Calculating grading prizes?

Razzen

Hi all,

Just back from great weekend in Bunratty, My first visit and I'll definitely be back, well done to all the winners, and great job by all the organisers.

I was happy enough and had a good weekend and a few people mentioned I might win a grading prize, but unfortunately not..next time

Anyway my question is how are grading prizes calculated? I've figured out the bands bit, and that it's usually the highest score within a band (who isn't already an overall winner?) but how do they split the ties, which seem common enough especially the bigger the tournament I'm guessing.

Is it something I'd need a computer to work out or is it something more simple? Would 2 draws be better than a win and a lose for example? or would a traveling bye be advantages or disadvantages etc.. just curious to learn some more

cdeb

Apparently there was a new tie-break method this year - in the case of a tie for a grading prize, the player who had exceeded their expected score by the bigger or biggest margin won the prize.

So yes, a travelling bye would be a disadvantage for example (down as expected score of nil and actual score of nil) But two draws would be the same as a win and a loss.

Razzen

Thanks.. I'm still totally confused , I guess I should just win more games and not have to worry about calculations

cdeb

So say two players scored 4½/6. But the players' expected scores - based off the ratings of their opponents compared to their own ratings - were 3 and 3½ respectively. This means the first player was only expected to score 3/6, but got 4½, while the second player was expected to do slightly better - to get 3½/6. The grading prize would go to the first player - they got 1.5 more than they were expected do, whereas the second player got 1 point more than expected.

You can see how everyone did compared to their expected score on the website.

Briefly on expected score - if you play someone the same rating as yourself, your expected score is 0.5. Not surprisingly, you're expected to be just as good as someone who's just as good as you. If there's a 100 point gap, the expected score is (roughly) 0.33. For 200 points, that becomes 0.25. 300 points = 0.16, 400 points - 0.10, etc. This is also the basis of how ratings changes are calculated.

Razzen

OK looking at the difference stuff makes much sense now.. playing against a 0 in round 1 didn't help

onwards and upwards..

cdeb

By 0, do you mean an unrated player?

They're a law unto themselves in these calculations.

Best bet is just to try enjoy your chess.

Razzen

Yup an unrated player.. I can't say much, kilkenny was my first tournament, so still only provisional myself.. Yup less headaches trying to calculate grading prizes and more fun just playing chess.