Rating News 2024 Period 4
by Rowan Wood
Twenty- standard rated tournaments have been processed involving 400 players and 1660 games. The open tournaments are New Zealand Women’s Championship, Merv Morrison Memorial and Southern Classic. The club tournaments are Auckland Spring and Championship and Spring, North Shore Spring, Howick-Pakuranga Booth Shield, Papatoetoe Championship, Mount Maunganui Main Events 7, 8, Preliminary and Championship, Kapiti Championship, Wellington Championships, Canterbury Eric Browne Shield and Chas L Hart Cup, Otago Championship 2 and Richard Sutton Trophy.
Twenty-five rapid rated tournaments have been processed involving 590 players and 2791 games. The open tournaments are North Island, Summit Championships, Summit December, Papatoetoe Open and Otago Summer. The club tournaments are Auckland October and November, Summit October, North Shore Championship 4 and Junior Championship, Papatoetoe Joe Sapeta, Tauranga Invitational, Canterbury Junior October, November, and December, and Canterbury Arie Nijman Trophy
An intermediate rating recognizes that a player has performed much better than expected in a ratings period. Often these players are rapidly improving juniors. Intermediate ratings can therefore reduce the rating point loss for other established players.
Previously, an intermediate rating was used if a player earned bonus points, however bonus points don’t necessarily mean that there has been a significant improvement. An intermediate rating could therefore reduce the expected scores of the player’s opponents, resulting in higher ratings, in other words, cause inflation. Similarly, not earning bonus points, often due to high activity, doesn’t mean that there has not been significant improvement. This can cause deflation.
Now, the total rating change for a period determines if an intermediate rating shall be used, whether a player has earned bonus points or not. In addition, the minimum rating has increased from 200 to 250. These changes have been applied retrospectively. For standard ratings, there has been a downward change for most players, while for rapid ratings, there has been an upward change for most players.