GRADING

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updated 7.8.04
BCF GRADING
GRADING LIST 2004
rjh 7.8.04
The List appeared in Scarborough on Monday 2nd August, bang on schedule, and we're sorry if this Notice is a few days late. You can have the List by post from the BCF Office @£17 including postage: same price as last year. Cover is a tasteful shade of white, with a "BCF Centenary" logo on it for good measure.
This year as last it would be inappropriate for your Webmaster to review the List. He had too much to do with its making. So we'll stick to facts. It's not as many pages as last year (239 pages of names, compared with 263) but in fact the number of names is about 350 greater. Space has been saved by restricting clubs to a maximum of two per player. At least that will cut down the complaints about clubs people haven't belonged to since 1984. The Statistical Survey at the end has gone, but in truth it was always a survey of the previous year's List. It is replaced by a much briefer survey, in the Introduction, of the new list contrasted with the old one. We give it here.

Players published

2003
12468

2004
12814

STANDARD
Players published
A grades
B grades
C grades
D grades
E grades

10436
  1804 (av 131)
  1628 (121)
  2572 (115)
  2667 (107)
  1765 (100)

10435
  1841 (131)
  1589 (119)
  2482 (115)
  2693 (106)
  1830 (  98)

RAPID
Players published
A grades
B grades
C grades
D grades
E grades

  4015
    590 (  90)
    318 (  93)
    513 (  98)
  1469 (  82)
  1125 (  65)

  4515
    596 (  84)
    328 (  80)
    593 (  94)
  1662 (  70)
  1336 (  56)

The total number of halfgames graded this year was 302,722 (last year 293,760). Standard chess graded has remained roughly static, and Rapid has continued its climb. Is the Rapid increase mostly Junior? The average grades suggest that it may be. Dammit we said we'd stick to facts. Will the climb be reversed when the 2004-5 Junior Game Fee kicks in? Who knows, but a number of Junior organisations have said they'll be paying. A number have said they won't.

Events omitted
Three events contrived to mislay their results, one other never materialised, and in contrast to last year a couple of small submissions arrived too late to get into the printed list. Otherwise everything is thought to be in.
     SCCU omissions: Mind Sports Olympiad (results mislaid); plus the Surrey Individual Championships and Insurance CC results, both of which missed the cutoff date.
     Oh, and no one deleted the Thames Valley League by accident this year, so there isn't a three-page supplement putting it right.

What's new?
There has been one major innovation. In the past, the printed list has gone on sale at the British completely unchecked. Well, unchecked as to detail. Checks will have been made for duplicated events and silly results, and for statistical oddities like the number of games being half what it ought to be, or the average grade being 206, or the distribution of A-E grades looking peculiar. It went a bit further than that. But detail, no. Whether it really was Jim on board 3 in that match, and whether he really won the game, are questions which have never been addressed until his opponent complained after the list was published. This sort of question is not rare, and your Webmaster has never been comfortable with a list which the BCF sells for money without so much as looking. It knows full well that mistakes will be rife.
     This year, Jim's game was checked. All right, that's overstating it. What happened was this. A fortnight before the results deadline, when the bulk of results were in, all emailable Direct Members were sent a personal list of results received so far, and invited to check it. Other Responsible Persons, like Graders who aren't DMs, were included. The Management Board would have been, but they're all DMs anyway. Well, so we assume. The total sample was around 700 people. This led to 200+ responses and a lot of corrections, all of which have been checked at source and incorporated in the published list. Often it turned out not to have been Jim at all. This mattered quite a lot when he'd played twelve times in a league and it was really Fred every time.
     I don't think this was anything like a solution to incorrect results. (We are now firmly in Opinion territory, if you hadn't noticed.) For one thing, it took no account of events received in the next two weeks. For another, it involved only the people who could readily be asked. It was the wrong way to do it, but the right way was not available. The right way is even more firmly in Opinion territory, and I won't promise not to return to it. But it must be fair to say this is the most checked list the BCF has done.

September amendments list
I mustn't forget the other innovation. The BCF has often published, perhaps sporadically and not always completely, lists of amended grades. This year it has promised one, on paper, by the start of September in time for the new league season. It will include all verifiable corrections received up to 15th August. My information is that it would have probably more than 200 names in it if published tomorrow. If (and only if!) you have bought a full printed List you are entitled to a copy of the amendment list free of charge. Write to the BCF Office (BCF, The Watch Oak, Chain Lane, Battle, East Sussex TN33 0YD) with an addressed (but not stamped) DL envelope marked "Grading amendments".

Earlier material is in the Archive.