English Chess Forum

Rules require pairings on basis first of ECF & that is Jan 16 isn't it?

Some have their last 30 games at a much higher level than the July 16.

Anyway right to be celebrated particularly by those organising Juniors, present & past, the players & parents.

Nick Grey wrote:Rules require pairings on basis first of ECF & that is Jan 16 isn't it?

Some have their last 30 games at a much higher level than the July 16.

Anyway right to be celebrated particularly by those organising Juniors, present & past, the players & parents.

Agreed, also good to see such a high percentage of the top players there:
http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/new/menu.p ... agelimit=8

Nick Grey wrote:Rules require pairings on basis first of ECF & that is Jan 16 isn't it?

They need to decide a ranking order before the start of the first round. Arbiters at the British have used different conventions over the years. They now seem to have settled on using the January lists where they use an ECF order rather than FIDE. That at least avoids the embarrassment of having players over X in an Under X tournament. For calculations, they will be using the new July grades.

With the 1st August being a Monday and new FIDE ratings supposedly available, there would need to be decision as to whether to use 1st August FIDE ratings for FIDE rated tournaments starting in the second week.

My new grade has gone up by twice as many points as I was expecting it to. Unfortunately, not because it's higher than I thought it would be, but because my January 2016 grade has mysteriously gone down from what it was a month ago.

I'm very proud to have gained a point. Definitely worth all the effort.

Is this an opportunity to sue the ECF for defamation?

Vladimir Minko of Wellington College has a grade of 259E.
Is that the highest published grade achieved by a British school pupil?

Neill Cooper wrote:Vladimir Minko of Wellington College has a grade of 259E.
Is that the highest published grade achieved by a British school pupil?

The pedant in me wants to point out that he is Russian but, more importantly, the grade is based on a score of 100%. That in itself is impressive but renders the grade totally unreliable.

The 100% score would prevent his grade from being published in Scotland where there are hundreds of school pupils with a grade of more than 259.

Wales will also have pupils with grades of more than that.

So what Neil's question really should be is "Is this the highest grade by a person attending an English school?".

Neill Cooper wrote:Vladimir Minko of Wellington College has a grade of 259E.
Is that the highest published grade achieved by a British school pupil?

A cursory glance at the ECF gradings of the 100% of the people he beat in 2015/16 together with the his 100% score in Rapidplay and his 100% score in 2016/17 to date indicates to me that despite the misgivings of the postings above a grade of 259 would indicate a pretty accurate indication of his strength. As he beat everyone put in front of him with ECF grades from 150 to 239 what grade do people expect? Should he want to play in 4NCL Division Three (North) next year, I'd be perfectly happy to drop out for him.

Should anyone doubt his strength , he played in a FIDE rated all-play-all a couple of months ago in Serbia, won the tournament and was unbeaten scoring an IM norm.

https://ratings.fide.com/apps/237470.pdf

As for Scottish/Welsh schoolchildren with grades of 259+ ? Really? Presumably based on the Claude Bloodgood method of increasing ratings?

Neil Graham wrote: As for Scottish/Welsh schoolchildren with grades of 259+ ? Really? Presumably based on the Claude Bloodgood method of increasing ratings?

You shouldn't have fallen for that one. Their systems are based on four digit ratings.

I'm not sure that a 100% score in this circumstance is necessarily "unreliable". He doesn't appear to have got it by beating a load of 150s. The "E" grade status is perhaps more relevant though.

I imagine that what Sean's getting at is more that a grade based on scoring 100% (or even an unusually high non-100% score) doesn't say much for how somebody would perform against players at the same level. ie. he has reasonably demonstrated high strength at beating players weaker than him, whether that means he can mix it when playing players more at the level of his grade is an unanswerable question. Sometimes a players performance can fall off a cliff if playing players of a slightly higher class.

Or of course he could just be implying that he might be undergraded

Neil Graham wrote:despite the misgivings of the postings above a grade of 259 would indicate a pretty accurate indication of his strength

I'm inclined to agree, statisticians and arbiters can get a bit confused over 100% scores. There are two important influences which balance roughly over12 games; the fluke factor and the consistency factor. For example to score 100% against 200 grade players over 12 games, a player needs to be higher than 240.

The opponent whose grade is likely estimated by the process from a single earlier game against Minko should probably be ignored in the calculations bringing the games down to 12. Apart from that 259 looks as sound an estimate of performance as any other 259 grade.

Neil Graham wrote:despite the misgivings of the postings above a grade of 259 would indicate a pretty accurate indication of his strength

If these twelve games were the only information we had, then 259 might in some sense be a best estimate, although hardly "pretty accurate". However, they're not. He has played hundreds of FIDE rated games, and the results indicate that he has been approaching IM strength and probably is now there. 2640 equivalent, no chance.

There is another point, which is that his ECF graded games have been played to a G/90 time control. He may be particularly effective at quicker play.

NickFaulks wrote: He has played hundreds of FIDE rated games, and the results indicate that he has been approaching IM strength and probably is now there. 2640 equivalent, no chance.

For some of his games, Nick Pert plays similar or the same opposition and achieved a 256 grade with a handful of draws.