 2011, 02:46 PM.
In combination with other graphs I have given showing turnover rates, it is clear that lots of people try tournament chess but not so many stick with it. You should note that for most parts of the country, it is not possible to play the number of games that the most active people do. I play pretty much every chance I get and my total is only 163 games.
Hi Roger,
When I was speaking to Kevin O'Connell at the 1979 Man & His World Tournament in Montreal...he pointed out a simple fact....all his friends played chess in tournaments as long as their rating continued to rise.
It makes perfect sense...if we feel we are improving...we continue. On the other hand, I have seen less talented players choose not to give up...and they ended up being masters...sooo :).
Thanks to Omar Shah, I have discovered a backgammon software that rates your play etc. Well...I must confess...getting a high rating in certain games has been good for my ego :).
Now I am thinking of incorporating a backgammon tournament into our Superfest in the Laurentians next summer :)
some work I am doing for the rating auditor had the incidental byproduct of calculating how many games were played by each person from Jan. 2006 to Sept. 2010. For reasons I won't go into, people who had an established rating at Jan. 1 2006 were started as 26 games so the numbers aren't exactly right but do give a good impression of what the typical CFC 'customer' 'consumes'. As with other data, it also includes all those junior tournaments.
It's nice to see someone taking an active interest in ratings.
Could you explain something to me?
Why would a CFC rating which has been inactive for apporximately 35 years still be in use for current events should the holder of the rating enter an event?
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