The current national rating system was created primarily as a way to gauge the strengths of our players to each other. This helps in tournament parings and it gives players a number they can use to track their progress.
Currently the BCF has 183 Active players across all districts with the following breakdown:
After incorporating the system in our events over the past year we have generally been happy with the system however we feel some adjustments are necessary to the system. We would also like to offer more transparency to our players on exactly how ratings are calculated.
Ratings Adjustments
Our goals in adjusting the rating system are as follows:
To more accurately represent what we believe is the actual playing strength of our players compared to international players.
To make some aspects of the rating system such as provisional rating and k-factor more inline with the international rating systems.
The following changes were implemented in order to generate the results seen:
The provisional rating for new players will be increased from 1000 to 1300.
The current Mean Rating will be shifted from 1000 to 1300.
Standard Deviation between players will change from 33.3 to 125.
Z-Score for players will remain the same.
New adjusted ratings will be the summation of the New mean Rating (1300) and the product of the players Z-score (z) and Standard Deviation (σ). [ New Rating = 1300 + (z x σ) ]
The distribution of player ratings can be seen below.
The mean player rating has been shifted from 1000 to 1300 and the standard deviation has been changed to 125.
A provisional rating of 1300 was used following the USCF Rating system and this was also selected as the mean rating. A standard deviation of 125 was chosen as we felt it best fit the skill levels of our players, for reference, FIDE Ratings see a Standard Deviation of ~200.
Updated national ratings can be found HERE.
K-factor
The K-factor is the number that indicates the maximum number of points that you can win or lose in a single chess game. Thus, this number also indicates the speed at which you will increase or decrease your rating.
Let’s say that the K-factor number is, for instance, 40. This means that you may win up to 40 points of rating in a single game. However, it also means that you can never lose more than 40 points in a single game.
All previous tournaments, K-factor was set at 10 however going forward the BCF will be using the following K-Factor Rules which are similar to FIDE:
K = 40, for a player new to the rating list until the completion of a total of 30 games.
K = 20, for players with a rating under 2000.
K = 10, for players with any published rating of at least 2000.
Software
Currently, the BCF uses the Tournament Management Software Sevilla in all our Events. All parings and ratings adjustments are calculated in the software.
We will be using the following rating settings in all BCF events going forward:
Rating Formula: Standard
Rating Iteration: None
Aggreg. exp Rating: Sum of Individual
Start Rating: Initial
K-factor is allowed per player.
Conclusion
The BCF will keep monitoring our rating system and make improvements and adjustments where necessary. We hope these changes will excite players going forward.
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