Yorkshire Chess
Association |
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Grading Policy |
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The YCA's single underlying policy
governing its activities in the area of grading has remained the same for over thirty
years. It is to ensure that as many
players in Yorkshire have a grade and that it is as accurate as possible. Whilst this policy has not changed over the years,
the background against which it has been operated has changed much. The following is an outline of the changes
involved, and the way in which the YCA has reacted. The
best feasible implementation of the above policy would be if, as far as possible, all
gradable games were graded within a single national grading system, which was once the
case. Over the years, however, that national
grading system has increasingly been subjected to political restraints.
When I Was a Lad . . . .
Thirty years ago local graders around
the county graded local leagues and/or congresses. The
county grader graded the YCA's own league and other events.
Local graders submitted their grading data to the county grader who merged it with
data from county events and then submitted the total package of county grading data to the
Northern Counties Chess Union grader. Much
the same process took place in the other counties. The
NCCU grader merged the various counties' grading data with that from Union events to
produce one body of data from which was produced the NCCU Grading List. This was the grading list made available locally
for those with a need for a grading list.
Other Unions produced similar lists
in a similar way, and a national Combined Union Grading List was produced by
merging data from the separate Union lists. This
was before computerisation, and the only versions of the combined list which the writer
ever saw included only those with a grade above a certain level. At one time coverage was of grade 185 and above,
just low enough to allow the writer some modest glory for a few years, though later the
cut-off was lowered.
A significant feature of this system
was that provided there was available a grader, usually local, to do the work, all grading
data from any games played under an eligible time control could be included in the Union
and/or Combined lists. Specifically, grading
data from the various local leagues in Yorkshire was included in these grading lists, as
well as the grading data from the county's own events.
This maximisation of volume of data used is necessary to maximise the accuracy of
grades and to maximise the number of players with a grade.
Most if not all graders would agree with the desirability of maximisation of number
of games graded for reasons of optimising accuracy, not for what might be called political
reasons.
A Political Fly in the Ointment
There came a time when it was
rumoured that the British Chess Federation was going to direct Unions not to publish
grades for players who were not "registered" with the BCF. There was of course a fee for BCF registration. Fees payable by a county for affiliation to the
BCF under the "levy" system then in operation could be reduced by the amount
collected by the county in registration fees. Thus,
in practice, BCF registrations could in a sense be equated to county affiliation fees. In Yorkshire the amount of the levy fee payable
was raised by insisting on BCF registration of players in the Yorkshire league. However, in the local leagues run independently of
the YCA no such BCF registration requirement existed.
The effect of the above mentioned
rumoured directive would have been that most players in the YCA's own league would get a
grade in the NCCU list, but most who played only in local leagues (c. 80% of players in
Yorkshire) would not get such a grade. It is
theoretically possible that the local leagues in question might have decided to introduce
a requirement for BCF registration of participating players, sent off the money collected
to the BCF and so got their players graded as before.
It is more probable that those leagues would have produced their own grading lists. Many leagues have done this in the past, which is
not surprising since the grading data was and still is being generated locally.
Decision to Produce a Separate
Yorkshire Grading List
From the YCA's point of view, denial
of a grade to the majority of Yorkshire players would not be desirable, nor would the
spawning of numerous uncoordinated local grading lists.
Should the YCA seek to safeguard the interests of the majority of chess players in
its territory by intervening, or should it accept the injurious consequences of the
rumoured directive? It was decided to turn
the usual annual grading data into an internal grading list, besides passing the data on
to the NCCU grader in the usual way!
False Alarm?
The writer, as Sheffield local
grader, himself monitored the NCCU grades of Sheffield players as compared with their YCA
grades and concluded that players who were not registered were being treated just as
before. It seemed the directive had not been
implemented. Perhaps Union graders had no
reliable way of knowing who was and who wasn't registered with the BCF.
The status quo as regards
BCF/Union grading practice (as distinct from policy?) appeared to remain for another year
of so. This meant that cessation of
production of a separate YCA grading list became a real possibility. Unfortunately disaster stuck.
What? No NCCU Grading List?
Chess is run largely by amateur
volunteers who often struggle to deliver the goods.
Things inevitably go wrong from time to time, and there came the year when the NCCU
Grading List was not produced. It was
believed crucial paperwork had been lost. There
were rumours as to how this happened, but the background to the circumstance is not
relevant here. Fortunately, for Yorkshire
players, the YCA list was still in place, but alarm bells were sounded. The possibility of scrapping the YCA Grading List
receded very rapidly, as general concern about possible problems with the NCCU list were
compounded by the fact that the YCA had just introduced a rule governing its league
whereby the legitimacy of a team's board order was to some extent controlled by players'
grades. A maximum 20-point tolerance in
deviation from grade order had been stipulated. Thus
the "need" for grades had suddenly increased at the time the NCCU list had
failed to appear. The new rule was in fact
very soon scrapped, but lack of confidence in the NCCU/BCF's reliability as regards
grading remained.
Relations with the BCF prior to
the Game Fee Scheme
There came the time when the YCA
Annual General Meeting removed specific reference to the YCA affiliating to the BCF. This left the mooted possibility of disaffiliation
in the hands of the YCA's officers. The
subsequent disaffiliation of the YCA from the BCF was not actually connected with grading,
and in principle the YCA was happy to submit grading to the BCF, and the BCF grader was
happy to accept it. The YCA grader of the day
was one of those amateur volunteers mentioned above, and he delivered the YCA grading
list, with the help of the local graders of course. He
had never worked in the diplomatic corps, however, and establishing a grading data bridge
with the BCF proved a greater task than the two sides in concert could achieve. Some local league graders within Yorkshire
successfully submitted their grading data directly to the BCF. The writer, as Sheffield grader, was one such. However, I was not presented with the obstacles
which the YCA grader reported to me as having been presented by the BCF office. I submitted data, usually got grading reports
back, and the BCF list reflected the Sheffield league data.
The YCA grading function changed
hands, and the point was reached where all YCA data, including the local leagues, was
being included in the BCF Grading List and the YCA was not producing a separate list,
rather it was publishing a BCF Grading List extract purchased for a small sum from the
BCF. By this time grading had been
computerised, and the role of Union graders had diminished, but apart from the mechanism
we had returned to the ideal system prevailing before the YCA introduced its own list. This state of affairs was ended by the next
political change.
The BCF's Game Fee Scheme
Most chess organisations run internal
activities and also participate in external activities.
The internal activities provide a means of raising money. The external activities tend to be more a way of
spending money. Organisations whose internal
activities significantly outweigh their external activities can often successfully
subsidise the external activities with money raised from the internal activities. Thus a county with internal activities such as its own league can
better finance its activities competing in Union and BCF events than can a county with now
such significant level of internal activity. The
understandable moans of those counties without the level of internal activity necessary to
raise money for the levy fee payable to the BCF led to a BCF affiliation fee system based
on activities organised directly by the affiliating body.
This measure was, and still is of course, the number of gradable games organised,
or in practice the number of games submitted for grading.
This is a very plausible basis for determining affiliation fees for counties of
different sizes, but the other side of the coin was that grading data would not be
included in the BCF grading system unless it was from an affiliated organisation. Thus BCF affiliation became, as the slogan had it,
"payment for grading".
Re-Instatement of a Separate
Yorkshire Grading List
The most significant change brought
about by the Game Fee Scheme was that local leagues and congresses independent of counties
and unions could no longer have their games graded unless they affiliated to the BCF via
the game fee scheme. Most congresses seem to
have affiliated to the game fee scheme. It
could be argued they have little option. More
intriguingly, most if not all local leagues outside the Northern Counties seem to have
signed up. Lancashire and Yorkshire were the
counties were local leagues showed least interest. Of
all the local league organisers in Yorkshire only the Sheffield & District Chess
Association joined the Game Fee Scheme, quadrupling their league team entry fees to cover
the cost.
In line with its unchanged grading
policy the YCA produced its own grading list again, for the reasons given in the second
paragraph above.
Prospects for the Future
Computers are a lot more efficient at
making errors than are humans. These
"errors" are of course usually the result of flaws in the software created by
humans rather than malfunctions in the computers themselves. The truth of this was illustrated when a new suite
of computer software was commissioned, written and implemented for the BCF Grading List
published in 1999. The BCF grader departed
and his predecessor who had successfully run the earlier system stepped in to try and get
the new system to work better. Despite a
superhuman effort, this attempt was not a complete success and the system may have to be
scrapped. Against that background the YCA is
unlikely to choose to stop producing its own grading list in the near future. Nor are local leagues going to be induced to
affiliate to the BCF.
However, there is a possibility of
another change in the way the BCF raises money from its membership. The mooted idea seems to be one targeted at the
masses as individuals. That resembles to old
levy system in that individuals would be paying a fee like the old registration fee, but
it would not be channelled though counties or other organisation. When this sort of idea was advanced when an
alternative to the levy system was being debated, it was dismissed by some as impractical
on the basis of administrative overheads.
If such a system was introduced and
it was not shackled to grading, then the need for a separate YCA grading list might in due
course disappear. Quite how such a system
would entice players to affiliate to the BCF as individuals without the "payment for
grading" element is difficult to see.
There is of course the possibility
that the YCA might no longer have the resources to produce its list as at present. The present grader will need to be replaced. We shall have to see what the future holds.
Steve Mann, Hon. Sec., YCA
02/09/00