English Chess Forum

No, not just a facetious question.
Fide's monthly rating lists come out like clockwork on the 1st of each month (sometimes a day or two earlier), and are applicable from the 1st of each month.
The ECF's January grading list is already out of date, surely, in that games played from today will be subject to February grades, but when will we know what these are?

https://beauchess.blogspot.com/

as an organiser, I currently know that I have a set deadline each month to get my FIDE rating submitted. I try to submit the rating files as soon as possible after each event, with moderate success.

however the grading currently has no real deadline, unless you count the GP, and therefore I usually find time to do this at the end of each month - so tomorrow I will probably do all the grading for January.

when grading moves to monthly I am sure that the ECF will inform me what my deadline every month should be, and I will do my best to meet that deadline. I am fairly organised, ironically because I run a lot of tournaments, but I suspect this is going to be the potential point of failure with many tournaments.

I would find the grading process easier if the ECF did not have one alphanumerical membership number, a separate alphanumerical grading reference, in addition to which players have to remember their FIDE ID code. Most of my work is looking up these numbers as players get them wrong when entering.

I don't see the ECF managing to issue accurate monthly lists before July.

Tim Spanton wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 01, 2020 2:42 am

The ECF's January grading list is already out of date, surely, in that games played from today will be subject to February grades, but when will we know what these are?

No such thing as a February grade. See https://www.englishchess.org.uk/monthly-grades-faq/ and in particular "The ECF plans for the monthly grading method to be effective in August 2020. If this date proves to difficult the delay will be 6 months. The 3-digit list will be published in August 2020; this is planned to be the last grade using this method."

Mea culpa - I was jumping the gun.

https://beauchess.blogspot.com/

The ECF website to which Ian refers also says ‘The ECF Board is responding to changes in the expectations of both members and potential members by working to move grading from a six monthly to a monthly update. The intention is to introduce the change with effect from the January 2020 grading list update', which I had read - as, I suspect, had Tim - as meaning that monthly grades would appear from February 2020 onwards. I now take it that that isn't the case.

There will be 4-digit grades for February based on Initial 4-digit grades converted from the January list (results to the end of December) updated for January results.

At present we do not have the capability to do these calculations, indeed we are not quite ready to encourage graders to send in monthly result updates.

Eventually we will calculate February grades; what is not decided if a February list will be published. We are working on being ready by September for monthly grades. I will update the FAQ identified by Ian above as we decide how to backfill backing for the missing calculations.

Brian Valentine
Manager of ECF grading

Thanks, Brian, that's helpful. At least we now know what there is to know and what's still unknown!