As well as being a serious Chess Player a decade or so back, I was also a qualified International Chess Arbiter. As well as running a successful Chess Club and undertaking the duties of Arbiter in Ceredigion Schools Competitions, the Aberystwyth Festival of Chess and a Women's event in the North of England. I also organised the Newport Chess Congress on one occasion. Albeit I always enjoyed playing more than organising and controlling.
The one thing that did interest me was Chess Grading. I started in the days of the English Grade, and in my first ever Match Play standard game for grading I drew with a player with an English Grade of 175. In many ways that is equivalent to an ELO Grade of 2000, but the similarities cease with the number assignment as I truly believe that English players are far better than their suppressed grades. I'm Welsh and our grades are in ELO.
Chess Grading is all about statistics and probability. We often get hung up on our Grade and sometimes search for that elusive annual increase that often evades us. Chess players tend to think of themselves as being a better player than their grade suggests. I don't know why that is, maybe we all strive for perfection, but in the cut and thrust of a real game with an approved time control the pressures and constraints placed upon us prevent us reaching our true inner potential.
Mathematically, Jeffers is statistically certain of beating me in 1 game in 100, but alas statistics and mathematical probability never determine in which of the 100 games Jeffers will win, or if there will be a variance that allows him to win 2 or more games. I have an = score against a Welsh Olympian over three games, + = -
That should not have been the case according to the tables and the mathematics. But hey ho, I smashed him up with a piece sacrifice in Round 1 of a Weekend Tournament and bluffed my way out of trouble in the second game a few months later when I deliberately left a piece en-prise. He declined the piece believing that I had seen another piece sacrifice and instead opted for a draw by repetition. A few months later he beat me. Mathematically the + = - results should not have happened as they were contrary to the scheme of things.
This is how Chess Grades are worked out. Well it's a tad more complicated than that but the sequence involves attributing a KNOWN CHESS GRADE from the previous season, or an assigned TEMPORARY CHESS GRADE for new players. Checking a probability table against the KNOWN or TEMPORARY GRADE of one player against the KNOWN GRADE of the other player and thereby making the grading adjustment depending on the result. The adjustment is by way of a mathematical calculation. To obtain a full CHESS GRADE a player has to complete 16 games in one season when using a match play chess set and board and clocks set against approved rates of play. The grading adjustment for all players moves as the season's game results are considered. But this work is completed in hindsight as Chess Grades are calculated in arrears, i.e. the season finishes before the Grading Officer considers the grades. The Chess Grading list is then issued before or just after that start of the next season (depending on how busy the Grading Officer has been over the Summer).
The higher up you go the more complicated things become in that top players have to achieve a CHESS NORM, i.e. it's not just about the grade. The player has to hold a recognised grade in ELO points (a FIDE International Grade) at the appropirate level and also demonstrate an average standard of playing results at the grading level that they are aiming for. And demonstrate this standard on more than one occasion so that the demonstrated standard is not a fluke. As I have explained tables and probabilities are open to variances so the top player has to show that the achieved result on one occasion is not a variance. The top player with the appropriate FIDE grade would achieve a result that is equivalent to an International Master (IM) or Grandmaster (GM) and this result would be assigned as an IM or GM Norm as appropriate. When they have enough 'Norms' and have maintained their FIDE Grade at the appropriate level then they would become an International Master or Grandmaster. Alas, this is something that will not happen for me.
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