IMHO, the format that CCA would probably want is OTB regular paired with online regular, based on their recent announcement that they plan to use the higher of the two.
I have mentioned this to senior staff, I haven’t heard much back on it. The program that generates the gold master/monthly formats could be modified to do that combination fairly quickly, and we could do an online-quick/online-blitz one, too, which gives us 4 format that cover all 6 systems.
We’d have to create places for the files (and indexes to them), which would involve Skvare developer time to set up and ongoing staff time to maintain.
I’m wondering whether King Registration (used by several organizers in the Midwest), Online Registration (used by CCA and some others), and other registration systems would be willing to implement (or may already have implemented) a feature to display whatever rating(s) the organizer specifies.
For example, CCA might want OTB Regular, Online Regular, and FIDE ratings to appear whenever somebody registers or asks to view the list of registrants. An organizer of a Quick event may want OTB Quick, Online Quick, OTB Regular, and Online Regular.
To push the envelope a bit further, perhaps the organizer could even be allowed to specify which rating is primary, which is secondary, etc, or even to specify “higher of” or “highest of” two or more ratings. There could even be an additional column, “chosen rating”, which could list the rating according to the organizer’s specified algorithm in this regard. To push the envelope still further (perhaps all the way into the mailbox) there could even be a viewer option to sort the players in order of this “chosen rating”.
With a lot of cooperation among U.S. Chess, authors of pairing programs, and authors of registration systems, perhaps we could end up with something really great, that even keeps future compatibility in mind.
That’s an interesting point. If someone from CCA can confirm that, I could literally have the code to produce that version in under ten minutes (seven of which is running the code to make sure it produces what I expect).
That’s probably close to what it would take me to change the program. Changing the infrastructure so there’s a place people will know to find it and a procedure for making that happen every month takes longer, and involves other people.
It occurs to me that because CCA uses SwissSys and not WinTD, it would suffice for CCA to use the monthly combined database once it includes US Chess online ratings and just configure the database setup dialog to use whatever ratings it wishes for the “Rating” and “Rating#2” fields.
Sounds as though that might work during the tournament, but I’m also wondering about registration. Can Online Registration (which CCA uses but does not own, I believe) handle two rating fields, and automatically use the higher of the two for each player? It would be convenient for players to know, when they register, what rating they will play under, and which section(s) they will be eligible for. It could also make things a little easier for CCA staff, or for that matter for any organizer who wants to use “higher of” ratings.
But this suggestion probably needs to be made to Online Registration, not to U.S. Chess.
CCA wants to use Online Regular ratings, and OTB regular if no Online Regular, for all online tournaments, even including quick and blitz. Using the higher of Online Regular and OTB Regular is mainly a stopgap to facilitate manual lookup; doing it this way it seems like only about a third of the OTB Regular ratings will have to be changed.
Online Regular ratings are needed for both SwissSys lookup and the OLR shopping cart. If USCF provides these ratings in a database as it does OTB ratings, the shopping cart will be able to use them.
Online Quick and Blitz ratings are extremely inaccurate, usually much too low. For instance Brandon Jacobson Quick 1940, Blitz 1937, Michael Rohde Quick 1937, Blitz 1779, Nicolas Checa Quick 2123, Blitz 2375, Sergey Erenburg Quick 2309, Blitz 2238 (and it’s not just high rated players that are way off). OTB Quick and Blitz are not as bad but not very accurate either (we use the higher of Regular or the fast rating for OTB fast events, but not straight Quick or Blitz because of players underrated by many classes).
Online Regular ratings are more accurate than any Quick or Blitz ratings, because players are started with their OTB Regular counting as 10 games. For most players who have been active during the past few months, Online Regular is their most accurate rating.
There has been a K factor error in the online ratings which should soon be corrected and with other changes should increase accuracy, but regular ratings of both types will probably continue to be more accurate than Quick and Blitz due to their much larger recent samples. There are players who are significantly better or worse at fast chess than regular, but there appear to be more players who are about the same strength in both but have widely differing ratings due to little or no recent fast play at a time when their regular results improved greatly.
Online-regular ratings may be accurate now (if accuracy is defined as being similar to OTB regular), because they’re only a couple of months old, but will they still be accurate a year or two from now, especially if OTB chess comes back and online chess activity drops off.
Using Regular ratings (whether OTB or online) instead of quick or blitz ratings (whether OTB or online) is certainly a good idea; I wish all organizers of quick and blitz events would do the same. (Either that, or at least use the higher of regular or quick/blitz.)
As to OTB (regular) vs online (regular), it isn’t entirely clear yet which would be better for online regular events. Only time will tell. Higher of the two might turn out to be the best option.
It’s my not-so-secret hope that organizers will eventually use higher of the two (OTB or online) for OTB regular events as well. That would be a sharp jab in the pocketbook for all those online cheaters who have not yet been caught – pair them into the higher section they cheated their way into, and see how they fare OTB where they are far less likely to get away with their nefarious deeds.
Online Regular is more accurate than OTB Regular now for players who have Online Regular ratings, as it is basically old OTB regular plus 6 months of recent online activity. As time passes, OTB Regular will get even staler and the gap in accuracy (forecasting power) will become progressively greater.
Then at some point, hopefully next year, there will be a vaccine and as you say, OTB will come back and eventually its ratings will become more accurate than Online Regular, but we don’t know how long that will take. Using the higher of the two will probably be more appropriate in this comeback period than it would be today.
We used Regular Online ratings (not the higher of Online or OTB) successfully for the Pacific Coast Open this past weekend, and I recommend that other organizers do so if compatible with their registration systems. Thanks to Ken Ballou and Mike Nolan for making this possible!
Ken Ballou and Bill Goichberg both reported problems with the November all ratings file, a new one has been prepared that should address all the reported issues.
I think the online providers (ICC, chess.com) should also give the organizer (e.g. CCA) the option of making their own pairings, whether with SwissSys, WinTD, other software, or manual pairings.
The goal is pair the sections using wintd or swisssys pass them to the bots make adjustments and start the round. the pairings that the automated programs make are “ok”, but are not perfect.
We discovered after running a few CCA events that the in-house pairing programs made acceptable, but not perfect pairings. A work around was created. I allows the inhouse paring program to read the swisssys file and use the results after
swisssys pairs for CCA online events
the mailbox) there could even be a viewer option to sort the players in order of this “chosen rating”.