Obviously people in England are programmed to believe that in all cases, and it is true that the changes to the initial rating regulations made reporting league results less straightforward than it should have been for one season. However, I do see all problems as they occur, and for some reason the 4NCL caused far more than any other competition.Mike Truran wrote:Wasn't it FIDE's mistake in the first place? Or am I misunderstanding Sean's 27 November post?
Your comments would be more useful if you took the trouble to read the regulations before suggesting changes to them.Roger de Coverly wrote: For the future I believe that the rule of three has been scrapped as more trouble than it's worth.
If the "rule of three" was not being scrapped, it would have been sensible not to demand that the 4NCL and other instalment leagues submitted results month by month. As it was, there was a general belief that FIDE were intent on making it more difficult to acquire a rating solely through a league.NickFaulks wrote: It was supposed to go in 2013, but the changes to initial ratings were deferred for a year while further statistical analysis was carried out.
Only among those who were determined to disregard both the clearly explained genesis of the problem and the proposed solution, which worked smoothly for most federations. It comes as no surprise that this group was concentrated in England.Roger de Coverly wrote: As it was, there was a general belief that FIDE were intent on making it more difficult to acquire a rating solely through a league.
Surely the rule change pre-dates that Congress? The problem arose when someone in FIDE decided to outlaw the practice of instalment leagues sending in results at the end of the season. Tallinn would have been when those affected were given a chance to complain about it.NickFaulks wrote: This issue came to light at the Tallinn Congress in 2013
A general belief amongst whom? You always interpreted, wrongly, that rating monthly prevented a player from getting a part rating in the 4NCL save for the last weekend. I and others told you that was nonsense.Roger de Coverly wrote:..there was a general belief that FIDE were intent on making it more difficult to acquire a rating solely through a league.
You have now found out that FIDE didn't have a mechanism for doing it reliably and it seems admitted that they changed the regulation about how frequently leagues had to submit results before thinking about the problem that you cannot play a minimum of three games in a two game weekend.Sean Hewitt wrote:A general belief amongst whom? You always interpreted, wrongly, that rating monthly prevented a player from getting a part rating in the 4NCL save for the last weekend. I and others told you that was nonsense.
Roger, will you please stop this nonsense. The monthly reporting and the abandonment of the minimum three games were part of a well designed package which was supposed to go through in Istanbul 2012 for implementation in July 2013. The rules for initial ratings were viewed ( correctly ) as radical, and Congress asked for them to be set aside for a year to give federations a chance to understand them better. Everyone, including me, failed to notice the knock-on effect of the three game rule on leagues. Sorry. I did notice this when the initial ratings were finalised in Tallinn 2013, before any damage had been done, and the problem was discussed with representatives of most of the affected federations. A fix was worked out, with which they were satisfied and which in most cases worked smoothly. It was unfortunate that the mechanism by which the ECF's representative in Tallinn, Garry Kasparov, reported back to his employers appears to have broken down.Roger de Coverly wrote:You have now found out that FIDE didn't have a mechanism for doing it reliably and it seems admitted that they changed the regulation about how frequently leagues had to submit results before thinking about the problem that you cannot play a minimum of three games in a two game weekend.Sean Hewitt wrote:A general belief amongst whom? You always interpreted, wrongly, that rating monthly prevented a player from getting a part rating in the 4NCL save for the last weekend. I and others told you that was nonsense.
To my mind it was really quite obvious. The 4NCL had previously had a choice of whether to rate in instalments or whether to rate in one go at the end of the season. For many purposes it makes no difference and they might be a bias towards rating month by month. The one area where it does make a difference and presumably why the 4NCL previously elected for the end season method of rating is that it enables partial ratings, particularly initial partial ratings to be more easily validated and obtained. In that context it was apparent that FIDE's decision had withdrawn that option and adverse comment on this was appearing well before Tallinn, the changes having been announced as effective from 1st July. FIDE has a history of making decisions without thinking about or caring about the consequences of their actions, and this seemed no exception.NickFaulks wrote: Everyone, including me, failed to notice the knock-on effect of the three game rule on leagues.
It probably makes titles slightly easier to obtain. Ratings can go up or down, federations can change in any direction, but titles can only go up.Stewart Reuben wrote:There is another effect for title norms. An opponent's title and rating (and occasionally federation) now depends on the month when the game was played. This seems to have provided no problems.
I haven't found out anything. Nothing has been 'admitted'. We always knew that this was something that FIDE was going to do manually. They did it, but they made a mistake. They've then worked hard to fix that mistake. I appreciate that, even if you don't. I judge them not by the mistake, but how they dealt with it.Roger de Coverly wrote:You have now found out that FIDE didn't have a mechanism for doing it reliably and it seems admitted that they changed the regulation about how frequently leagues had to submit results before thinking about the problem that you cannot play a minimum of three games in a two game weekend.Sean Hewitt wrote:A general belief amongst whom? You always interpreted, wrongly, that rating monthly prevented a player from getting a part rating in the 4NCL save for the last weekend. I and others told you that was nonsense.
What should Garry have told us that would have caused the ECF to do something different which would have prevented FIDE from making this mistake?NickFaulks wrote:This issue came to light at the Tallinn Congress in 2013, and was discussed with most of the affected federations. It obviously didn't help that the ECF had chosen to be represented there by Garry Kasparov, who had little interest in English club players.