FIDE Rating Consultation

[Roger de Coverly]

Yes, but that would require FIDE to have a system that might actually work.

The ECF system is mostly the same as the FIDE one, with a few extra features that deal or attempt to deal with the problems created by new rapidly improving players, Most national systems are based around Elo's original work with refinements. The USCF system for example https://new.uschess.org/sites/default/f ... r-2020.pdf which has been rating players down to 100 for many years.

The suggestion of separate amateur and professional lists doesn't really work unless you evict players from the amateur list. Over time the world's top player in his or her teens or twenties entered the amateur list at the age of 8 or even earlier. Thus nearly every top player would have both ratings.

[Ian Jamieson]

You could evict players from the amateur list. I was just making a suggestion and I accept that the fine details will have to be sorted out. Once a player qualified though for the professional list would they care what their amateur list ranking was if they still had one? I doubt it in the same way that most players with ECF and FIDE ratings pay more attention to their FIDE rating than their ECF rating or at least they used to do - perhaps this is no longer the case with the reduction the FIDE rating floor and the current problems with the FIDE system.

[Paul Cooksey]

What problem are you trying to solve Ian?

When you posted "if it isn't broken don't try to fix it" I thought you were arguing that FIDE should not make changes. But this seems quite a big change.

[Ian Jamieson]

What problem are you trying to solve Ian?

When you posted "if it isn't broken don't try to fix it" I thought you were arguing that FIDE should not make changes. But this seems quite a big change.

If anything I think I’m arguing that FIDE shouldn’t have lowered the rating floor from 2200, increased the frequency of lists etc. I think quite a lot of people would argue that the current FIDE rating list/system is broken. As I said though it’s only a suggestion and I would be very surprised if it was implemented.

[Roger de Coverly]

If anything I think I’m arguing that FIDE shouldn’t have lowered the rating floor from 2200, increased the frequency of lists etc.

Those changes were more than thirty years ago. I would think problems have stemmed from the more recent changes to a minimum rating of 1000 without putting in measures to revalue rapidly improving (junior) players other than introducing k=40. It's not as if rating relative beginners was a new experience, national rating systems had found that they had to depart from pure Elo with various ad hoc solutions. For that matter the online providers have rated beginners ever since they were developed, which is thirty years, not that anyone really knows whether online ratings are "correct". Certainly their gap between "best" and "worst" players is far more than FIDE's.

[Wadih Khoury]

I suspect it’s to reduce the scope for manipulating the rating system and with it the title system as one or two countries have done (Myanmar??) Without the limit you can fraudulently create new players with ratings over 2200 who can then play in national championships and help to fraudulently create titles. It’s still possible in theory at least with the limit but takes more work which presumably makes it easier to spot.

Imagine though Kasparov winning Banja Luka in 1979 as an unrated player with a tournament rating of about 2735 according to Miles and only coming into the system at 2200.

It was indeed Myanmar. Now take a look at this player who has just appeared from nowhere in the August Fide list (this is also specially for Nick Faulks's attention).

https://ratings.fide.com/profile/12433390/calculations

I noticed her only because I was checking to see if Kushal Jakhria (Fide 1949, ECF 2171) was still world No1 U9 after his recent good results in the English Championship and three strong Opens in Spain. I found that Kushal is down to No2, with Nguyen Thi Phuong Anh (pic of her on her profile) installed ahead of him.

Checking her individual calculations, she has no games at all until June 2023, when she scores 0/3 against three opponents averaging under 1300.

A month further on and hey presto! in a double round all play all against a field averaging 1973, and including a WIM and a WFM, Nguyen Thi Phuong Anh totals 7/9, which scores 2193 ish but is assessed at 2073.

Vietnam is now showing from nowhere five U9s in the world top 10, while our double world champion Bodhana has dropped from second to eighth. It all sounds a bit Myanmarish, but I've no idea how it is done as presumably the WIM and the WFM are genuine players.

I recall an Israeli dad telling me that since there is no downside in playing unrated players, some countries do organise arranged wins against titles players to give a boost.to some of their juniors. Sometimes to get sponsorship, sometimes as an ego trip and sometimes as nepotism (dad and uncles losing against the junior)

[Ian Jamieson]

I suspect I’d have been with the mathematician but instead of having the changes and a K factor of 11.6, I wouldn’t have bothered with the changes (and kept the k factor at 10)

The major change in question was increasing the frequency of rating lists. There was undoubted international demand for that.

At some point if there continue to be changes to the ratings there is a real danger of the rating system bringing chess into disrepute. I’m not saying we are there yet but it is a danger if we continue in the direction we are going.

I'm not sure about bringing chess into disrepute, but I don't even want to see the rating system in disrepute.

Organised chess relies upon ratings, not least for titles. Players wish to be confident that if player A has a rating 200 points above player B, then A is very likely to beat B in a ten game match. Following the recent lockdowns, at some parts of the curve, that may not be true, so it is reasonable to consider extraordinary corrective measures. However, you would be right to feel that if in a few years we have to enter another such process to correct the effects of the current proposals, everyone involved will look rather foolish.

FIDE ratings - fairly idiotic despite (or should that be because?) (of all the) efforts (to try to ‘correct’ them)

You may not want to see the rating system in disrepute but as far as I am concerned, and I accept I am only one player, it already is in disrepute.

Players and administrators appear to have forgotten (or not know) that Elo once stated the process of rating players was in any case rather approximate; he compared it to “the measurement of a cork bobbing up and down on the surface of agitated water with a yard stick tied to a rope and which is swaying in the wind” Chess Life 1962. (I have tried to see if it also appears in the rating of Chessplayers past&present by Elo but I haven’t found it yet, not that it matters as the quote should be well known, certainly by people running or putting forward proposals for changes to rating systems.)

In my opinion instead of trying to come up with a perfect rating system, which the Kaggle competition showed may / probably does not exist, people should explain that ratings are rather approximate.

This is one reason why, in my opinion, and again I accept I’m only one player, the old ECF system of 1A,1B, 2A etc is/was superior to 3 or 4 figure ratings - the 4th figure in FIDE ratings is itself ridiculous. Even under the old ECF system a 1B player would not necessarily be weaker than a 1A player or stronger than a 2A player.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Even under the old ECF system a 1B player would not necessarily be weaker than a 1A player or stronger than a 2A player."

Indeed, and Richard Clarke actually said that. A more extreme example - a work colleague was graded about 10 BCF below me normally, then joined a newly formed club, where there were two 170s, and hordes of people 120 and below. They played in the bottom division of their county league where boards 1 & 2 got just about 100 %, and they had many graded internal games, so his grade rocketed and overtook mine, as I was playing board 1 in Surrey Division 1, and playing good tournaments. He wasn't suddenly a better player than me. My opposition's grades averaged 160ish, his averaged less than 120.

And then (genuine case again), you encounter a 150 who claims he's better than a 149.

[Ian Jamieson]

Players and administrators appear to have forgotten (or not know) that Elo once stated the process of rating players was in any case rather approximate; he compared it to “the measurement of a cork bobbing up and down on the surface of agitated water with a yard stick tied to a rope and which is swaying in the wind” Chess Life 1962. (I have tried to see if it also appears in the rating of Chessplayers past&present by Elo but I haven’t found it yet, not that it matters as the quote should be well known, certainly by people running or putting forward proposals for changes to rating systems.)

I thought I had seen the quote in the rating of chess players past&present. In my version it (or a comparable version of it) is in section 2.53 in the section on reliability of the ratings on pages 40-43.

“In ratings, we are measuring a quantity undergoing continual change from day to day, even from game to game, in both a random and possibly a systematic fashion. Furthermore, this measurement is just a comparison to the performances of the opponents, which are also changing in these manners. The process may be compared to using a meter stick waving in the wind to measure the position of a cork bobbing on the surface of waving water. The exact position of the cork cannot be stated, but one can give the probable range in which it may be found. The same can be said of ratings.

Horace Lamb’s remarks on measurements in general apply most appropriately to chess ratings in particular: “ The more refined the methods employed, the more vague and elusive does the supposed magnitude become; the judgment flickers and waves, until at last, in a sort of despair, some result is put down, not in the belief it is exact, but with the feeling that it is the best we can make out of the matter.” (Lamb 1904)”

Lamb H. Presidential Address, British Association, Nature, Vol. 70, 372, 1904.

[SeanCoffey]

...
I thought I had seen the quote in the rating of chess players past&present. In my version it (or a comparable version of it) is in section 2.53 in the section on reliability of the ratings on pages 40-43.

“In ratings, we are measuring a quantity undergoing continual change from day to day, even from game to game, in both a random and possibly a systematic fashion. Furthermore, this measurement is just a comparison to the performances of the opponents, which are also changing in these manners. The process may be compared to using a meter stick waving in the wind to measure the position of a cork bobbing on the surface of waving water. The exact position of the cork cannot be stated, but one can give the probable range in which it may be found. The same can be said of ratings.

Horace Lamb’s remarks on measurements in general apply most appropriately to chess ratings in particular: “ The more refined the methods employed, the more vague and elusive does the supposed magnitude become; the judgment flickers and waves, until at last, in a sort of despair, some result is put down, not in the belief it is exact, but with the feeling that it is the best we can make out of the matter.” (Lamb 1904)”

Lamb H. Presidential Address, British Association, Nature, Vol. 70, 372, 1904.

The second edition, which is easily findable on-line, has this passage on pages 28 & 29 (still section 2.53). He has several other similar caveats, e.g., "These small differences may disturb those with an exaggerated confidence in mathematical methods. Actually, the mathematical formulation of the rating system, or of any process or phenomenon, is only an idealized model of an elusive reality." (2nd edition, section 2.51.)

(Unfortunately, he mars this with many loose or questionable statements throughout, which imply a precision that is simply not there.)

Overall, though, isn't all this missing the point? Elo came up with a very simple model, which turns out to be enormously and durably popular. It gives most players something tangible to play for--they can't be in it for the money!--and serves roughly the same function as a golf handicap. Are there more players now than there would have been if the Elo and other systems had never been invented? Everything I've heard indicates that there are.

[SeanCoffey]

Also from Elo:

"Pressures to revise rating processes, to delay declines and to accelerate rises, are natural and never-ending, often arising in high places, often very well intentioned.

Specific proposals abound, to raise ratings through processes other than improved chess play. Unsophisticated proposals such as bribery are rare, but new regulations, say to base ratings on fewer games, or to inflate the bonus points, without regard for probabilistic considerations, can produce undesirable results. Subordination of the rating system to political purposes is ultimately counter productive, leading to vitiation of the integrity of the system and consequently loss of confidence in it." (2nd edition, section 3.12.)

Hmmmm ...

[Kevin Thurlow]

"The exact position of the cork cannot be stated, but one can give the probable range in which it may be found."

Heisenberg would be delighted.

I agree with Sean (and the people he quotes) as well.

[Ian Jamieson]

...
I thought I had seen the quote in the rating of chess players past&present. In my version it (or a comparable version of it) is in section 2.53 in the section on reliability of the ratings on pages 40-43.

“In ratings, we are measuring a quantity undergoing continual change from day to day, even from game to game, in both a random and possibly a systematic fashion. Furthermore, this measurement is just a comparison to the performances of the opponents, which are also changing in these manners. The process may be compared to using a meter stick waving in the wind to measure the position of a cork bobbing on the surface of waving water. The exact position of the cork cannot be stated, but one can give the probable range in which it may be found. The same can be said of ratings.

Horace Lamb’s remarks on measurements in general apply most appropriately to chess ratings in particular: “ The more refined the methods employed, the more vague and elusive does the supposed magnitude become; the judgment flickers and waves, until at last, in a sort of despair, some result is put down, not in the belief it is exact, but with the feeling that it is the best we can make out of the matter.” (Lamb 1904)”

Lamb H. Presidential Address, British Association, Nature, Vol. 70, 372, 1904.

The second edition, which is easily findable on-line, has this passage on pages 28 & 29 (still section 2.53). He has several other similar caveats, e.g., "These small differences may disturb those with an exaggerated confidence in mathematical methods. Actually, the mathematical formulation of the rating system, or of any process or phenomenon, is only an idealized model of an elusive reality." (2nd edition, section 2.51.)

(Unfortunately, he mars this with many loose or questionable statements throughout, which imply a precision that is simply not there.)

Overall, though, isn't all this missing the point? Elo came up with a very simple model, which turns out to be enormously and durably popular. It gives most players something tangible to play for--they can't be in it for the money!--and serves roughly the same function as a golf handicap. Are there more players now than there would have been if the Elo and other systems had never been invented? Everything I've heard indicates that there are.

My gripes aren’t with the original Elo model although the Clarke model is even simpler but with all the tweaks and changes which have been made to it since its introduction. If taking it back to the form it was introduced in is too extreme perhaps it should be taken back to the form it was in in 1992 when Elo died and frozen in that form in his honour.

[NickFaulks]

perhaps it should be taken back to the form it was in in 1992 when Elo died and frozen in that form in his honour.

Prof Elo was a scientist, and I cannot imagine there was anything he would have wanted less.

[Ian Jamieson]

perhaps it should be taken back to the form it was in in 1992 when Elo died and frozen in that form in his honour.

Prof Elo was a scientist, and I cannot imagine there was anything he would have wanted less.

Did you read Sean Coffey’s quote from Elo about the need to resist changes?

I can’t imagine anything that would horrify him more than the mess FIDE have made of his rating system.