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Well, it's nice to see that people are paying attention to the rating system.
One issue mentioned here that I've been asked about is the relationship between CFC, FIDE and USCF ratings. The sparse data I have tells me that CFC and USCF ratings are more or less equivalent but that CFC and FIDE ratings are out of alignment. You can see some cursory statistics on the CFC website under the Rating menu.
As someone mentioned, it's not necessary for the CFC system to be indexed to any other rating system but it would be somewhat inconvenient to be forced to play in the U3000 section in a foreign event because one's CFC rating suffered from runaway inflation and the TD insists on using the player's highest rating.
Which brings us to the inflation issue. I'm watching out for it. If it starts to get out of hand I will ratchet back the bonus point formula. So far, it's not a problem. So far most of the young players that got big boosts to their ratings are performing at their new levels. Life is good, Bindi.
LOL :) there is something to be said for succinctness!
Last edited by Peter McKillop; Friday, 12th October, 2012, 02:44 PM.
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
And you call *me* a troll? At least I explained why your idea was absurd. Here you just spew BS with no basis. You, Paul, are the troll!
DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! WE HAVE A WINNER!
Congratulations, Jordan S. Berson, you fell into the trap and have won the grand prize: a dinner date with Bindi Cheng during which you will try and explain that no, you don't really think he's a troll.
You see, Jordan, my "smells like dog crap" comment was in response to this post by Bindi Cheng on my BADASS chess idea:
"But if I were to rephrase my response, I would say that I truly and honestly deep down in my heart believe that the idea smells of dog crap."
So you see, Jordan, when you say that I am spewing BS with no basis, YOU ARE REALLY SAYING THAT'S WHAT BINDI DID. I was merely doing to Bindi what he does to others.
And you got caught! Your accusations simply fall through and into the lap of Bindi Cheng. How embarrassing for you. But then again, we all know what a troll you are.
In fact, I took what you call your "explanation" for calling my idea absurd and I turned it into the Jordan Berson Auto Troll Reply.
Here's how it goes (anyone who wishes to troll can cut and paste this segment into their post, and fill in the ... sections):
"That's one of the most absurd things I have ever heard. [...] [is | are] bad for organised chess? Says who? Is "organised chess" losing paying fanfare because of [...]? Is FIDE now on the same marketing level as the NHL, NBA, or MLB? I have yet to see people buying tickets to watch a chess tournament. If the organisers are bored of [...], then they should stop [...]. If the chess world is bored of [...], well they're not paying, so who really cares?"
Only the rushing is heard...
Onward flies the bird.
So far most of the young players that got big boosts to their ratings are performing at their new levels.
Amen! Come Monday night, I'm very likely to get paired in the ACC U1900 section with the club's 6-year-old new superstar, Harmony Zhu, one of the highly deserving beneficiaries of the new bonus system. Harmony jumped from 948 to 1472 last month for her two stellar September performances (+8 -0 =3 in composite) and is likely still seriously underrated given her 1645 and 1726 TPRs at the ACC and Hart House respectively.
Tangentially, I keep encountering the name Mike McArthur and today looked him up at CFC. I was more than a little bit surprised to see that he went from a 2073 CFC rated player in early 1998 to 2328 when he stopped playing a few months later without playing a single tournament game. He played 33 match games in that time span, 32 against the same Ron Pitre, whom Mike absolutely trounced +24 -1 =7.
I don't know if it's still possible to arrange these kinds of private matches, but to my way of thinking the new CFC bonus system has to be FAR superior to these seemingly bygone ways. Shades of Claude Bloodgood it would seem, when the infamous criminal became the #2 ranked player in the U.S. (behind only Kamsky) at the grossly inflated 2702, playing largely fellow prison inmates. Of course, the USCF reacted swiftly and changed their rating system dramatically.
You do realize the CFC still carries ratings of players who have not played a single rated over the board game in 35 years and it's counted in the statistical models you see posted as if the numbers are gospel.
It's so accurate my current rating is higher than the Highest rating. Something our rating statistician should be able to explain better than I can do.
I once asked for an accounting of my rating. The told me it was on a card and there had been erasures on the card but that's the total.
My correspondence rating is over 2400. I retired because I couldn't keep up with the invitations. I had an invitation for the correspondence Canadian Pan Am team tournament and a high level memorial tournament. That's close to 30 games to win.
It's so accurate my current rating is higher than the Highest rating. Something our rating statistician should be able to explain better than I can do.
Put aside your principles and show up and play at the CFC tournament. Your rating will pick up all juices of the newest bonus system.
Congratulations, Jordan S. Berson, you fell into the trap and have won the grand prize: a dinner date with Bindi Cheng during which you will try and explain that no, you don't really think he's a troll.
You see, Jordan, my "smells like dog crap" comment was in response to this post by Bindi Cheng on my BADASS chess idea:
"But if I were to rephrase my response, I would say that I truly and honestly deep down in my heart believe that the idea smells of dog crap."
So you see, Jordan, when you say that I am spewing BS with no basis, YOU ARE REALLY SAYING THAT'S WHAT BINDI DID. I was merely doing to Bindi what he does to others.
And you got caught! Your accusations simply fall through and into the lap of Bindi Cheng. How embarrassing for you. But then again, we all know what a troll you are.
In fact, I took what you call your "explanation" for calling my idea absurd and I turned it into the Jordan Berson Auto Troll Reply.
Here's how it goes (anyone who wishes to troll can cut and paste this segment into their post, and fill in the ... sections):
"That's one of the most absurd things I have ever heard. [...] [is | are] bad for organised chess? Says who? Is "organised chess" losing paying fanfare because of [...]? Is FIDE now on the same marketing level as the NHL, NBA, or MLB? I have yet to see people buying tickets to watch a chess tournament. If the organisers are bored of [...], then they should stop [...]. If the chess world is bored of [...], well they're not paying, so who really cares?"
I was going to explain why, but I have decided it would be a waste of my time. A lesson learned arguing with Vlad over climate change. He is wrong too, but lets not go there.
It sounds like the bonus system is working just fine. It is designed to kick in when juniors are increasing their skill level at a faster rate than the old ELO formula ever anticipated. From my experience, juniors who are eager and work at it can increase their playing level by 100+ points/month.
Enough said, that's one paragraph more than I planned to do, but couldn't resist. Stop typing, stop typing, stop..........
I wanted to see everyone's opinions before commenting further. I think the reason you gave - kicking in when juniors are increasing their skill level is just a nicely timed excuse to use the new system. I think juniors were doing just fine before in the old system without all these ridiculous bonus points added on top of that. If anything, I think this system is designed to help adults more than anything else. I keep hearing how adults are having trouble playing kids and losing all their rating points to them. Well, now with this system, as long as you score 50% you pretty much keep your rating regardless of how you performed against juniors. So now we're going to have overrated adult players keeping their precious 1800 ratings while their skill level is probably below that. From my experience, juniors who are willing to work hard and are gaining 100 points/month are either insane or can only keep that up for about 2 or 3 months tops unless they started at 200 and jumped to 1200 in a year. I don't think its reasonable to assume that juniors can jump even 500 points per year on a consistent basis if only because at that rate, they will most likely break Kasparov's record in a few years.
Thanks to Gary pointing out the problem with Roger's graph - in that it includes ALL players regardless of how active or inactive they are. I don't know the ratio but I'm sure the number of inactive players will easily outnumber active players by 3 to 1 and in that case, easily tip the scales into the "everything is fine with the rating system."
On a further note, I'd just like to point out that even though I have no idea how good Harmony Zhu is, jumping 400 points in one 6 round tournament is ridiculous even if she went 5/6. That means she is gaining 80 points per win. I thought the maximum was 32 points per win? When did people start gaining an extra 150% of their rating from bonus points? If she's really that good, she will eventually get to become 1400 (and judging from her last tournament, she might actually be good) but the rating system shouldn't unnecessarily reward players for having one or two fantastic tournaments and just ignoring all other performances. I thought the whole point of ratings is to show how consistent a player has performed at that level.
Now, I personally don't care if this person or that person reaches master level because of their hard work but I do care if everyone is suddenly jumping levels because the pool of active players in Canada are just gaining rating points because everyone just gains random points for whatever arbitrary reason. Because the problem is, once someone gains a massive dose of points, even if they were to play at their original level for a period of time, just the fact that everyone's rating is higher would mean that his newer rating would never go below his or her original rating.
For example, take a look at this chart - http://chess.ca/players?check_rating...320&key=121013
He's been a consistent 1900 player for most of his young life but suddenly he has a break-out tournament where he scored 5.5/6 and a 2300 performance. Now, instead of just jumping 100 or 150 points, he gains a whopping 300 points. It's as if his rating is still provisional and his performance rating is counted more than his lifetime of results. That math is just ridiculous.
Another - http://chess.ca/players?check_rating...192&key=121013
This is not as significant, but still, I didn't know it was possible to go from 2179 to 2206 with a performance rating of 2182. It's as if you drew everyone with the same rating as yourself, you could increase your rating. Why doesn't everyone just play matches with someone whose rating is similar to theirs and watch the bonus system do its work?
I'm sure there are plenty of other examples out there but since I'm from BC and I still keep track of some of the tournaments going on there, it's easy for me to find notable examples. Lastly, just take a look at the ratings in Ontario. Look at where Bator, Nikolay and Artiom are. 2700, 2600, 2600. They are all examples of pretty good players who are active in the Canadian tournament scene but they're definitely not at that level of play. You'd think we'd rock at the Olympiads if these CFC ratings actually reflect a player's true level of strength. I know nothing's probably going to happen out of this but I just want to let people know that something is definitely wrong with the rating system and that yes Paul, tournaments like the World Open do use a player's highest rating when categorizing which section he should play in. Life is good for the veterans of chess indeed.
Lastly, I want to note I have no bias towards any of the players and are merely using their ratings and performances as a source of data.
Thanks to Gary pointing out the problem with Roger's graph - in that it includes ALL players regardless of how active or inactive they are..
No it doesn't. As stated in my original post, it includes only active players (defined as those who have played at least 5 games in the 12 months preceeding the data point).
Another - http://chess.ca/players?check_rating...192&key=121013
This is not as significant, but still, I didn't know it was possible to go from 2179 to 2206 with a performance rating of 2182. It's as if you drew everyone with the same rating as yourself, you could increase your rating. .
er... no. The CFC performance rating is an approximation which is based on a linear equation derived from the actual non-linear case. It generally works well except when some of the opponents are a long ways away in rating. In that case it is possible to have a performance rating below your actual rating and still gain rating points. As an extreme case, consider beating oneopponent rated 1000 points below you and drawing 4 others at your own rating. Your performance rating would be 120 points below your actual rating, but you would still gain rating points (a small number) as you should.
In this case, (which I have not calculated exactly) he probably received a bonus due to being at an all time high in his rating and increasing it above that level.
[edit: further comment removed, probably was inaccurate]
Last edited by Roger Patterson; Sunday, 14th October, 2012, 01:11 AM.
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