From: bogin YAHOO CO JP> Date: 11 dec 2002 Subject: Re: Elo ratings and grades Dear Mr. Stouten, Thank you very much for the detailed explanation. Almost all of my questions have been answered but I'm still confused about why Mr. Schnider hasn't been awarded his 5dan rank. If the Japanese Shogi Renmei felt strongly enough to award him the 5dan rank based on his excellent result at the recent Shogi Forum than wouldn't that be justification enough for FESA to recognize that rank as well? I mean you can't get any better proof than having the JSR award such a rank, can you? And, if FESA recognizes the ranks of Japanese players awarded by the JSR then why shouldn't it also recognize Mr. Schnider's rank as well since it was awarded by the JSR. Also, with respect to Mr. Kolomiyets, I can perhaps understand your eplaination as it pertains to Japanese players but Mr.Jiming as only played 6 games opposed to Mr. Kolomiyets 10 and is only rated 3 points higher. And yet, he is listed at 3dan instead of 2dan. Of course, you can base ratings on the subjective assessments of other players but in Mr. Kolomiyets case it's not just anyone who made such claims. He actually beat Mr. Schnider in their individual game and only lost to Mr. Kaufman and Mr. Mirnik. I would think that they would be pretty good judges of true shogi strength. Thank you once again for the explanation. Bill Gaudry --- "Stouten, Pieter [R&D/0467]" PHARMACIA COM> $B$+$i$N%a (B $B%C%;!<%8!' (B > Hello Shogi fans, > > I would recommend that anybody interested in discussing rating and > grades-related issues first read the description of the system at > . Item 2 has a ratings-grades > correspondence table and items 2 and 12 together explain the > promotion > mechanism. > > --- bogin YAHOO CO JP> wrote: > > > Given the fact that Mr. Schnider recently did so well in > > winning the recent International Shogi Forum and was > > promoted to 5dan, why is he still listed as still only > > a 3dan on the most recent rating list? Is there some sort > > of time period that much take place before a promotion is > > recognized? > > > Gert's results at the ISF were taken into account in calculating his > new > rating, and apparently he did not meet the FESA/USSF criteria for > promotion. > Typically, when a new player with an established grade (e.g., from > Japan) > enters the Pan-Atlantic Elo list, we accept that grade. However, we > have > currently no general mechanism to change a player's grade if he > already has > an established grade with the Pan-Atlantic Elo system. I am sure this > will > be a topic of discussion within the Pan-Atlantic Elo committee (Larry > Kaufman, Hans Secelle, Asle Olufsen and me) and within FESA. > > > Also, in the same tournament, Mr. Kolomiyets also did very > > well. And, according to the postings I read here his play > > was of a very high level. > > > Subjective assessments of playing levels don't count, only results > do. > > > Then, I am confused how he could be rated over 2100 and > > yet only be considered a 2dan. > > > explains it. His rating is > above > the 4-dan lower bound (LB, 2080). That means that typically he would > automatically be awarded a 3-dan grade. However, since he has not yet > played > 18 rated games, he only gets an automatic promotion to 2-dan. Once he > has > played 18 rated games and is above the 4-dan LB, he will > automatically get > his 3-dan promotion. In order to obtain a 4-dan promotion, he would > need be > above the 4-dan LB for 16 games or above the 4-dan midpoint (MP, > 2160) for 8 > games or above the 4-dan upper bound (UB, 2240) for 1 game. Once > awarded, > grades cannot be retracted, so we require sustained performance, > which is > why Kolomiyets has not been promoted to 4-dan yet. > > > Of course, you could say that he hasn't played enough > > games yet but there are 4 people rated higher than he and > > yet they have played even fewer games. And, they are all > > 3dan or above. > > > Do you mean 4 people were rated higher or graded higher? Anyway, > maybe these > 4 people did not get their grades through the Pan-Atlantic ratings > system. > > > So, even though there may be a disparity between different > > players of the same rank, I find it hard to believe that > > is on the same level as a 1500 rated 2dan or even an 1800 > > rated 2dan. Isn't over 600 points a little big of a > > difference for players of the same rank? > > > There may be two reasons why a player has a rating well below his > grade: 1) > the grade is based on a different system than ours and might never > have been > awarded by us, 2) a player performs significantly worse than during > his > peak. I am a good example of the latter case: I deserved my 3-dan > grade when > I got it (at least I prefer to think so ), but my current rating > is near > the 2-dan MP. The fact that some players perform well below their > nominal > grade should not be an argument to promote others to grades above > that. That > leads to an inflationary system. In Europe we had a system where > players got > promoted on the basis of the grades of their opponents (rather than > their > ratings). That led to inflation of grades, which is why we replaced > it by an > Elo ratings-based grading system. > > > If dan/kyuu is being determined solely on the basis of > > one's numerical rating then would it be better to rate > > all of the players above a certain thresh hold at a > > certain rank? > > > Would you also then demote people if they fell below that rank? > > Anyway, in reality we have a system like you propose. We only require > that > players are established (i.e., have played 18 or more rated games) > and we > allow 3 ways of promotion (X games above LB, X/2 above MP or 1 above > UB). > The philosophy behind this is that if a player peaks once above the > UB of a > grade, one can safely assume he has that grade, while a player who > just > hovers above the LB has to sustain that performance for X games to > prove > that he is really of that grade. > > Hope this explains the system a bit. > > Ciao, > > Pieter __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! BB is Broadband by Yahoo! http://bb.yahoo.co.jp/