Changes in ICU & Rating site

sinbad68

There has been changes to ICU & rating sites, some of these changes are positive and others are negative/unnecessary. Good news is that the executive at last has shown some initiative which is welcomed.

On ICU site, the fact that recorded games can be now replayed ( long overdue) on a chess board is good news, one problem with it is that there is NO flip the board option, so the game could be studied from either of players point of view, I and many players would like to replay the games looking from a winning position. Moving the chess board to the centre on the webpage would also be good, so people don't get a crick in their neck.

As for the Rating site

creating over 50,60,65 sections is unnecessary and Not good, Apart from making some players feel old, some ladies don't want their age so readily displayed. It could have a feature, if someone wanted to look up certain age groups, they could manually enter an age and check the site .

Rating site is really good but it's main failing is that, players who change clubs or not affiliated to a club are not moved by rating site, causing confusion . It also should have a little box you can click, so you have the option of seeing active players only ( those who have played a rated game in the past 14 months) for example in ICU website's update report, Kevin O'connell has been congratulated for being the highest rated Senior( over 50 ) player in Ireland . The fact is, he does NOT appear to have played a single standard rated game this century !!, and I doubt would be the current strongest over 50 player in Ireland. Does anyone know our rating officer ( who is doing a great job) actual rating ?.

HaraldSchmidt

[Deleted by poster]

However, I am interested in ideas for the website, and welcome emails to webmaster@icu.ie.

Chess_Coach

Does rating officer need rating to do his job ?

sinbad68

Chess_Coach wrote: »

Does rating officer need rating to do his job ?

No, there is No need, I mentioned it as it is very unusual for a federation's rating officer not to have a rating. May I presume he is related to Robbie kildea? and hence the interest in involvement in ICU in general.He has never been formally identified to me but if I am not mistaken he was an arbiter in Galway Congress last year and has a very high threshold for cold air and when everyone else is walking around with jumpers and jackets on, he walks around with a sleeveless shirt !.I was in Galway congress last year, it is October, the room is cool and no heating on and one of the arbiters in sleeveless shirt whispered to pete morris that it was too warm in the room! and he was going to ask the receptionist to put the air conditioning on , it was too far for me to hear the conversation but Sinbad is very good at Lip reading !, so a few minutes later cold air started flowing into the room and most put on their jackets and woolly hats on and I had to leave my game to find the air conditioning knobs and switched it off before we froze to death.

Chess_Coach

LOL. That could be him . I have to tell you that he was working very hard last year to save our website and rating . It was very bad time for us . If I write more I ll be banned so I better .... you know. In fairness our new website is ok now not great but ok ish. For many years I wrote to MO that previous website looked like 12 years old project . Remember that Green and Black mess we had before. Now I would like to see website as ECF one . http://www.englishchess.org.uk/ We would certainly have one this year but now when Herald took over it could actually go towards green and black mess hacked by Russian mafia ! As it was in the past .

sinbad68

Creating over 50,60,65 sections on rating site does NOTHING but highlight older ICU members age and making many uncomfortable.If anyone thinks it was a good decision, explain please. There should have been an announcement of intent, survey & consultation or a poll with older icu members prior to introducing this feature.

The time & energy wasted on this project could have gone to something positive. for example....

Trying to correct the differential between ICU and Fide ratings which has been put on the long finger by successive executives which will exacerbate with the introduction of LCU being rated every two rounds which means tons of bonus points collected by many players at the end of league will be absent this season.

Tim Harding

The FIDE rating of LCU leagues being changed to every two rounds instead of end-season was a FIDE requirement.

https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=172&view=article

See clause 4.13.

I am inclined to think that the Leinster leagues still do not meet all the formal requirements to be FIDE-rated.
Matches frequently do not start on time and it is not uncommon for team lists to be declared only after the start time.
Except for the final round it is rare for an arbiter to be on hand to resolve disputes that can and do arise.

On the point about ICU publishing Seniors lists, this was definitely NOT my idea although I have been working behind the scenes to try and organise an Irish senior team for next year.
At present the lists seem to be based in part on inaccurate data about players' ages (the same is true of the FIDE rating list) and I have drawn ICU's attention to this.
I think it is a player's responsibility to let ICU know if they are in the wrong age group or if their birth year on the FIDE rating site is missing or incorrect.

Everyone (especially me!) knows that the more a 60+ player competes, the faster his/her rating is liable to decline (with the exception of an occasional good tournament) so the lists give a false impression. Especially if they were intended to provide an objective criterion for senior team selection.
Including inactive players is clearly meaningless. (Most inactive or expat seniors are, unlike Kevin O'Connell, no longer ICU members).
The lists would be more meaningful if they also showed the number of rated games played in the last six or twelve months.

sinbad68

Tim Harding wrote: »

The FIDE rating of LCU leagues being changed to every two rounds instead of end-season was a FIDE requirement.

I know, Rating every 2 rounds is a positive development, in the past, players entered other tournaments during the league season and their rating would change during the season and yet final rating calculation was done based on most recent rating and not their rating at the time of their league match.What I have said is, maybe there should be a comparison analysis of average rating difference between ICU & fide rating and perhaps try to correct it, specially now that there is No bonus points in LCU leagues tournament.

Tim Harding wrote: »

On the point about ICU publishing Seniors lists, this was definitely NOT my idea although I have been working behind the scenes to try and organise an Irish senior team for next year.

There is an annual senior competition in Drogheda , it doesn't have great numbers, the reason it doesn't and why you may have difficulty getting a good team is........ because many senior ICU members don't want to get banded together in what they may view as a group of geriatric players.

Tim Harding wrote: »

Including inactive players is clearly meaningless.The lists would be more meaningful if they also showed the number of rated games played in the last six or twelve months.

As far as I know inactive players just like active players still have to handover subscription fees if they want their names to stay in the ICU January rating list, if ICU gets cash for keeping their names in the rating list while they rest on their laurels, that is fine, but as I said before it would be good to have a little box on rating site which you can tick, allowing you to see active players only.

Tim Harding

Sinbad and moderators, can we please transfer all discussion about the Seniors aspect to the new thread I started on possible Seniors teams, so as not to clog up this thread about changes on the ICU and rating websites.

I will reply on your points later in the other thread. (Yes I do know about the Drogheda veterans; I won it this year. Almost total lack of advance publicity is the main reason few people entered; the second main reason is that because of low entries in previous years also, it's not taken very seriously by many eligible players, I guess.)

Chess_Coach

Is ICU website under some work at the moment ?

https://www.icu.ie/

Tim Harding

Chess_Coach wrote: »

Is ICU website under some work at the moment ?

https://www.icu.ie/

I am not having any problem with it. It even worked for me yesterday afternoon when some people were complaining.

Maybe it depends on which ISP you have? I am with Hosting Ireland in Waterford.

historian

Explanation provided by webmaster yesterday on the other thread: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057507789