English Chess Forum

Have you a grading double?

I am doing a trawl for players with more than one entry in the ECF grading database. Not the published online list, but the larger central database. Some people have duplicate entries for years without ever knowing it, because one entry is unpublished. Anyway a list of possible duplicates, including unpublished players, is at http://www.sccu.ndo.co.uk/Duplicates.zip. Are you in it?

You may well be there with the same code more than once. That doesn't matter. But if you appear with two or more different codes, let me know and I will merge your records into one. You could reply here, but it would suit me best if you emailed me direct: [email protected]. Don’t PM me, I wouldn’t even know how to pick up a PM.

Most of the “duplicates” in the list will be genuinely different people, and it’s perfectly obvious that some are. Don’t write to say a namesake is NOT you. But do write if you’re not sure, giving some indication of the events you’ve played in in the last three years or so.

Richard Haddrell
Grading Administrator, ECF

How was this list generated? While browsing it I noticed that it found players with 3 different grading codes, who may well only be two people really. However, it suggested duplicates for the two combinations that are unlikely to be duplicates and omitted the third combination which is quite likely to be a duplicate.

Row 411 - Smart, Emma (271731B) may be a duplicate with Smart, E (279350H)
Row 1629 - Smart, Edward (253595G) may be a duplicate with Smart, Emma (271731B)

Missing - Smart, Edward (253595G) may be a duplicate with Smart, E (279350H)

With the additional DoB information that graders were given, the missing combination is the most likely duplicate as Emma and Edward have different DoBs, but E's DoB is the same as Edward's.

There perhaps could have been some element of gender checking to it. If Emma Smart is listed as F, and Edward Smart as M, then it should be quite conclusive that they aren't duplicates.

Alex Holowczak wrote:There perhaps could have been some element of gender checking to it. If Emma Smart is listed as F, and Edward Smart as M, then it should be quite conclusive that they aren't duplicates.

I don't believe that particular gender flag is reliable in the database

Ian Thompson wrote:How was this list generated?

I pressed a button. The offering Ian expected to see was probably there when I made the list. That merge was obviously correct, and I had already made it before I published the list. I expect I deleted the row at the time.

Alex Holowczak wrote: There perhaps could have been some element of gender checking to it.

The button didn’t ask if I wanted sexes. But Carl’s right. There was a Laurence once who lost his last two letters through some glitch or other, and he soon sprouted an F to go with his new name.

Thank you to the people who have already written privately.

Fascinating.

Interesting to see my son, aged 11 and hasn't played for two years, on the list (Thomas Brown, Kent Junior congresses). Equally interesting to see that I and Stuart Brown from Hull aren't on it, given that we exchanged ELO points quite regularly when we were both playing in the 80s and early 90s and that any games database confuses us all the time!

From memory SC & SD Brown