Bob Wade Memorial Master

[LawrenceCooper]

1st Mickey Adams 6.5/9 & 2nd Daniel Fernandez 6.

https://www.vegaresults.com/vega/index.php?id=6587

[Jonathan Rogers]

Adams won the event outright and yet only one other player underperformed their rating by more! (There used to be a FIDE rule that one could not lose rating points from winning a tournament; I have long thought that it should be reintroduced).

[NickFaulks]

I have long thought that it should be reintroduced.

It was removed because, as tends to be the case with such special rules, it was on occasion abused.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Really, though? What was the worst thing that happened?

[Roger de Coverly]

Really, though? What was the worst thing that happened?

Perhaps you could organise a rating points distribution. Top rated player wins the tournament but not by enough to maintain the theoretical rating. That's a distribution of points to all the players drawn with or lost to without incurring any rating cost to the tournament winner.

A simple example. Assume a ten player tournament with one 2200 player and nine 1800 players. All are k=20. A draw between a 1800 player and the 2200 player is worth nearly 10 points to the lower rated player. Suppose the tournament result is such that the 2200 player scores 5/9 with just one win. Eight of the remaining players score 50% with the one who lost to the 2200 scoring 4/9. Under normal rules eight of the 2200 players would gain just under 10 points each whilst the 2200 player loses just under 80 despite winning the tournament.

[Jonathan Rogers]

To repeat my question: did anything like that ever happen before the rule was abolished?

[NickFaulks]

This was a long time time ago and I cannot quote examples. I don't believe there was anything as systematic as Roger describes, just that top seeds sometimes donated rating points to weaker opponents at no cost to themselves.

The easy way to remind ourselves of how the rule can be abused would of course be to reintroduce it. This is exactly what has happened in recent times, and far more seriously, with the 400 point rule.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Thanks, Nick. So, a few players gained some points because a generous winner agreed some soft draws with them, by the sounds of it. That's it? It hardly sounds like a scandal requiring abolition of the rule.

Even if it did seem a big deal 30 years ago, that would have been at a time when we were concerned with rating inflation more generally. Now, deflation is the problem, and it is now affecting top professional players very seriously. They are reluctant to play events where losing points to underrated players is likely. The effect of a rule that a winner of an event can still lose rating points simply means that top players will not enter events which everyone else would like them to enter, or that tournament organisers might need to pay them more to get them to play, etc. This event in New Zealand looks like a good example. Presumably many of Adams' opponents were underrated. I don't think that a member of the world's current top 30 (say) could possibly have agreed to play on account of the rating implications. is this a good thing? I suggest - not; and I believe that a rule to the effect that if they at least play at normal strength and win the event, then they cannot lose points, would help.

[Graham Borrowdale]

I guess that technically if they play at ‘normal strength’ they will not lose rating points (underrated players notwithstanding), but the difference is that rating is based on individual games whereas the tournament is decided by who scores most points, not who gains most rating points. To use another football analogy, Arsenal *should* beat Tottenham 3-0, but 1-0 will do.

[NickFaulks]

Thanks, Nick. So, a few players gained some points because a generous winner agreed some soft draws with them, by the sounds of it. That's it? It hardly sounds like a scandal requiring abolition of the rule.

It didn't need to be a scandal. This was an unwieldy exception to the normal rating rules, with some fuzzy edges, which needed justification for its continued existence. I think it was introduced as a kneejerk reaction to the outcome of a match where the winner had lost a few rating points, as usual with no thought given to the wider implications.

In 1998 a 6 game FIDE rated training match was played between Adams and Rowson. The games were competitive, but the question was never who would win the match, but the size of the winning margin. Do you think that Mickey should have been given the benefit of a safety net?

[Matt Mackenzie]

Fischer dropped 5 rating points when beating Spassky quite handily in 1972.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Thanks, Nick. So, a few players gained some points because a generous winner agreed some soft draws with them, by the sounds of it. That's it? It hardly sounds like a scandal requiring abolition of the rule.

It didn't need to be a scandal. This was an unwieldy exception to the normal rating rules, with some fuzzy edges, which needed justification for its continued existence. I think it was introduced as a kneejerk reaction to the outcome of a match where the winner had lost a few rating points, as usual with no thought given to the wider implications.

In 1998 a 6 game FIDE rated training match was played between Adams and Rowson. The games were competitive, but the question was never who would win the match, but the size of the winning margin. Do you think that Mickey should have been given the benefit of a safety net?

No, but a two person unofficial match is rather different from any event with ten players or more. In the latter case, one is more likely to need a hefty plus score as it is (especially if the rule is limited to unshared first place). As for matches, well the world championship should certainly be an exception in my view. I remember writing to BCM with this view point shortly after it was noted that Kasparov lost rating points after beating Anand in 1995. (This has evidently been one of my longer running obsessions!). Anyway the current situation seems especially inapt with rating deflation now being rampant.

[Kevin Thurlow]

I believe one of the issues was that Karpov (at the time the best player in the world by some way) would routinely play in 10-player events, try really hard to get +5 after 5 or 6 rounds, then finish with three 12-move draws to win the event. Theoretically, he could be in danger of losing rating points, without the safety net of "winner doesn't lose points". So if you're on 1/8 and played Karpov in the last round on 6.5/8, you had a good chance of getting 1.5/9. I'm not suggesting of course in any way that the rule was written to toady to him.

[IM Jack Rudd]

More recently, Gukesh lost points for winning his match against Ding.

[Matt Mackenzie]

More recently, Gukesh lost points for winning his match against Ding.

And, indeed, vice versa.