Grading database help updated 30.08.2009


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Player lookup: meaning of Fields
Grade Categories
Inactive players
Club lookup
Halfyear Rapidplay Lists
Accuracy and player identification
Errors, Queries and Comments
How grades are calculated
Game Eligiblity
ECF to Elo conversions


INTRODUCTION

The Grading season runs from 1st June to 31st May (but see 'Halfyear Rapidplay Lists' below). The Grading List is initially published in July, with a revised version in late August. It includes all players who have had nine or more games recorded on the system in the last three seasons, including at least one in the most recent season. Players not meeting this requirement are ungraded, and do not appear.

A list of Events Received for Grading this year can be found at:
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=262&Itemid=12.


PLAYER LOOKUP: MEANING OF FIELDS

Type the player's name (surname first followed by a comma), or the first few letters. The display will show all players who match the letters you typed.

Sometimes a player will be highlighted in blue. This means his Grade has changed since the definitive August List was calculated. See below under Grade.

Ref
A 6-digit number followed by a letter. This is the Grading Code used to uniquely identify players within the Grading Database. Clicking here takes you to another page with additional information on the player, including his complete history of grades back to 1994. This is as far back as the electronic records go.

For some of the following items, you need to be looking at the expanded page.

Category
With each Grade is a category that indicates the extent to which games from earlier years have been incorporated into the Grade.

The categories are different for adults and juniors. See 'How ECF Grades are calculated' below.

Adult
X - Rapidplay only. Grade based on 30 or more games in the latest half-season
A - Grade based on 30 or more games in the latest season
B - Grade based on 30 games in the two latest seasons, of which at least 20 were played in the latest season
C - Grade based on 30 games in the latest three seasons, of which at least 10 were played in the latest season
D - Grade based on 15 or more games in the latest three seasons, of which at least 5 were in the latest season
E - Grade based on 9 or more games in the latest three seasons, of which at least 1 was played in the latest season

Junior
X - Rapidplay only. Grade based on 30 or more games in the latest half-season
A - Grade based on 30 or more games in the latest season
B - Grade based on 20 or more games in the latest season
C - Grade based on 20 or more games in the latest two seasons, including at least 10 in the latest season
D - Grade based on 15 or more games in the latest three seasons, including at least 5 in the latest season
E - Grade based on 9 or more games in the latest three seasons, including at least 1 in the latest season

Players not meeting any of these requirements are ungraded and do not appear in the list. Players may appear with a Standard or Rapid Grade only, if they have not met the requirement for both rates of play.

Grade
Is self-explanatory, unless it is zero. A grade of zero is not a grade. It means the player's performance is zero or negative.

The expanded page shows the current Grade twice. Normally both versions will be the same. The first is the player's up-to-date Grade, including any revision made since the original August List. It will be highlighted if it differs from the second. The second is the August Grade.

Revised Grades are official and will be used in calculations for next season. For eligibility purposes, however, the ECF will use August Grades throughout in its season-long Standardplay competitions. Other organisations may wish to do the same.

Club(s)
Up to six clubs are shown in the online database. Where a club (or County) name is followed by an asterisk (*), it denotes a location rather than a club.

Clicking on a Club takes you to a list of the club's members. They can be listed in alphabetical order (click on 'Name'), in Standardplay Grading order (click on 'Grade'), or in Rapidplay order (click on 'Rapid').

If a club name appears twice, this means that at some time in the past the club merged with another club. Both club references have been retained temporarily.

It is also possible to access a club (or county) by means of the Club lookup box. See below: Club Lookup

Games
The first figure is the number of games played in the latest 12 months. The second is the total number of games counted. It may be greater than the 12-month figure if games have been used from the previous two seasons. It may be less in the case of an X Grade, because X grades are calculated over 6 months only.

FIDE
For FIDE rated players this shows their FIDE code. Clicking on the Code takes you to the FIDE website, which gives the rating details.

Inactive Players
By default, only 'active' players are shown. That is, players who are currently graded. However a check box allows you to see inactive players as well. This means all players who have had grades at any time since 1994. They are far more numerous than the active players. All their grades are shown, with dates.


CLUB LOOKUP

It is possible to access a club or county directly through the Club lookup box. Type the club (or county) name, or the first few letters. In the resulting display:

1) The first column shows all clubs (and counties) whose names match the letters you typed. Click on one to see all its members.
2) The second column is similiar to the first; but the arrowhead allows you to see all members including inactive players.
3) The 'County Team' column refers to the county to which the club is affiliated. Click to see everyone who has played for the county.
4) The 'Clubs in County' column is the most inclusive. Click on it to see all members of all clubs affiliated to the county.


HALFYEAR RAPIDPLAY LISTS

Since January 2007 the ECF has calculated and published Rapidplay Grades every six months. The Rapidplay Categories are based on 12-month periods as usual. For the July list this means 1st June to 31st May as with Standardplay. For the January (half year) list it means 1st December to 30th November. An exception is the new X Category, which is based on 6 months only (at least 30 games in the latest half-year). This is the highest category.


ACCURACY & PLAYER IDENTIFICATION

Player Identification
A major problem experienced by Grading Officers is the identification of players.

It would help if:

1) Event organisers ensure that they give: players forenames and full initials; their clubs; their date of birth if known; and, where possible, their Grading Code from the Grading List.
2) Players make sure that event organisers have their correct details. If moving to a different area, or playing in a new event, players should ensure that match captains and congress organisers note their Grading Code (and full name) on result sheets and pairing cards.

Date of Birth and Age
Date of birth is very helpful in player identification. Additionally, as the junior Grading enhancement is based on age, it is especially important that we have the DoB for juniors. (See below: How ECF Grades are Calculated.)

Date of birth is not published. Age is published for Juniors only. For a July list it is their age on 31st August in the year of publication. For a January list it is their age on 31st August preceding publication.

Checking of Grading Data
Every possible effort is made to ensure that this Grading List is as accurate as possible prior to publication.

This involves the following measures:

a) There is a deadline after the completion of an event for the local Grading Officer to submit a Grading results file to the central team. If the deadline passes without the results file being received, it is chased to find what has happened to it;
b) After submission of the results file, the local Grading Officer is provided with feedback to confirm that it has been correctly processed;
c) A list of Events Received for Grading is published on the ECF Website so that players can alert us to possible missing events. This list is continuously updated.
d) Large jumps in Grade are investigated;
e) A statistical check of the integrity of the Grading List is performed.
f) Direct Members are emailed a list of their games received for Grading so that they can check that their games have been Graded. This is done before the publication of the Grading List, when the bulk of events have been received, and corrections are incorporated in the initial July version of the List.

This operation is repeated, with Full Direct Members, after publication; and further corrections are incorporated in the definitive August List.

ERRORS, QUERIES & COMMENTS
If you have any comments, or queries about your Grade, let us know. Also let us know if your name (or age) is incorrectly recorded. You will be answered promptly, and any errors will be corrected. Write to the ECF Grading Administrator rjh@sccu.ndo.co.uk.

Alternatively you can contact him via the Grading Feedback Form.

Corrections will not appear in the online list immediately, because it is updated only every so often.

Note that one class of correction is usually not feasible:

Club affiliations
Club affiliations cannot be always up to date. Please do not write to say you have just left one club and joined another. The system is automated. Your new club will be registered automatically as soon as the ECF receives results going with it. Your old club will disappear automatically after two or three years, and in the meantime is useful for identification purposes.

Sometimes the automatic deletion fails because organisers have gone on quoting your old club (don't let them do this!). Please write if a lapsed club lingers for more than three years.


HOW ECF GRADES ARE CALCULATED

In 2009 the system switched to 'New Grades': see the 'New Grades' page. The basic method of calculation is as described in the next three paragraphs. It is essentially unchanged for adult grades. For juniors, however, there are changes as described further down.

Points are allocated in respect of each game. For a win you score the opponent's Grade plus 50, for a draw the opponent's Grade, and for a loss the opponent's Grade minus 50. There is a proviso that if your opponent's Grade differs from yours by more than 40 points it is assumed to be exactly 40 above (or below) yours. This is to prevent a player increasing his Grade by losing to a much stronger player, or decreasing his Grade by beating a much weaker player. If an opponent (or the player himself) is ungraded, a Grade is estimated, using all available information. See 'Estimating' a starting Grade for an ungraded player below.

The Grade is calculated by dividing the total number of points scored by the number of games played. If there are at least 30 games in the current period, then the Grade is based on these games alone. If there are not, results are brought forward from the previous period to make the total up to exactly thirty. If there are not 30 games in the two seasons together, results are taken from the season before that. Games are never taken from further back than this; the maximum is two prior grading periods.

Results are brought forward in two different ways, depending whether the Grade is Rapid or Standard. With Rapidplay, any games brought forward from a previous period will be the most recent games in that period. This is possible because the dates of Rapid games are (almost) always known. With Standardplay, unfortunately, this is not the case. So, instead, the required number of (notional) games is brought forward at the average score for the period.

Juniors
The treatment of juniors, from 2009, is different. Junior Grades become so rapidly out of date that it has been decided to treat juniors, effectively, as new players each year. See 'Estimating a starting Grade for an ungraded player' below. A junior's previous-season games will not be counted if he has at least 20 games in the latest season. If he has not, previous-season games will be brought forward to bring the total up to a maximum of 20.

Grade categories are defined differently for juniors. See 'Category' above.

For juniors, an enhancement is added to the Grade to take into account their expected improvement over the year.

Standard Increment Rapid Increment
0-10100-1010
11-17511-175


The enhancement is added after all calculations are done, and is included in the published Grade.

Estimating a starting Grade for an ungraded player
A Rapid Grade, where available, will be used in default of a Standard Grade; and vice versa. If the player has no Grade at all, a starting grade is calculated as follows.

Stage 1 is to calculate a 'grade' for each ungraded player on his games against graded opponents. The 40-point rule is not used. If all his opponents are graded, it stops there and the result will be used as his starting grade.

Stage 2 brings in games between the ungraded players. Once again the 40-point rule is not used. The players are 'graded' on all their games, using as starting grades the figures obtained from Stage 1.

The resulting 'grades' will not be very accurate. So they are fed in again as new starting grades, and Stage 2 is repeated. This continues, with increasing accuracy each time, until the figures (more or less) stop changing. The starting grades can then be considered accurate.

These starting grades are then used in the grading proper.


GAME ELIGIBILITY

Eligibility of Games for Grading
Games can only be graded if they are played under acceptable conditions, with clocks. Lightning and Correspondence games are excluded.

It is required that:
a. The FIDE Laws of Chess are used.
b. One of the following rates of play is complied with:

1. Rapidplay
Either:
i. Each player must have at least 15 minutes but less than 60 minutes for all of his moves. This includes both the initial time control and any subsequent time controls or quickplay finish.
ii. When Fischer (cumulative) mode is used then, using the assumption that the duration of the game is 60 moves, each player must have at least 15 minutes but less than 60 minutes.

2. Standardplay
Each player has more time than the maximum defined above for Rapidplay.


CONVERSION BETWEEN FIDE ELO, OTHER NATIONAL ELO RATINGS AND ECF GRADINGS

ECF x 8 + 650 = FIDE
(FIDE - 650) / 8 = ECF

ECF x 8 + 600 = National Elo
(National Elo - 600) / 8 = ECF

For convenience, here is an illustrative table:

ECF FIDE Other National ECF FIDE Other National
60 1130 1080 170 2010 1960
70 1210 1160 180 2090 2040
80 1290 1240 190 2170 2120
90 1370 1320 200 2250 2200
100 1450 1400 210 2330 2280
110 1530 1480 220 2410 2360
120 1610 1560 230 2490 2440
130 1690 1640 240 2570 2520
140 1770 1720 250 2650 2600
150 1850 1800 260 2730 2680
160 1930 1880 270 2810 2760

Note:
The minimum published FIDE Elo is 1200


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank all the local Grading Officers for their contribution to this list. Without their voluntary efforts, it would not exist. I would also like to thank the Office at Battle for their support during the year; and the Grading Manager Dave Thomas and the central Grading Team of Richard Haddrell, Howard Grist and David Welch for their continued hard work.

Finally I would especially like to thank Carl Hibbard who wrote, and continues to develop, the software for the Online Grading database.

Cyril Johnson
ECF Home Director
August 2009