Douglas you know NOTHING about why dual rating came to be, why do you choose to display your lack of knowledge?
This was a proposal that came from the Ratings Committee in 2000 because they were concerned that the number of quick-rated games was insufficient to produce a large enough pool of players and sufficient games to be accurate.
Here’s a table showing the number of regular and quick rated games by year. Dual rating began in early 2001. The new software includes a ‘dual rating’ option, so those games are in a separate column.
Prior to the new ratings programming, dual rated events were being double counted. The exact number of games rated in 2001-2004 is unclear.
I find it interesting that the number of quick-rated-only games in 2005 is still in the same range as the number of quick-rated-only games before the advent of dual rating.
I don’t know if dual rating has led to the apparent decline in regular-rated-only games or if there are other factors involved.
A couple of weeks ago I suggested to the chair of the Ratings Committee that it might be reasonable to look at changing the threshhold for dual rating (if not eliminating it completely.) Based on his response I don’t think the committee would endorse such a recommendation.
You are from Nebraska, how many active directors do you have from the year 1992 to 2006? How many of your active directors in your state had quick events from 1992 till 2006?
Tournaments at G/60 or less, have been for the local area. If the director(s) in the area does not have G/60 or less, than the majority of the players in the area will not have a quick rating. If the director(s) in the area do not have quick only events, than the players in the area will not have quick ratings.
I ask you this question Mike, what if your state of Nebraska does not have any tournaments, with any time controls of G/60 or less for the next five years? How many players in your state will have an update in their quick rating? As the only way players in your state can get an update in their quick rating, would be if they play outside the state of Nebraska. Now, how many players in your state have been in a tournament of G/60 or less, outside the state of Nebraska? If your active directors in your state do not have the tournaments, the chessplayers will not get the ratings.
Mike, you live in a very small state with very few chessplayers, out of that number you have very few active directors. Its just like everything else, if you do not have an active director in the area, you do not have the tournaments.
Its very much up to the director, if I wanted to run only classical ratings only in Grand Rapids – the players would not get a quick rating. If the players wanted to get a quick rating, they would have to drive an hour to Kalamazoo just to get a few games in a given year. If the players want to get their quick rating established within a year, they are going to have to drive two or three hours to Detroit or Flint.
Now tell me Mike, if the directors in your state do not have quick or dual rated tournaments. How many chessplayers in your state are willing to drive outside the state to get a quick rating?
Nope on the subject you pointed out Mike. You pointed out eliminating dual rating completely. Did check your state Mike, and checked your state association (T5017777). Do you know how many quick only tournaments your state association has, the number is 4. Do you know how many players got a quick rating only from your association, the number is 31. Do you know the first quick only tournament you had from your association, the May Play tournament (199705291220). That was in 1997, the first quick only from your state association.
Think it this way Mike, if you live in Nebraska, and only go to the state association tournaments in your state. And you never have been in any other state to play chess. If you wanted to play in a quick only tournament, you only had 4 tournaments.
Tell me, if you get your way, how important would a quick rating be in Nebraska? Can you tell me Mike, how many chessplayers in Nebraska has an established quick rating? If we went back to your way Mike, and some adult just started to play tournaments in Nebraska – how long you think it will be for that player to get an established quick rating?
Boy, you go offline for two days and you get two pages of arguing… To answer your question Doug, our club board thought it was optional and so decided to rate this G/60 tmt as Regular. We did not feel it was really a quick time control, but I guess that is not open to interpretation. Besides, noone that I have talked to care much about the Quick ratings anyway
Given no other choice I of course went ahead and submitted the tournament in question as a Dual rated event on friday. While I am at it: this was the first event submitted online as a lowly Club TD, and I must say that entering everything was very easy (we don’t use fancy pairing software with export features). Kudo’s to Mike Nolan and others involved in developing this system!
Personally, it seems to me that G/60 is the perfect time control for a one day tournament. Historically, people could play in 2 day tournaments, but the casual player really can’t commit to a weekend like they could have a couple decades ago.
I’m not sure why these topics always go off topic for, but it seems silly that doug is making arguments over one state organizations and trying to pick fights.
As a board member for around the past five years for our state affiliate, you fail to see that not all state tournaments are submitted from that affiliate, and some states (including ours) have a bidding process for state events, which do NOT use the same affiliate.
If you wanted to, you could actually get the supplement and get the data yourself, instead of asking Mike to prove you wrong every time. Simply take the data into a database and do a query yourself. It’s really not that difficult and you can see how many Nebraska players have a quick rating.
It doesn’t bother me that regular time control events might also be quick rated. It’s that quick (to me!) time control events are also regular rated. I’m sure there really is a distinction in there somewhere…
Thanks thunderchicken to bring that up, as now I can use that information.
Just checked the top 25 playes in Nebraska. Out of the 25 top players in the state, only 10 have an established quick rating. That makes the top 25 in the state of Nebraska having an established quick rating as 40%.
Checking the MSA tournament record, the 10 members have a total of 912 events in the MSA. Out of that record, only 87 events had a quick rating change (quick or dual rated). This makes the ten players have a group average of 9.5%.
Lets break down the 87 events more, 35 events were from outside the state of Nebraska. Only 52 events were within the state of Nebraska. This will make the percentage of quick (quick or dual) within the state 59.8%.
The average age of the ten players is 32 years old. As a group they are not that old, and they are very well established in life. If you take this group of ten players, the average classical rating – 1957. The average quick rating of the group of ten, the quick rating – 1831.
Even with quick at G/5 to G/60, the numbers look very bad. Than Mike and some want to drop it back to G/5 - G/29 or G/10 - G/29. If you have poor numbers in the first place, why you want to make it worse?
Thank you thunderchicken, as you wanted me to check the numbers. I tip my hat to you, as you asked me to get the data.
The point that you are missing, and what Mike is objecting to, is that you claimed to know why the Board decided to institute Dual Rating.
You are arguing something different, which is that Dual Rating of events should not be eliminated and that it was instituted to get more people to have a Quick Rating.
Your reply sounded quite authoritative, but you are trying to argue against someone who has, if not first hand knowledge, very close to it.
I think we are looking at the same way. When the quick was at G/10 - G/29, not that many people had quick ratings. The point I want to point out, and Mike should very well understand. If the organizer and director want to have quick only tournaments – you need a large base of chessplayers.
If you do not have a larger base of active USCF members, having a quick tournament would not be ideal. You got to ask yourself, how many miles would you drive to a four round G/10 tournament; how many miles would you drive to a four round G/30 tournament; how many miles would you drive to a four round G/60 tournament?
Mike is a nice guy, but he always thinks at the national level. He love to talk about tournaments in hotels. He loves to talk about large national tournaments. Thats fine, but thats not how most tournaments happen at the grass roots level. Just to run a tournament at the local level, you got to understand how many miles someone is willing to travel.
If I was going to have a G/10 event, would be shocked to have someone drive more than 30 miles. If I was going to have a quick tournament, looking at 30 miles from the site; 60 miles for a G/30 and 90 miles for a G/60 or G/90. If there is not 50 active USCF members within 30 miles from the site – not going to organize a state wide quick tournament.
If I was the organizer in a small state like Nebraska. The population is two small to have a G/10 championship. The population at the state level is way to small to have quick tournaments at the state level. Its fine to have quick tournaments at the local club level. It would not work out at the state level.
Looking at Nebraska, one it is the state that Mike lives in. There is a feeling most of the time controls in Nebraska are G/90. Small populations of USCF members, will force the organizer to have longer time controls. When the USCF did have G/10 to G/29, it did hurt the smaller states with small populations. If you take New York, can have quick tournaments every weekend and still break even or make some profit for the organizer. If you have a very small population, the population is just not there to support quick events.
Doug, I have run plenty of tournaments in classrooms, community centers, shopping centers, restaurants, gymnasiums and church basements. I’ve also run them in hotel meeting rooms (and was banned from holding them at one motel because of poor behavior by an adult in one of those events.)
The only tournament I run these days is held at the local junior college. I no longer have the patience or stamina to run more events, and there aren’t a lot of inexpensive sites in Lincoln for them these days, either. (The local junior college used to be a free site, now they’re charging $50-$100 per room per day.)
BTW, it appears that the most commonly used time control for adult events in Nebraska is Game/60. However, we only have about 75 active adult players in the state at the moment. Among the 95 current regular adult members, 46 have a published regular rating since 1/1/2005 and 36 have a published quick rating since 1/1/2005. Nobody in Nebraska is currently running quick-only events, and most of the Game/30 events are ones for kids. I suspect most of those would remain at Game/30 even if that was changed to a quick-only time control. (I know the youth and scholastic G/30 sections in my tournament would remain at that time control.)
Thats the problem every director has to face. If you were going to have a tournament, would you have a G/10 or a G/90? Im sure you would pick the G/90. Knowing the directors in your state, they are in the same boat.
That is my point Mike, only in a large market can a director have quick only tournaments. If the director is not in a large market, they have to have longer time controls. If the area does not have the population, the area cannot support quick only tournaments. Unless the director is willing to lose money on the tournament, small populations will not have them.
If the USCF goes back to G/10 to G/29, your state and every small area of population – cannot support quick events. In time, only large markets would be able to have quick only tournaments. Even now, your state has a hard time to support G/30 to G/60 events.
Actually, I think G/15 might be a viable time control if I could find an affordable site. Start setting up around 11AM, registration at noon, rounds every 45 minutes from 12:30-4:00, I’d be home before 5:30.
It might work well with a ‘plus score’ prize format, too.
Thats great. But if you are looking for an affordable site, ask the local chess club. There are a number of chess clubs that can deal with a quick tournament better than finding a site nobody knows. Quick tournaments builds the chess club. The chess club than supports the local tournaments at G/30 to G/60. Than in time the area of the state can support a state event.
If that does not work, find the blitz players … they play in any place they can get their board set up. They will play in spots no director would ever want to have a tournament. They play in a coffee house, they play in the parks, they play were they can. Work with the blitz players and the players willing to play at G/30 to G/60. Than you got something.
I know your not going to go gun-ho like myself with tournaments, but it does work to build an active area.
I’m sure there really is a distinction in there somewhere…