09 October 2017

Harkness Ratings for the Swiss System

Continuing with The Harkness System Explained, in that post I used excerpts from Harkness's own writings in Chess Life (CL), more than 65 years ago:-

[Harkness, CL 1952-05-20] was the first in a series of eight articles under the title 'How the Rating System Works'. [...] The last two articles in the Harkness explanation of his rating system described rules for rating a Swiss System. I'll cover that in my next post in this series.

1952-08-20: '7. Rating Swiss System Tournaments' • In this post, I'll look at those last two articles.

To rate a Swiss System event we evaluate the performance of each player as though he were competing in an independent tournament. No contestant plays against the same set of opponents as any other contestant, so we must measure the strength of the competition each player meets. We do this in the same way as we determine the average strength of a round-robin tournament -- by listing the ratings of a player and all his opponents, then finding the median value. This value is called a player's "competition average." Then we compute performance ratings as described in parts 5 and 6 of this series, adding or subtracting points from each player's competition average in accordance with his score.

The process of rating Swiss System tournaments is summed up in the above paragraph, but a great many of the details have been omitted. For the sake of those who want to know exactly what we do, this article and the next in the series are devoted to a fuller explanation. If you find the description too boring to read, you will have to take our word for it that we go to a lot of trouble to achieve a high degree of accuracy.

Perhaps the simplest way to explain the process is to describe the various steps in detail, using the recent U.S Open Championship as an example.

1. After correcting the usual mistakes in the round-by-round analysis of the tournament report, and after cancelling all byes and defaults, we list down on our work-sheet the names of all players and their net scores. By net scores we mean the points won and lost for games actually played. Although the U.S. Open was a 12-round event, some of the contestants played less than 12 games.

2. The second step is to write down what we call the "work-sheet ratings" of all players whose performances during the previous five years have been recorded on cards in the active files. Each player's rating is written after his name. As described below, some ratings are taken from the records of rating one tournament. [...]

3. The third step is to issue performance ratings to the unrated contestants. so that these figures may be used to find the competition averages of the rated contestants. The process is complicated and consists of three operations: [...]

Harkness introduced his next article with a visual overview of his calculations.


U.S. Open championship, Tampa 1952; Average: 1980
(Column Headers:) No., Player, Net Score, Last Avg., Work-Sheet (1 & 2), Competition, Performance

1952-09-05: '8. Rating Swiss System Tournaments (continued)'

In the seventh article of this series we started a description of the various steps that are taken to rate a Swiss System tournament, using the U.S. Open of 1952 as an example. In the present article we continue the explanation.

4. The fourth step of the process is to issue performance ratings to the players with provisional ratings. This is done as a separate operation so that we may correct the work-sheet ratings of these players before tackling the fully-rated contestants.

When a player has never before competed in a rated event we have to accept the performance as the only available indication of his ability; but we can do something about correcting a possible error in the figure used to represent the strength of a player who has competed in one previous tournament. What we do is to average his provisional rating and his performance rating, then substitute this new figure in the column of work-sheet ratings. We use this corrected rating when finding the competitive averages of his opponents [...]

5. As the final step, we issue performance ratings to the fully rated contestants in the tournament. As a result of the work done up to this point we now have a column of work-sheet ratings that is more accurate than our original list. (The final list is column 2 of the work-sheet ratings in the table above.) We have done all that we possibly can to make sure that the performances of the players with established ratings will not be distorted by mistakes in the ratings of their less experienced opponents. [...]

In that series of eight articles written in 1952, Harkness went to great lengths to describe the mechanics of his system. I've left out (indicated by '[...]') most of the detail and all of the examples. He also considered the use of ratings to produce Swiss System pairings. In the next post in this series, I'll look at his thoughts on pairings.

08 October 2017

Bogart's MCO

Although it's fairly well known that Humphrey Bogart played chess -- he even has a page on Chessgames.com, Humphrey Bogart -- he has never been mentioned on this blog. Thanks to this ongoing series on Top eBay Chess Items by Price, that's about to change.

The item below was titled 'Chess book signed by Humphrey Bogart'. It sold for US $666.00 after four bids from two bidders. The first bidder entered the auction with an unknown maximum bid and a few days later the second bidder placed three bids, finally giving up at US $656.

The description said only,

This is a chess book presumably owned by Humphrey Bogart, who was a 2100 ranked player. (Google it.) The book is in tattered shape but the collectible value to the right individual is "priceless".

Under Bogart's signature are two phrases. Taking a clue from the 'p' in his signature, the first phrase appears to be 'Comparative Chess' (no clue what that means), while the second is 'Chess Fundamentals'. The title page says something like,

Modern Chess Openings
By Griffith and White

Completely revised
by
P.W.Sergeant
(Author of Morphy's Games of Chess, etc.)

R.C.Griffith (Editor, British Chess Magazine; British Chess Champion, 1912-13)
and
M.E.Goldstein, B.Sc. (Middlesex Champion, 1924-25)

Specially Compiled for Match and Tournament Players

Fifth Edition

Leeds:
Whitehead & Miller Ltd.
Elmwood Lane

 

This appears to be the 1932 edition. (Project for a rainy day: sort out the various editions of MCO.)

06 October 2017

No Knight Presence

But that could be a (half) Bishop on the left or maybe a Pawn. As for the piece on the right, it could be a King/Queen fusion sort of thing.


Art on Park Ave Chess Pieces © Flickr user J J under Creative Commons.

The description said,

Night Presence IV • This sculpture of welded Cor-Ten steel was given by Louise Nevelson to the City to commemorate her 50th year of living and working in New York. Said Nevelson, "New York represents the whole of my conscious life and I thought it fitting that I should give it something of myself."

Other sources say the gift was made in 1973. Nevelson's Wikipedia page, Louise Nevelson, says,

Louise Nevelson (1899–1988) was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Born in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine), she emigrated with her family to the United States in the early 20th century.

For more about the sculpture, see Night Presence IV, Not Present (full-stop.net), where the word 'chess' isn't mentioned. The game doesn't appear to have had much additional influence on Nevelson's work.

05 October 2017

1967 World Juniors

My previous post October 1967 'On the Cover', had a paragraph on the 1967 World Junior Championship. Quoting from Chess Review (CR),

Puerto Rican Champion Julio Kaplan, who is 17, won the Junior World Championship, held in Jerusalem. [...] Raymond Keene of Great Britain was runnerup with a total of 5 1/2 points; and Jan Timmans [sic; Timman] of the Netherlands was third with 5.

Along with a photo of winner Kaplan, the article included photos of Keene and Timman, reproduced below.

As far as I can tell, Kaplan never advanced to a World Championship qualifying tournament. Keene and Timman both played in European zonals in the 1970s, without qualifying further:-

In subsequent zonal cycles, Keene was replaced by other English players, of whom the strongest was Tony Miles:-

Timman tied for first with Miles in the 1978 Amsterdam zonal, and qualified to play in the Interzonal stage:-

In 1979, Timman finished a half point behind a trio tying for 1st-3rd, narrowly missing qualification into the Candidates matches. He was less successful in 1982, when he was seeded by rating, but starting in 1985, qualifed into the Candidates stage for four consecutive cycles.

03 October 2017

October 1967 'On the Cover'

Fifty years ago, the Chess Life half of the two major American chess magazines got a new look. See last month's post, September 1967 'On the Cover', for an example of the old cover.


Left: 'International Master William Addison'
Right: 'World Junior Champion'

Chess Life (report by tournament runner-up 'Sammy' Reshevsky)

A serious problem arose just before the start of the recent International Tournament at Maribor, Yugoslavia. The organizing committee was anxious to have the event classified as a "1A" tournament, which required, according to FIDE regulations, the participation of eight International Grandmasters and four International Masters. However, William Addison of San Francisco was erroneously considered the fourth International Master. The problem was solved when International Master N. Minev was substituted for Yugoslav Master S. Puc. Fortunately, Minev was in Yugoslavia at the time and was contacted just as he was about to depart. The advantage of a "1A" tournament is that a Master has the opporunity of acquiring the coveted International Master title by achieving a 50% score.

The tournament classification worked in Addison's favor. He scored exactly 50% to make the norm and gain the IM title.

Chess Review

Puerto Rican Champion Julio Kaplan, who is 17, won the Junior World Championship, held in Jerusalem. He looks a fighter and, scoring 6 1/2 - 1 1/2, went undefeated. Raymond Keene of Great Britain was runnerup with a total of 5 1/2 points; and Jan Timmans [sic; Timman] of the Netherlands was third with 5. [...] Most communist entrants boycotted the tournament. Our Sal Matera had an unfortunate preliminary result.

Where are they now? Enshrined in Wikipedia, like so many other chess players of yesteryear. Addison's page, William Addison (chess player), informs that he died 29 October 2008 in San Francisco. Kaplan's page, Julio Kaplan, tells us, 'born 25 July 1950, Argentina [...] emigrated in 1964 to Puerto Rico', and that the World Junior Championship earned him the IM title.

02 October 2017

The Harkness System Explained

My previous post on early U.S. chess ratings, The Harkness Rating System, ended with a direction for further investigation.

This was the first in a series of eight articles under the title 'How the Rating System Works'. I'll look at the following articles in the next post.

1952-05-20: That first Harkness article was in the 20 May 1952 edition of Chess Life (CL). Here is its first paragraph repeated:-

Many readers of CHESS LIFE were favorably impressed by our recent forecast of the results of the international tournament at Havana. With one or two exceptions, which we will hasten to explain now that the race is over, the predictions were about as near as you can come without the use of a crystal ball. [...]

1952-06-05: Following are the first paragraphs from subsequent articles in the series. They provide some insight into the technical underpinnings of the rating system.

The National Rating System, now in operation for two years, is like one of those mechanical brains you read about in the papers. Tournament results are fed in at one end and ratings come out at the other. The machine has no feelings or emotions. When presented with the results of a tournament, it pays no attention to fancy titles. The sponsors may call it a Masters' Tournament to Decide the Championship of Fifteen Counties; but the system adds up the ratings of the players, strikes an average, and calls the contest an 1843-point Class B event, if that is how it turns out.

If you win a tournament you get the highest rating. Others may claim that you were just lucky and got all the breaks, but the system looks at your score. It knows nothing about luck. Never heard of it. Sad to relate, though, the eagle eye of the rating system sees your name as clear as can be if it shows up at the bottom of the final standings. The machine measures your failures as well as your successes. This is not a one-way system. Your rating can go up or down. [...]

1952-06-20:

If your ambition is to become recognized as a chess Master the rating system gives you the opportunity to prove your ability and earn the title. In fact, the system will seek you out and shout Your name from the housetops. You are listed as a Master if you average 2300 points or more in at least two tournaments, not counting preliminaries. Or you are listed as an Expert if you average 2100 to 2299. Other officially rated players below the Expert division are grouped in Classes A, B, C and D, each class covering a range of 200 points.

In the upper echelons, there are grades of Masters, too. The common or garden variety ranges from 2300 to 2499. Above this comes the Senior Master class, between 2500 and 2699. At the top of the pyramid is the Grandmaster Class, from 2700 points up. The air up there is pretty thin.

Unless you live in one of the big chess centers, where strong players congregate, you cannot expect to qualify as a Master by playing only in local events. You can probably reach the rank of Expert, but you will not go beyond this point until you compete in stronger tournaments. [...]

1952-07-05:

The use of median values to represent the average strength of tournaments is one of the latest refinements of the rating system. As another example, we give below the results of the 1951 Pittsburgh Metropolitan Championship.

[list of 7 players in order of rating]

The sum of the ratings divided by the number of contestants (13,143 divided by 7) gives 1878 the average, but a player who made an even score in this company would not be entitled to such a high rating. The distortion is caused by the presence of one highly-rated expert among two Class A and four Class B players. In such cases, a median value is more accurate.

Since there is an odd number of contestants, one rating is at the middle of the list. Waltz' 1785 is lower than the top three and higher than the bottom three. However, one player's rating in such a small group may be off center, so we find a better medium value by averaging the three middle ratings. Thus, we add the figures 1922, 1785 and 1750 (the ratings of Taylor, Waltz and Leiter) for a total of 5,457, and divide by 3 to get an average of 1818 points for this tournament. [...]

1952-07-20: '5. Round Robin Performance Ratings'

After the average strength of a round-robin tournament has been determined, each player is given a performance rating. When there are ten or more rounds, the ratings are issued as follows:

1. A player who makes a 50% score gets the tournament average as his performance rating

2. A player who makes a score of more than 50% gets the tournament average plus 10 rating points for each percentage point of his score above 50%.

3. A player who makes a score of less than 50% gets the tournament average less 10 rating points for each percentage point of his score below 50%.

Applying these rules to the 1951 Log Cabin Chess Club Championship, performance ratings were issued as shown in the table below and in the chart [below].

1952-08-05: '6. Rating Short Tournaments'

When a tournament has ten or more rounds, the performance ratings are issued in proportion to the percentage scores, but this relationship cannot be maintained successfully when rating shorter tournaments. As the number of rounds decreases, ratings based on percentages become less and less accurate.

The natural inclination of a statistician is to reject competitive events that do not furnish data in sufficient quantities to use percentages. Fortunately, the popularity of short tournaments in the United States has forced us to labor and bring forth a practical method of evaluating performances in thew contests. A new measurement scale makes it possible for us to rate competitions with any number of rounds from one to nine and opens the way to rate team tournaments and matches, hitherto impossible.

The development of this yardstick required several weeks of unpaid labor in tests and experiments, but the result is beguilingly simple. We just substitute game scores for percentage scores. As before, a 50% score earns the tournament average. but for each half-game above or below an even score, a player gets the average plus or minus 50 rating points. This puts a necessary brake on the number of points that can be won or lost in a short tournament or match. [...]

The last two articles in the Harkness explanation of his rating system described rules for rating a Swiss System. I'll cover that in my next post in this series.

01 October 2017

Only a Million Dollar Game

Continuing with the Sociology of Chess (November 2016), why settle for a million dollar game when you can have a billion dollar game?


How to make chess a billion-dollar game (10:01) • 'Chess is a great game, and people have been trying to figure out how to market it for years.'

The description continues,

I follow it myself, and came up with a few ideas, both in marketing and radical technical changes, that I think would make a huge difference in how entertaining the game is to casual fans, and the amount of money that top players are able to make. Of course, a billion dollars may seem like a lot, but single NBA teams are worth more than that now, so I do believe that chess as a whole could be worth 1/30th of the NBA. Anyway, check out the vid to hear how!

While there are no really new ideas in the clip, it presents a few ideas that have never been put into practice. Here are a few external references from early in the video:-

The main advice near the end of the video is to follow the lead of poker, although with a novel, live-action twist. For previous posts on this blog about the same subject see:-

Perhaps one of the problems in these analyses is the excessive focus on chess in America. The 'How America Forgot' article from 2012 linked above knocks the influence of GM Anand and speculates on the potential of GM Nakamura. Which of the two players has done more to raise the popularity of chess, Anand in India or Nakamura in the USA? Chess is, after all, an international game.