Grading database help


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. This Grading List 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.

To get more data onto the system, making the Grades more accurate, players should ask organisers to ensure that their results are sent in for Grading.

A list of Events Received for Grading this year can be found at http://www.englishchess.org.uk/grading/index.html.

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

Chris Majer
ECF Manager of Grading
July 2007


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 as follows:
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

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. His past results will be discarded and he starts the new season with a clean sheet.

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 three clubs are shown in the online database, and up to six in the download file. 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 1st September following publication. For a January list it is their age on 1st September 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 grading@englishchess.org.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

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 the opponent is ungraded, his Grade is estimated, using all available information.

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.

For juniors under the age of 18, an enhancement is added to their Grade to take into account their expected improvement over the year. This enhancement is six points for juniors of age 15 to 17, eight for juniors of age 11 to 14, and ten for juniors under the age of 11. The enhancement is added after all calculations are done, and is included in the published Grade.


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 a minimum of 15 minutes and a maximum of 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 a minimum of 15 minutes and a maximum of 60 minutes.

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

By prior agreement with Chris Majer the ECF Manager of Grading if the rate of play is the maximum for Rapidplay then it may be Graded as Standardplay.


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

The following conversion applies to national Elo ratings and for FIDE Elo ratings greater than 2327:
(Elo - 600) / 8 = ECF
ECF x 8 + 600 = Elo

For FIDE ratings lower than this, and for ECF Grading purposes only, a different formula is used:
(FIDE - 1250) / 5 = ECF
ECF x 5 + 1250 = FIDE

For convenience, here is an illustrative table:

ECF FIDE Other National ECF FIDE Other National
70 1600 1160 190 2200 2120
80 1650 1240 200 2250 2200
90 1700 1320 210 2300 2280
100 1750 1400 215 2325 2320
110 1800 1480 216 2328 2328
120 1850 1560 220 2360 2360
130 1900 1640 230 2440 2440
140 1950 1720 240 2520 2520
150 2000 1800 250 2600 2600
160 2050 1880 260 2680 2680
170 2100 1960 270 2760 2760
180 2150 2040      

Note:
The minimum published FIDE Elo is 1401