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FIDE Ratings Revisited

Very insightful!

Very insightful!

For more than a decade, we have rating systems with floating K factor (say, Glicko and its modifications). I had my own version implemented for evaluating DotA2 tournaments, which was far more accurate than Elo, assuming less games played and constant roster reshuffling, even accounting for region-locked tournaments. It is also stable under influx of new players. You can even plug-in current ratings into new calculation system - and it will recalibrate itself in few years. I guess FIDE just doesn't see it as an issue which needs to be fixed.

For more than a decade, we have rating systems with floating K factor (say, Glicko and its modifications). I had my own version implemented for evaluating DotA2 tournaments, which was far more accurate than Elo, assuming less games played and constant roster reshuffling, even accounting for region-locked tournaments. It is also stable under influx of new players. You can even plug-in current ratings into new calculation system - and it will recalibrate itself in few years. I guess FIDE just doesn't see it as an issue which needs to be fixed.

@Vlad_G92 said in #1:

Comments on lichess.org/@/vlad_g92/blog/fide-ratings-revisited/BN89yF7d

Decrease of participation in fide rated tournaments by disillusioned players is limited. As I wrote last year in https://schaken-brabo.blogspot.com/2024/02/inactiviteit-deel-2.html the decrease of adults-participation is happening already for at least 2 decades. The main reason is that adults have nowadays much more different interests to choose from.

@Vlad_G92 said in #1: > Comments on lichess.org/@/vlad_g92/blog/fide-ratings-revisited/BN89yF7d Decrease of participation in fide rated tournaments by disillusioned players is limited. As I wrote last year in https://schaken-brabo.blogspot.com/2024/02/inactiviteit-deel-2.html the decrease of adults-participation is happening already for at least 2 decades. The main reason is that adults have nowadays much more different interests to choose from.

Nice article!
We all know that many Asian players are heavily underrated. However, I guess that in your calculations this fact might be a bit overrepresented in some cases, as it's mostly young (and thus more underrated) players who play most abroad, while older players with more accurate ratings do not play outside their countries that much, at least in some cases. And at the very top (say, TOP 100) the differences might be lower, as those people usually play more often against each other than against their fellow-citizens.

Nice article! We all know that many Asian players are heavily underrated. However, I guess that in your calculations this fact might be a bit overrepresented in some cases, as it's mostly young (and thus more underrated) players who play most abroad, while older players with more accurate ratings do not play outside their countries that much, at least in some cases. And at the very top (say, TOP 100) the differences might be lower, as those people usually play more often against each other than against their fellow-citizens.

@ILikeBlitz said in #5:

Nice article!
We all know that many Asian players are heavily underrated. However, I guess that in your calculations this fact might be a bit overrepresented in some cases, as it's mostly young (and thus more underrated) players who play most abroad, while older players with more accurate ratings do not play outside their countries that much, at least in some cases. And at the very top (say, TOP 100) the differences might be lower, as those people usually play more often against each other than against their fellow-citizens.

Yes I agree with this remark. I saw earlier some age-segmentation charts per country and there exist big differences. So to compare countries one needs first to eliminate the age-factor.

@ILikeBlitz said in #5: > Nice article! > We all know that many Asian players are heavily underrated. However, I guess that in your calculations this fact might be a bit overrepresented in some cases, as it's mostly young (and thus more underrated) players who play most abroad, while older players with more accurate ratings do not play outside their countries that much, at least in some cases. And at the very top (say, TOP 100) the differences might be lower, as those people usually play more often against each other than against their fellow-citizens. Yes I agree with this remark. I saw earlier some age-segmentation charts per country and there exist big differences. So to compare countries one needs first to eliminate the age-factor.

What a great article (I sure did read it all)

What a great article (I sure did read it all)

Russia has this really problematic dual-rating system that's creating chaos in competitive chess. It got own national rating system that mimics FIDE - starts everyone at 1000 (with no performance-based entry, which is its own can of worms). These national ratings determine everything from 3 kadet category to (natioal) candidate master category.

Here's where it gets messy: Because FIDE-rated tournaments cost money to organize, most local events only use free national system. So when players - especially very young players - finally enter serious FIDE competitions, you get this absurd mismatch: A kid might be 2000-strength nationally, playing at 2000 FIDE level, but only has 1700 in FIDE because of rare-play in elo rated events.

The result? These underrated players massively overperform, tanking everyone else's ratings in the process. Before you know it, you've got an entire generation stuck with artificially deflated FIDE ratings :-)

Russia has this really problematic dual-rating system that's creating chaos in competitive chess. It got own national rating system that mimics FIDE - starts everyone at 1000 (with no performance-based entry, which is its own can of worms). These national ratings determine everything from 3 kadet category to (natioal) candidate master category. Here's where it gets messy: Because FIDE-rated tournaments cost money to organize, most local events only use free national system. So when players - especially very young players - finally enter serious FIDE competitions, you get this absurd mismatch: A kid might be 2000-strength nationally, playing at 2000 FIDE level, but only has 1700 in FIDE because of rare-play in elo rated events. The result? These underrated players massively overperform, tanking everyone else's ratings in the process. Before you know it, you've got an entire generation stuck with artificially deflated FIDE ratings :-)

Very well written article! I'm not pretending to be a chess connoisseur, I started playing in 2020 (as many of us did, I imagine). But I really dug into it back then, and after reading and partly understanding how ratings work, I remember asking myself why FIDE is still using the totally outdated (and outmatched) Elo system while there are far superior (albeit still flawed) systems available.

The job of a rating system like that is (to me) a very simple one: predict the outcome of chess games. And the Elo system has been sub-par at this since far before I started playing.

But here's what I don't quite understand in your article: You are talking about rating deflation and how it is bad. But my naive mind thinks: How is that bad? If everybody is affected by the deflation, everyone's number gets smaller. But that doesn't change anything. It doesn't change how good or bad anyone is, it just changes what the number means. How you interpret it. To me, that just sounds like chess players being obsessed with a number, instead of performance. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that is what is actually happening, I'm sure there is something I don't understand, but that is how it sounds to me, an amateur.

Very well written article! I'm not pretending to be a chess connoisseur, I started playing in 2020 (as many of us did, I imagine). But I really dug into it back then, and after reading and partly understanding how ratings work, I remember asking myself why FIDE is still using the totally outdated (and outmatched) Elo system while there are far superior (albeit still flawed) systems available. The job of a rating system like that is (to me) a very simple one: predict the outcome of chess games. And the Elo system has been sub-par at this since far before I started playing. But here's what I don't quite understand in your article: You are talking about rating deflation and how it is bad. But my naive mind thinks: How is that bad? If everybody is affected by the deflation, everyone's number gets smaller. But that doesn't change anything. It doesn't change how good or bad anyone is, it just changes what the number _means_. How you interpret it. To me, that just sounds like chess players being obsessed with a number, instead of performance. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that is what is actually happening, I'm sure there is something I don't understand, but that is how it sounds to me, an amateur.

Great article, thank you!

Great article, thank you!