Great. I’m still waiting for someone to crack the 60 minute barrier (having an event rated and posted on the web within 60 minutes of when it ends.) There are several windows for this each day, but they’re fairly small. The latest one is currently between 7:47 and 8:01 in the evening (central time), earlier ones begin at 5:47 PM, 3:47 PM and 11:47 AM. (I doubt many events end that early in the day, though.)
We’re getting ready to switch to a new production database server that is enough faster that it may enable us to change the schedule somewhat, hopefully getting in one more ratings cycle each evening, or possibly even rating events until 1 or 2 AM. (We will still need a 4-8 hour window overnight for systems maintenance tasks, such as backing up the database and running daily reports.)
Here’s an interesting table, it shows the percentage of events that have been rated the same day they ended by quarter since July of 2005:
Back in February on the 3rd (A Saturday) I gave it my best shot. We Had a Scholastic and the Museum we held it in had just gotten public wifi access available. The tournament was done by about 3 or 3:30. I had gotten all the memberships stuff in by round 4 and while they were awarding prizes I submitted the tournament fully expecting it to be rated by 5 at the latest.
But the MSA was doing a rerate or something and it didn’t get rated until much later.
Could not have asked for faster rating than the Illinois State Scholastic Received. 700 player tournament was submitted at 8:25 pm and was rated that evening.
Mike Nolan, can you check when the following tournament was rated? I played the last game, which ended at about 7:00 or 7:30pm Pacific time on 12/17. The MSA says the tournament was rated on 12/17, which (accounting for the 3 hour time difference) must mean it was rated in 2 hours or less. If I remember correctly, it was rated before I got home (30 minutes drive).
Another tournament that was processed very quickly was the 2005 US G/10 Championship, which finished at about 1:30 or 2:00. The tournament was already rated by the time I got back into my Las Vegas hotel room after a long lunch (maybe around 4:00).
200612171771 was initially uploaded at 21:50 and rated at 22:05 on the 17th, so it must have been pretty clean.
200506135341 was initially uploaded at 18:50 and was rated at 20:03. (It looks like he JUST MISSED the 7PM rate cycle, by less than 20 seconds.)
I think Phil Smith’s goal is to get an event rated and up on the web from a national event before the award ceremony starts. He’s gotten pretty fanatical about it.
No doubt having web access at the site helps, especially if the TD does a ‘test’ upload of the event after round 1 to check for membership issues.
The event (2 sections, 37 players) was first uploaded at 21:50:05, it was revised once, re-validated and then submitted for rating at 21:54:04, less than 4 minutes after the initial upload! (It was rated during the next hourly cycle, which started at 22:01.)
Those would be rather difficult windows to hit, I would think. Some 4-round 1-day G/60s end around 6:30; most slower events much later than that. Maybe if you’d add a window between 6:47 and 7:01 pm …
By the way, how do you know when a tournament ends? The formula (announced final-round starting time) + 2*(announced time control) wouldn’t be too reliable, I’d guess.
I don't think there would be any way for the TD/A online submission program, or the MSA website, to determine when the event actually "ended" (presumably when the last flag falls?). What if a certain Expert from Brooklyn is there, and is playing until mate, but the TD "guessed" the result to expedite the rating report?
The best guess about actual "ending" time would be the upload time I would think (but only if the upload is on the same day the tournament ended). If the tournament actually ended at 1 pm, but wasn't unloaded until 7:59 pm, wouldn't it appear to have been rated only 2 minutes after it "ended" (if it had made the 8:01 pm window)?
Well our two day Greater Peoria Open Tournament had round 5 scheduled at 1:45pm. We had Game 120 with the 5 second delay ( didn’t deduct any time for the delay.) In theory the tournament was suspose to end by approximately 6pm. I had the rating submitted by around 5:30 to 5:40 and it was up and rated on the MSA pages by 7:00pm
Oh yeah the games were all done by a little after 5 and I actually drove home before I submitted the report. I could have pushed the envelope and submitted it from the site but I wanted to leave room for improvement.
My friends and I would play quads, etc on sundays at my house, which they’d be rated at the end of the tournament (wireless at my house, might as well submit it before I turn it off, etc).
