ECF grades compared with FIDE ratings

General discussions about ratings.
Alex Holowczak
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Re: ECF grades compared with FIDE ratings

Post by Alex Holowczak » Sun Feb 05, 2017 12:27 pm

Alex McFarlane wrote:
Alex Holowczak wrote:wouldn't it be better to compare the FIDE January 2017 list with the ECF January 2017 list
Hastings would be in the February FIDE list. If it is in the ECF January list then FIDE Feb is the correct one otherwise FIDE Jan is the more appropriate when trying to compare like with like.
I'm not sure that's quite right, though. There were many other FIDE-rated events in January that won't have been included: E.g. the 4NCL, the 4NCL Harrogate Congress, two morning Gibraltar tournaments, Telford, Hampstead, a month of CCF games... Some of the London Junior is in the same situation as Hastings.

It perhaps isn't as easy as I first thought, but I still think that comparing January with January is the closer match.

Matt Fletcher
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Re: ECF grades compared with FIDE ratings

Post by Matt Fletcher » Sun Feb 05, 2017 1:09 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:
Matt Fletcher wrote:
NickFaulks wrote: This has cropped up in another thread. Would an update be possible? I ask that with no idea of how much work is involved.
I've downloaded the FIDE February 2017 list and compared to ECF January 2017. I can't remember exactly what I did last time so just matched up all people with ENG, SCO, WLS nation codes and a grading code of A-E for whom I could find a matching FIDE rating - there were 2,191 players in total where this was the case.

I'm now getting a best fit line of FIDE = 7.6 x ECF + 625 - working with 7.5 that gives me 7.5 x ECF + 640 which is somewhat lower than I got before, and quite a bit less than the '+700' rule of thumb.

Happy to do a bit more analysis now I've got the dataset together if anyone's interested.
I accept that it might not make much difference, but wouldn't it be better to compare the FIDE January 2017 list with the ECF January 2017 list?
Quite possibly - I wasn't sure what the best match was likely to be so I just picked the latest one of each. I seriously doubt it will make any material difference across the 2200-odd people.

Matt Fletcher
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Re: ECF grades compared with FIDE ratings

Post by Matt Fletcher » Sun Feb 05, 2017 1:17 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Matt Fletcher wrote: Happy to do a bit more analysis now I've got the dataset together if anyone's interested.
The "new" URS ratings still have limited credibility, but how does the ECF to URS conversion look? Apart from some seemingly spurious data every player with an active FIDE rating has a URS rating and vice-versa.

http://universalrating.com/
It may not surprise you to hear that, based on a brief look, the ECF to URS conversion is a bit odd.

I didn't bother working too hard at matching up so have a slightly smaller data set than before - this time I've matched 1,724 players with ECF grades to their URS ratings.

The linear best fit I get from this is ECF x 5.85 + 931 = URS. This crosses the FIDE best-fit line at around ECF 170 = 1925. Higher grades tend to have lower UCF ratings than FIDE, lower grades tend to get higher - for example 250 is around 2400 UTR and over 2500 FIDE.

But the UCF ratings don't seem to follow a nice linear pattern vs ECF grades - using a straight line conversion seems to systematically give too low UCF ratings for a given grade at each end, and too high in the middle. So actually it seems to fit better if you have a shallower curve up to somewhere around ECF 160 and a steeper one from ECF 160.

Nick Grey
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Re: ECF grades compared with FIDE ratings

Post by Nick Grey » Sun Feb 05, 2017 1:33 pm

Not sure why there is a bother in trying to compare as far as I'm concerned as my data set between ECF & FIDE is not really comparable.
Got far more ECF results than FIDE.
Equally far more games in ECF where 40 point limit becomes relevant but less than the 400 in FIDE.

Richard Bates
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Re: ECF grades compared with FIDE ratings

Post by Richard Bates » Sun Feb 05, 2017 5:21 pm

Alex McFarlane wrote:
Alex Holowczak wrote:wouldn't it be better to compare the FIDE January 2017 list with the ECF January 2017 list
Hastings would be in the February FIDE list. If it is in the ECF January list then FIDE Feb is the correct one otherwise FIDE Jan is the more appropriate when trying to compare like with like.
Hastings is not in the ECF January list.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: ECF grades compared with FIDE ratings

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sun Feb 05, 2017 6:52 pm

Richard Bates wrote: Hastings is not in the ECF January list.
The Masters has been in the January list in previous years, but for January 2017 it's only the "Christmas" tournaments that have been processed. These were held over the three days of 28th, 29th and 30th.

Richard Bates
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Re: ECF grades compared with FIDE ratings

Post by Richard Bates » Sun Feb 05, 2017 7:08 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Richard Bates wrote: Hastings is not in the ECF January list.
The Masters has been in the January list in previous years, but for January 2017 it's only the "Christmas" tournaments that have been processed. These were held over the three days of 28th, 29th and 30th.
Don't think you're correct on that - Hastings has never been in the January list I think. Certainly wasn't last year.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: ECF grades compared with FIDE ratings

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sun Feb 05, 2017 7:34 pm

Richard Bates wrote: Don't think you're correct on that - Hastings has never been in the January list I think. Certainly wasn't last year.
From the list of events for 2012-13
28-30 London Christmas Congress GP
28-30 London Junior U12, U16, U18, U21/Open GP
29-30 R London Junior U8 GP
28-30 Hastings Christmas tournaments GP
28-06 Hastings Masters GP
31-04 Hastings New Year tournaments GP

Jan 2 R Chester District Rapidplay GP
2 Devon CCA Jamboree GP
4-6 York Congress GP
4-6 Hastings Weekend tournaments GP
There's a line beneath the entry for the New Year tournament.

I remember noticing the treatment because if you want to speed up the grading process, you don't really want to have to wait around for Hastings to finish and submit results. It's not such a problem in the summer because there aren't usually any "long" UK events across the June-July boundary.

It does look as if the ECF has now adopted a more FIDE like approach to cut off dates.

Brian Valentine
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Re: ECF grades compared with FIDE ratings

Post by Brian Valentine » Sun Feb 05, 2017 7:47 pm

The second paragraph of the help section of the website sets out the rules on this issue. We have been more rigorous in following this since 2013.
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Richard Bates
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Re: ECF grades compared with FIDE ratings

Post by Richard Bates » Sun Feb 05, 2017 7:51 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Richard Bates wrote: Don't think you're correct on that - Hastings has never been in the January list I think. Certainly wasn't last year.
From the list of events for 2012-13
28-30 London Christmas Congress GP
28-30 London Junior U12, U16, U18, U21/Open GP
29-30 R London Junior U8 GP
28-30 Hastings Christmas tournaments GP
28-06 Hastings Masters GP
31-04 Hastings New Year tournaments GP

Jan 2 R Chester District Rapidplay GP
2 Devon CCA Jamboree GP
4-6 York Congress GP
4-6 Hastings Weekend tournaments GP
There's a line beneath the entry for the New Year tournament.

I remember noticing the treatment because if you want to speed up the grading process, you don't really want to have to wait around for Hastings to finish and submit results. It's not such a problem in the summer because there aren't usually any "long" UK events across the June-July boundary.

It does look as if the ECF has now adopted a more FIDE like approach to cut off dates.
OK - so not never - it has been excluded from the January list since 2013-14 inclusive.

NickFaulks
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Re: ECF grades compared with FIDE ratings

Post by NickFaulks » Sun Feb 05, 2017 11:16 pm

Matt Fletcher wrote: I'm now getting a best fit line of FIDE = 7.6 x ECF + 625 - working with 7.5 that gives me 7.5 x ECF + 640 which is somewhat lower than I got before, and quite a bit less than the '+700' rule of thumb.
Sorry, missed this amid all the discussion of which month should be used - I'm sure that doesn't matter.
So 2200FIDE now seems to equate to 208ECF - not far from my small sample estimate of 207, and a long way from the supposed 200.

Next question, is there any reason why this matters?
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Alex Holowczak
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Re: ECF grades compared with FIDE ratings

Post by Alex Holowczak » Mon Feb 06, 2017 12:20 am

NickFaulks wrote:Next question, is there any reason why this matters?
There are two uses for it I thought of:

(1) To assign FIDE-scale ratings to players with an ECF grade, but not a FIDE rating, either for the purpose of assigning a rating in a tournament, or determining eligibility for a rating-restricted section. The people in this category tend to be players playing their first FIDE rated tournaments, and are mostly rated under 2000 (or would be if they had ratings!). There are more of them the closer to a converted rating of 1000 you go.

(2) To assign ECF-scale ratings to players with a FIDE rating, but not an ECF grade, either for the purpose of assigning a grade in a tournament, or determining eligibility for a grading-restricted section. The people in this category tend to be either immigrants, people coming to the UK to study at university, or people entering unrated minor sections at international tournaments such as the lower sections at Hastings. They can be anywhere on the FIDE-rating list, almost at random.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: ECF grades compared with FIDE ratings

Post by Roger de Coverly » Mon Feb 06, 2017 12:31 am

Alex Holowczak wrote: There are two uses for it I thought of:
You could add that the 4NCL use it for board order purposes, mainly juniors although it's captain's discretion, where the FIDE ranking order doesn't match the perceived order of strength.

Clubs and leagues in general need some measure to assess the relative strength of new players with established playing records but no ECF grade. On the possibly dubious assumption that national Elo scales are consistent with the FIDE ones, there can be a need to assign dummy grades to Scottish, Irish and Welsh players.

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Adam Raoof
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Re: ECF grades compared with FIDE ratings

Post by Adam Raoof » Tue Feb 07, 2017 8:22 am

The problem with fide ratings is that they don't capture 100 percent of the games played, whereas Ecf grading does.
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Ian Thompson
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Re: ECF grades compared with FIDE ratings

Post by Ian Thompson » Tue Feb 07, 2017 6:57 pm

Adam Raoof wrote:The problem with fide ratings is that they don't capture 100 percent of the games played, whereas Ecf grading does.
Really? If you look at my ECF, FIDE and USCF records you'll find I played 60 standard play games in total between 1 July 2015 and 30 June 2016, of which 35 were ECF graded, 30 were FIDE rated, 16 were both ECF graded and FIDE rated and 9 were USCF rated only.

So far this season, from 1 July 2016, the numbers are 13 games played, 9 ECF graded, 8 FIDE rated and 4 both ECF graded and FIDE rated (and it would have been 18 played, 9 ECF, 13 FIDE, 4 both if I hadn't had to withdraw from a tournament after 4 rounds due to illness).