July Grades

General discussions about ratings.
Howard Grist
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Re: july grades

Post by Howard Grist » Sat Jul 29, 2017 7:24 pm

Jaimie Wilson wrote:Hi Anthony,

What seems to have happened is that the internal games at a number of Sussex clubs including Brighton, Horsham, Chichester and Bognor played between January and June are all on the system but they haven't gone through as graded. Other competitions like league games, county games and congresses have all gone through fine apparently. Hopefully it won't be too much of a headache for the admins, whose thankless tasks can often go unappreciated!
A succinct description of the problem there - if you'd added Eastbourne and East Grinstead club games along with the Sussex County Championship, you'd have a complete list. These will all be included in the August revision.
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Anthony Higgs
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Re: july grades

Post by Anthony Higgs » Sat Jul 29, 2017 11:07 pm

Glad to hear its not more widespread, thanks Howard & Jaimie.
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Jonathan Rogers
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Re: july grades

Post by Jonathan Rogers » Sun Jul 30, 2017 2:57 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
Jonathan Rogers wrote: Is your point that I haven't really declined all that much, if at all, over the years, and so suddenly getting my highest grade is not such a shock and thus not a sign of grading inflation?
Yes, that is suggested by your FIDE rating history. ..
Perhaps I need more time to think about this. It is true that I probably never declined all that much. But I still find it hard to believe I had my best ever season last year, and wonder whether I had the same results as in my previous good years in the late 1990s, but much the same opponents as I did play then are now themselves graded the same or higher.

MartinCarpenter
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Re: july grades

Post by MartinCarpenter » Sun Jul 30, 2017 10:49 pm

I'd be fairly confident that it is (a) a real effect and (b) not an ongoing issue.

Rather it is the 'correction' from the regrading a few years back feeding its way back up the food chain. I know it wasn't meant to affect grades this high but that really doesn't seem to have worked out. Its been quite noticeable with some of York's very strong players that their grades over the past season or two have been a bit higher than they'd been reaching before.

Brian Valentine
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Re: july grades

Post by Brian Valentine » Mon Jul 31, 2017 8:13 am

I think Martin is on the right track, but what he states is difficult to test. Since the correction the average grade of categories A-E has been fairly stable. In 2009 it was 133.7 and in the July list it comes out at 132.8. The average for F grades is somewhat lower. The proportion of players rated over 200 has steadily increased (2009: 3.9%, 2017: 6.4%).

This may be because of Martin's "food chain" idea. What is clear is that on each new list the dispersion of the new entrant's grades is higher than that for leavers and stayers. Hence for that reason alone the tails are pushed outwards. How this affects individuals is less clear.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: july grades

Post by Roger de Coverly » Mon Jul 31, 2017 9:28 am

Brian Valentine wrote: Since the correction the average grade of categories A-E has been fairly stable.
It was pretty much stable before the correction, notwithstanding the nonsense claimed by some advocates of recalculation that there had been 50 years of inflation at a point a year.
Brian Valentine wrote: What is clear is that on each new list the dispersion of the new entrant's grades is higher than that for leavers and stayers.
That would have been the case before revaluation as well. General reasoning is that because the ECF grading includes International events taking place in ECF "territory", that visiting top players will extend the range of grades at the top end. At the lower end, if hypothetically the "average player" is getting a bit better, a beginner is always a beginner and thus increasingly worse than experienced if lower graded players.

Dewi Jones
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Re: july grades

Post by Dewi Jones » Mon Jul 31, 2017 10:15 pm

Howard Grist wrote:
Jaimie Wilson wrote:Hi Anthony,

What seems to have happened is that the internal games at a number of Sussex clubs including Brighton, Horsham, Chichester and Bognor played between January and June are all on the system but they haven't gone through as graded. Other competitions like league games, county games and congresses have all gone through fine apparently. Hopefully it won't be too much of a headache for the admins, whose thankless tasks can often go unappreciated!
A succinct description of the problem there - if you'd added Eastbourne and East Grinstead club games along with the Sussex County Championship, you'd have a complete list. These will all be included in the August revision.
Does that mean that if there are any graded players that I played, but theirngrade does not appear next to their name that the same sort of thing has happened?

Julie Denning
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Re: july grades

Post by Julie Denning » Tue Aug 01, 2017 7:42 am

Anthony Higgs wrote:There appears to be a problem with the list, I (selectively!) quote a colleague and grader as follows:

"If you check your personal page you will find you're shown as having played some number "x" games over the last 12 months. However, if you then click on "Standard games played, last 12 months" you'll find a greater number "y" are recorded. Whilst your internal club games played since January are listed, your opponent's grades are not shown for these games. These games seem to account for the difference between "x" and "y". This seems to be a common problem for many, but not all, of the clubs for which I submit results. I don't know if this has affected the grading calculations. I'm on the case with the Grading Administrator."
Thanks Anthony for not naming the guilty party!

It's a problem where there's one common factor. Me.

As one of the diehards who has continued to use the old ECF League program, I've kept an old Windows XP computer running just for grading. (The program won't install on any later Windows OS.) Rather like its owner, this computer is showing its age. As I was putting together my grading submissions last month the system was giving me frequent problems. The database that League creates was getting corrupted and I had no choice but to start again from scratch and repeat all the work I'd already done. Although this seemed to be a software issue, I felt it was more likely to be down to the old computer. There is a workaround from Microsoft for later OS that enables you to partition a hard drive and set up a "virtual machine" wherein you can install a different OS. However, with Windows 10 this requires the Pro version, which is something like a £100 upgrade from basic Windows 10. On exploring further I came across a freebie called VirtualBox that does essentially the same thing, so I installed this on my current (Windows 10) computer and then installed Windows XP and League in the "virtual machine" I created on one side of the partition. Sure enough, the program returned to its normal stable self, but I still had to repeat a lot of work as I couldn't recover the database I had been creating on the old computer. If any other League user is facing a similar situation, they can get in touch for any more information they might like to have on this solution.

That doesn't actually explain the issues that have shown up on the personal grading pages in the July list. In recreating my results database, from which individual event results files are created by League, I not only had to reload a lot of data, including from the July - December 2016 period, but I had to ensure I matched up various bits of data with what I'd submitted for the January list. I thought I had, but certain subtleties in how League creates results files conspired against me. All seemed correct, and my submissions all passed the ECF "Checker" routine, but they weren't. I believe I've now sorted out the errors and have resubmitted a load of files to the Grading Administrator, so I'm hoping the issue will be sorted with an early update of the published list. I'm not sure whether the errors have actually had any effect on grading calculations, but I suspect they have not - but please do check the published list periodically to see whether the next update results in any grade changes.

:oops:

Gavin Hughes
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Re: july grades

Post by Gavin Hughes » Mon Aug 14, 2017 1:13 pm

If you are worried about a grade being too high, I'm sure we can find a few under graded people (mainly juniors) who could dent it. There is a person at my club whose grade is totally wrong and includes games that did not happen. He should be under 100 but has a grade of 165. I'm planning to arrange 20 games against him :)

NickFaulks
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Re: july grades

Post by NickFaulks » Mon Aug 14, 2017 1:54 pm

Gavin Hughes wrote:There is a person at my club whose grade is totally wrong and includes games that did not happen.
I trust you have reported these in time for the revised list.
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Michael Farthing
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Re: july grades

Post by Michael Farthing » Mon Aug 14, 2017 2:29 pm

Nick,

Read the full post. Reporting the problem would be totally counter productive to Gavin's plan!

E Michael White
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Re: july grades

Post by E Michael White » Mon Aug 14, 2017 2:45 pm

Martin Carpenter wrote:Rather it is the 'correction' from the regrading a few years back feeding its way back up the food chain.
Where is Sean Hewitt when I need to say "I told you so" !

I expect returning oldsters, who subsequently drift, will contribute to the same effect.

NickFaulks
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Re: july grades

Post by NickFaulks » Mon Aug 14, 2017 2:59 pm

Michael Farthing wrote:Nick,

Read the full post. Reporting the problem would be totally counter productive to Gavin's plan!
Then I hope the graders have gathered that results reported from various Essex clubs are worthy of close investigation.
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a QR code stamped on a human face — forever.

LawrenceCooper
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Re: july grades

Post by LawrenceCooper » Mon Aug 14, 2017 3:38 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
Michael Farthing wrote:Nick,

Read the full post. Reporting the problem would be totally counter productive to Gavin's plan!
Then I hope the graders have gathered that results reported from various Essex clubs are worthy of close investigation.
The player in question is easy enough to find in the database. It looks like another case of two players with the same name but different initials being mixed up.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: july grades

Post by Roger de Coverly » Mon Aug 14, 2017 4:26 pm

LawrenceCooper wrote: It looks like another case of two players with the same name but different initials being mixed up.
That could be blamed on those reporting the results for failing to use the correct grading codes.They aren't optional extras.

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