GRADING

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updated 31.8.00
BCF GRADING
This page was introduced 6.7.00. Earlier material on grading is still in the BCF News page.

LIST TO BE REPRINTED
29.8.00, updated 31.8.00
It's official. The BCF are to print a revised and definitive version of the List, with more people (and the 1999 games) in. A large number of events previously omitted will be included. Expected publication date 18th September. The Director has confirmed that people who bought the old list will get a replacement free of charge. Automatically if they purchased through the Office, and on request if they purchased elsewhere.

PROGRESS REPORT
26.8.00
Seventy-odd people, mostly graders, received the CD material by email this morning. It was thought, at the time, to be final. However, the Director still has some events he wishes to include. The only ones we know of from the SCCU are the North Circular League and some of Surrey. Yorkshire are in tbe pipeline, having presumably failed to process first time round. Northumberland are saying this is the third year running their grading hasn't gone in. We're not sure how much longer the final version is expected to take, and we still don't know which list is going to be definitive.
     The printed list (grades A - E) should clearly have been bigger. Given the CD data we've got now, it would be something over 11800 names compared with the actual 10400. Dave Ledger has rather more than doubled his grade, but our sampling hasn't gone much further than that.

LIST HAS SERIOUS OMISSIONS
19.8.00, updated 21.8.00
Your Webmaster unexpectedly got a copy in the post yesterday morning. As a Grader, presumably. Thanks, BCF, and he's not complaining, but he'd have been happy with it by email. Must have cost a packet if they've posted it to all of the 100-odd graders.
     Can't say we like the bilious cover, but otherwise the presentation is hard to fault. Standard and Rapid grades are not, after all, in separate lists. They're all very readably on one line.
     Unfortunately, the good news stops there. The List is considerably smaller than previous ones. About 10400 names, compared with something like 13 or 14 thousand last time. The shortfall cannot be entirely due to the excision of duplicate names. It is presumably something to do with the various omissions.
     We hear, from a Yorkshire correspondent, that no one's in from Yorkshire. This seemed to surprise him, as well as us. It isn't a Yorkshire declaration of independence; the YCA grader says he sent his results. The content of the List has also been severely criticised, on grounds of completeness and accuracy, by another commentator who was so offensive about it, though not to the SCCU, that we've forgotten his name on purpose. He was substantially right. There were always going to be omissions, especially in a List produced under such time pressure, but one has come to light which is very serious.
     Events omitted:
     (a) The List does not contain a list of events graded. However, some events were omitted because not received, and others because received very late in July. The late ones will no doubt be on the CD.
     (b) Some - the Director has found at least 35 - were omitted because the grader forgot to give the time controls. This prevents a file from processing.
     (c) It appears that events played in 1999, which means June to December, were accidentally omitted from the calculations. This is why the incidence of A grades is so implausibly low. It's something to do with the twice-yearly cycle which (in theory) applied last year. A few events may have escaped this mishap, and we guess that winter leagues are OK if the grader simply dated them 1.1.00 as graders will.
     Or maybe it isn't quite as bad as that. It's possible - investigations continue - that 1999 games went in as "previous-season" ones. This would mess up the grade categories, but not the grades themselves to quite the same extent.
     The information is not lost, at any rate. The CD, expected in a few days, will correct this error and others. (If you're wondering, Dave Ledger's grade of 107 is due to the grader who put "77 games, 1500 points" when he meant 7 games.)

We do not know which list will be official, nor what the BCF will do about lists already sold if they're irredeemable.

IT'S OUT
11.8.00
The List went on sale at the British this morning. Thank you John Philpott for this information. We understand that it may not be in quite the polished form the Director would have wished, but we congratulate him on making the British against considerable odds. It remains unclear to what extent the full CD version, not yet published, will be different. We still have neither price nor publication date for it.
     We've never said, and neither has the BCF as far as we know, but there are official plans for a Junior half-year list in February. Don't know how it would be published. Things are in flux, and we can't be sure it will happen.

LIST IS WITH PRINTER
3.8.00
The grading list is with the printer, so you really can expect it in the second week of the British. It includes input received on the 29th July from a county which shall be nameless. The deadline was 30th June.
     As we've said, the list will be printed using the "old" (1997) system. The CD will appear in a few weeks, using the new one. It will almost certainly incorporate corrections there has not been time for in the printed list. Merging of duplicated players, for instance. The really obvious duplications will have been picked up already, but errors will remain.
     Howard is out of hospital, nursing a sore elbow but otherwise intact. He will be off work for a while.

LIST DELAYED AGAIN?
29.7.00, with an update 30.7.00
They might make the British, but an accident that occurred last night makes it look unlikely. Howard Grist, the SCCU Grading Secretary, was knocked off his bicycle on his way home from work and will be in hospital for a few days. He has an important and specialised role in the processing that leads up to publication of the list. They were already working to a tight schedule to accommodate late results, with a view to going on sale in the second week of the British. Our guess is that Howard's accident will make that next to impossible. It is our guess, and not official BCF information.
     Update 30.7.00
Maybe we were too pessimistic. Howard's role in the "new" printing system is essential. However, the Director sees a way round. He can just revert to the old system. It means separate lists for Standard and Rapid play, but at least they'd both be in the same book. The new system would hopefully be up and running for the CD.
     The printer is on standby.

BCF GRADING LIST 2000
23.7.00
News has been a little bit hard to come by. As you will know, the Director announced a few days ago that the list would be on sale at the British. He's since told us he's a bit behind, with a potential problem that could slow things down further. He did not suggest that there was any danger of missing the British.
     FIDE ratings may not be included, in spite of what it says on the order form. The format is not finalised, and may be simpler than last year's.
     The £12 price (£9 Direct Members) does not include a CD. A CD will be on sale separately, "later".

MANAGEMENT BOARD REPORT
from the Director of Grading and Game Fee
For BCF Management Board 17.6.00
(reproduced with permission)

My apologies for not being able to attend the meeting, but I feel my time would be better spent in processing the grading system.

I had hoped to produce a corrected list in January, but this did not appear until the beginning of April. There were 2 main causes for this. Firstly I underestimated by a large percentage the amount of administrative work that I would have to do. The other thing that contributed to the delay was the provision of Direct Members prints. I hadn't realised what a time consuming job this was and it took me a month working most evenings to distribute them. This is something that will need to be borne in mind if printouts are promised as part of the new Direct Membership scheme. The amount of time needed to be spent by the member of staff doing them is about 3 hours per 100 members.

The corrected results were processed for the revised list, but 2 leagues still did not provide any data for inclusion in the list, being Thames Valley and Hillingdon. They were both chased several times, but to no avail. I await with interest as to whether or not they will arrive this year.

I am expecting to receive about 1000 files for processing this year. So far, I have received about 200 and processed about 50. The deluge is about to arrive. Before files are processed a check is made that game fee has been paid for the event.¹

I am uncertain at present as to what format the grading list will take. I have only received 2 favourable comments on last year's format as compared to about 30 unfavourable ones. Even some congress organisers were not too impressed. The main complaint is people thinking the format too cluttered. On the other hand I have also had requests to make it more cluttered by also including e-chess ratings and correspondence chess ratings. I have turned these requests down, at least for this year.

I have also not decided on whether a CD-ROM should be produced this year. There is a feeling that having produced it last year, it reduced sales of the list because people just copied the CD and passed it on. Also, with sales being so low, I am not sure that production of the CD is financially viable. The number of grading lists distributed was 720, just over 600 being sold. This compares with about 1000 sales about 3 years ago.

A manual system for collection of Game Fee has been re-introduced and is being run efficiently by Cynthia and Dawn at the BCF office with some assistance from Con Power. At the time of writing, the amount of income from game fee for last season is c.£42500. Some has come in for this season, but the main surge is not expected for a few months yet. The information is passed on to me and until I have confirmation that payment has been received then I will not process the data files.¹

On a personal level, I do not agree with this policy. I believe the object of the grading system should be to reflect as accurately as possible a player's strength, not to be used as a political pawn or carrot. There are a number of events, most notably the Spectrum circuit and club championship games, that will not be included this year through not paying game fee.²

There are discussions going on at present at FIDE level about the possibility of lowering the bottom of the FIDE list to 1500, BCF 112. The International Director may be able to supply more information on this. If this does come about, then we should be looking very carefully at a) whether a BCF list is still required, and b) whether the BCF will need (or be forced) to convert to 4 digit grades.

Roger Edwards
Director of Grading and Game Fee

Notes by rjh
¹ Roger tells me 5.7.00 that if he receives results that have not been paid for he gets the Office to send a reminder. He does not simply bin the results. At this late stage he is prepared to be flexible if, say, your Treasurer's away on holiday.

² It was reported at the BCF's April Council meeting that Spectrum had not paid for a while. Club internal games have been exempt from Game Fee until this year, and even at one-third rate some clubs will drop out. There will be others that have sent results, but without payment because they're expecting to be billed. I know of one or two. These should not be a problem, if the Office are sending reminders and Roger's being flexible.
     Last year, waiting for a bill was the correct thing to do. It didn't work very well, and this year you're supposed to fill a form in in advance and send (estimated) payment with it. I don't think that's been too well publicised. Established paying events received the form long ago, but I don't suppose many clubs have had it. Where club internal events are entered by the County, the County as an "established event" will have had the form and has no doubt paid.