|
Yorkshire
Chess Association |
Last update: |
|
|
|
Grading
Policy |
|
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
|
|