Chess Scotland Noticeboard

Alan Jelfs · Queen Joined: 31 Mar 2007 Posts: 81

There was a bunch of Dutch players who came over for the Oban congress. I played one of them and was fortunate enough to beat him.
For the purposes of deciding which section he could play in, and when making the draw for each round, the organisers used his Dutch grading of 1610.
But when I check my grading results, he is down as Ungraded.
One of the other Dutch players had a FIDE grade and that has been used when grading his games.
So, if we accept BCF grades and FIDE grades, why can we not accept grades from other federations?
I'm sure if I'd gone to Holland and played him there, and submitted it as an overseas result, the Dutch grade would have been accepted.

DMB · King Joined: 08 Mar 2007 Posts: 267

Why not use foreign grades?

Because I don't know if a foreign system is meant to mirror FIDE exactly. CS grades are meant to mirror FIDE (whether they do is another matter).

For example here is a section from ELO rating on Wikipaedia:
"Instead one may refer to the organization granting the rating, e.g. "As of August 2002, Gregory Kaidanov had a FIDE rating of 2638 and a USCF rating of 2742." It should be noted that the ELO ratings of these various organizations are not always directly comparable. For example, someone with a FIDE rating of 2500 will generally have a USCF rating near 2600 and an ICC rating in the range of 2500 to 3100."

So I'd be quite happy to use a foreign rating if it is generally acknowledged that it is an attempt to mirror FIDE. Based on that perception of USCF grades above it would probably not be wise to use published USCF grades - if an American came to Scotland.

Similarly some people have submitted results from Germany. Based on that admittedly small sample it seemed that nearly all the local German grades were way below the same player's FIDE grade. Is that just a small sample blip or is it the case that German grades are generally lower.

Well it's all too difficult and time consuming to find out - so we have adopted a practical approach. Use universal FIDE grades if available (seeing as we are trying to produce equivalent grades CS=FIDE) and use the grades of our near neighbours England - seeing as this will be the foreign grade encountered most often. All other grades ignored.

Would players prefer a policy of just use any foreign grade?

Craig Postlethwaite · Rook Joined: 16 Feb 2007 Posts: 48 Location: Gone Fishing

Nope I thnk we should stick to what we know is reliable. I've played in the Netherlands while working there and they only used my SCA grade for pairing. I was repaired once when my young opponent - probably a Dutch Rocksy Laughing

- objected to his game not being gradeable under the Dutch system.

Alan Jelfs · Queen Joined: 31 Mar 2007 Posts: 81

Rather than ignore the overseas player's grade, would it not be fairer to just mark the game as Void?
I mean, you could lose to a player as strong as, say, Eddie Davis (who doesn't have a FIDE grade), yet would lose points as if losing to an ungraded player.

Craig Postlethwaite · Rook Joined: 16 Feb 2007 Posts: 48 Location: Gone Fishing

Ungraded players have no impact on your grading and the game is effectively void.

I should of course point out that I'm making the assumption that normal CS rules apply i.e. during the end of sesaon calculation all "ungraded" players who are due a grading get one and then the players who they have played have their grading recalculated. Ungrade players will only be those who have played less than 8 games and/or scored less than 8.something percent.

DMB · King Joined: 08 Mar 2007 Posts: 267

>>>I mean, you could lose to a player as strong as, say, Eddie Davis (who doesn't have a FIDE grade), yet would lose points as if losing to an ungraded player.

You got me there I don't know what that means.

If you play someone who is ungraded or the system cannot calculate an estimate then the game is effectively void.

However there is no point in marking it as void. That unFIDErated Dutchman might play more games in Scotland - say at Edinburgh this weekend. He would then have enough games for an estimate to be calculated (Min 5) and you would get retrospective credit.