From: bogin YAHOO CO JP> Date: 12 dec 2002 Subject: Re: Elo ratings and grades I want to thank Mr. Stouten, Mr. Kaufman, Mr. Cheymol and all of the other people that have replied to my earlier posting. I really was only curious about the FESA ratings and I didn't mean to stir up a hornets nest. Also, sorry for any confusion I caused using the terms "ranking" and "rating". As Mr. Kaufman and Mr. Stouten wrote, the are many ways other than actual tournament play to achieve a rank from the JSR. Of course, it would be nice if everyone received there rank through actual play but that just doesn't seem to be the case. However, I believe that even those that achieve there rank through shogi magazines are considered, at least on the surface, to be the equals in rank by the JSR(NSR) to those that have received there rank through actual. There is no asterisk after there rank and there are not given that rank as an honor. Rightly or wrongly, the JSR has decided to recognize those people as deserving of a certain rank. Even if you only consider those that achieve their rank through actual play, one could argue that since certain clubs are stronger than certain others that certain players are more deserving of there rank than others. It's possible that a person could even take it to an even further (absurd) extreme and argue that Japanese Shogi is one club and the rest of the world is another. Therefore one group may be more deserving of there ranks then another. It seems to me that if unless you're willing to recognize some of the ranks that the JSR recognizes then you should be willing to recognize them all. I have to admit that I was one of those that believed in the erroneous assumption that the winner of the recent Shogi Forum was undeserving of the 5dan. But, having read the posts on this board and reading various Japanese shogi magazines I don't agree with that position at all anymore. I believe that December issue of Shogi Sekai magazine even refereed to the recent Shogi Forum individual tournament winner as the top amateur in the world. Obviously, the author of that article would not have lavished such high praise on the winner if he felt that it was undeserved. I must say that I do agree with Mr. Cheymol when he mentions all of the posts congratulating Mr. Schnider on his excellent result. Most of them seem to be in response to my earlier mistaken posting about the illegitimacy of his promotion to 5dan. Quite a lot of people enthusiastically replied congratulating Mr. Schnider and expressing there support for his promotion. So, it's confusing now that FESA has not yet recognized this promotion as well. If the JSR views Mr. Schnider to have earned this rank then why should FESA as well? Whatever, a players rank is it seems that FESA tournaments are paired according to a player's numerical rating. So, I can't understand how recognizing any JSR rank at all can affect the running of a tournament. It seems pointless to not recognize Mr. Schnider's achievement. Bill Gaudry __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! BB is Broadband by Yahoo! http://bb.yahoo.co.jp/