Grim grading

N.B.: Once again, I'm afraid chess moves are going to be conspicuous only by their absence in this post, but hopefully I shall be playing somewhere soon. Where, I know not.

 Whatever the case, I am writing to report the publication of the new ECF grading list for the 2012-13 season, with these numbers controlling most team events for the whole season, and congress chess until January 2013's interim list. If you've been living in a cave recently, it can be found here.

 I have come out of the calculations with a slowplay grade of X149. The 'X' is a category defining playing activity, in this case the highest level, more than 30 games in the last 6 months: "definitely playing too much," as I prefer to think of it. My apparent rapidplay decline continues, as I have dropped down to A120 ("probably playing too much") which marks my lowest since my first ever grade in July 2010! With a season full of Major-section Richmond Rapidplays and high-board games in the Stoneleigh Trophy, I had expected something rather bad there, but perhaps not dropping to 9th in the Sutton Grammar rapidplay listings...  The slowplay grade is a disappointment, since I'd predicted 151, and failed by one point to meet my pre-season target, but one game (my win in June against Girinath Haridas) didn't get submitted and knocked my calculation out. I stayed third there, for what little it means.

 However, the true story for me and my eight (!) departing Y13 colleagues - we contribute 10% of all the country's rapidplay grades in that age group, and 7% of slowplay - is the loss of bonuses from the junior calculation process, without which our grades have now haemorrhaged. Most obviously, juniors get free points for predicted improvement, but also the iterative process - in layman's terms, a conventional adult grade uses the previous grade to define the parameter of the 40-point rule, whereas junior grades use the results for the current one. So if you are an improving adult, this boundary is lower than it ought to be, and so you are in effect punished for playing much weaker players. I calculated that it cost me 3 points, which when added to the 5 point increment would have left me at 157 - more like it! I have been fortunate to even raise one grade amongst my contemporaries; the sudden withdrawal of this hand-holding could be rather demoralising!

 (Of course, the above is a typical chess-player reaction - the grading system is the best thing since sliced bread when you're going up, but then completely broken once some disappointing numbers start coming out of it...)

 On the bright side, with the benefit of these new numbers, my two recent rapidplay outings look very good - Richmond was 118W, 118L, 124W, 135W, 129D, 126W for a 150 performance, and the Gigafinal was UW, 169L, 163W, 153D, 156D, 144D for 151. I've never been on one of the most-improved lists on the grading database - keep that up and I have a good chance, even though the Gigafinal is an ungraded event...

 Lastly, I hope all local readers are following the ongoing British Championship in North Shields (just from that you can guess why I'm not playing!) which has produced plenty of surprise results in only the first two rounds. Club team-mates are doing well in some of the amateur events running alongside.