English Chess Forum

My new ECF rating is 1998. My Fide rating is 1813. I suspect a difference of 185 points is high for someone who plays a lot.

Tim Spanton wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 11, 2020 2:40 pm

My new ECF rating is 1998. My Fide rating is 1813. I suspect a difference of 185 points is high for someone who plays a lot.

A conversion using +600 would have resulted in 1898, which was around your end of year rating.
So seems consistent.

Shouldn't the old gradings site have a link to the new one?

Wadih Khoury wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 11, 2020 2:56 pm

Tim Spanton wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 11, 2020 2:40 pm

My new ECF rating is 1998. My Fide rating is 1813. I suspect a difference of 185 points is high for someone who plays a lot.

A conversion using +600 would have resulted in 1898, which was around your end of year rating.
So seems consistent.

How dare you!

Tim Spanton wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 11, 2020 2:40 pm

My new ECF rating is 1998. My Fide rating is 1813. I suspect a difference of 185 points is high for someone who plays a lot.

Well this is the problem with using 4 digit ratings. People expect them to give the same outcomes but there is no reason why they should. I have always been somewhat mystified as to the argument that this was a point in their favour.

That ECF "conversions" didn't correlate to FIDE ratings wasn't an issue to nearly the same extent because people didn't routinely think of the two together.

Richard Bates wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 11, 2020 9:33 pm

Well this is the problem with using 4 digit ratings. People expect them to give the same outcomes but there is no reason why they should. I have always been somewhat mystified as to the argument that this was a point in their favour.

As anyone familiar with US chess can tell you, this confusion will be permanent.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 11, 2020 9:47 pm

As anyone familiar with US chess can tell you, this confusion will be permanent.

And as those familiar with Scottish grades will tell you "No it won't." The problem there will be the lack of any relationship at the bottom end between the numbers used in both countries. (To the benefit of Scots playing in England and the detriment of English playing in Scotland.)

Alex McFarlane wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 11, 2020 10:27 pm

And as those familiar with Scottish grades will tell you "No it won't."

I actually wondered about Scotland when writing my comment. What I know is that the waters are certainly muddied in the States, so we shall see. USCF ratings are systemically higher than FIDE ratings, whereas the new ECF ratings are not supposed to be, but I am not sure whether that will be a help or a hindrance.

It probably helped that we had so few FIDE rated players at the time.

When there was a later push to increase the numbers with FIDE ratings there were some confused players but it didn't last.

The conversion was a tricky decision. We decided that status quo (7.5*grade+700=Elo) was the least unpalatable.

I did a short investigation following a post on this forum from Roger Lancaster. It was available on the ECF website till we went live. I don't see why it cannot be added here so I've attached it..

There are arguments both ways, but I tend to be on the side of "ECF is not the same as FIDE, get used to the differences" but can understand others thinking differently.

Brian Valentine
Manager of ECF rating

Brian Valentine wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 12, 2020 9:49 am

There are arguments both ways, but I tend to be on the side of "ECF is not the same as FIDE, get used to the differences"

What is expected to happen over time? An Elo based method has scrapped the approach of treating juniors as new players every year. This used to have the effect of removing or reducing the problem of grades too low by dozens of ECF points and presumably helped drive discrepancies between FIDE ratings and ECF grades. I'm aware there were a couple of novelties proposed for the new system, one being to introduce a method which provided a floor for brand new players and the other being to award more points to juniors for winning than were taken away for losing. Did these make the final cut of the methods as implemented?

After three years of scoring 4/5 in the Kidlington U180, I've made myself ineligible again. A consequence is that perhaps like others, my ECF Elo is around 100 points higher than my FIDE Elo.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 12, 2020 10:07 am

I'm aware there were a couple of novelties proposed for the new system, one being to introduce a method which provided a floor for brand new players and the other being to award more points to juniors for winning than were taken away for losing. Did these make the final cut of the methods as implemented?

Lots of information here - https://www.ecfrating.org.uk/v2/help/help_rating.php. They've even published the code, so you could check that as well if you wanted to.

It explains your previous comment about your resurrected rapidplay rating. You'll retain that for 5 years from when you last played a game.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 12, 2020 10:07 am

I'm aware there were a couple of novelties proposed for the new system, one being to introduce a method which provided a floor for brand new players and the other being to award more points to juniors for winning than were taken away for losing.

The Help says the K factor for juniors will be 40 if their rating is going up and 20 if it is going down (presumably from one month to the next, not from one game or event to the next). Adults have a fixed K factor of 20.

There's a proviso that K = 700 / No. of Games This Month if the number of games played exceeds 35. How, or if, that applies to juniors isn't stated.

Ian Thompson wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 12, 2020 10:45 am

The Help says the K factor for juniors will be 40 if their rating is going up and 20 if it is going down (presumably from one month to the next, not from one game or event to the next).

So a Snakes and Ladders effect. If over a measuring period, the actual score exceeds the expected score by 1, then the rating goes up 40 points. If over the next period it's the other way round, the rating reduces 20 points.

If the measuring period is the month rather than the event, there's a difference in treatment as to whether events are in the same month or not.

"The Help says the K factor for juniors will be 40 if their rating is going up and 20 if it is going down (presumably from one month to the next, not from one game or event to the next)."

Interesting.