Is National Rating that important?
Had this “conversation” in the shoutbox with Malaysian and I am of the opinion that the National Rating is not that important. At least not the speed of updates anyway. I just don’t understand the commotion made about how “late” the updates are.
To be fair, most of the updates match the time FIDE rating list itself comes out. Sure it’s a little late but only by 2 weeks or so. Why the fuss on fast updates? Most other countries have their national rating updated only once or twice a year! In fact I’m quite surprised that my recent results in the Royal Selangor was submitted so quickly to FIDE by Tse Pin.
If you remember, I tried to create an online version of the rating list so that you can compare your present rating with your previous ones but I’ve since given up on that. It was too much trouble matching a person’s record from the past lists. The only common identifier I had was the player’s name. However there are several names spelled differently for the same person and there was no unique identifier like the FIDE reference number. If there was a standard way for tournament organisers to enter player’s name (eg: using player reference number instead of name) then probably rating automation can be possible. However, I don’t think that can happen anytime soon.
Also, I’m fully behind IA Lim Tse Pin in maintaining this list. Believe me I do not envy the person maintaining it. It’s not easy dealing with the different tournament organisers and ensuring the names, results etc are in the proper format. The manual work in making the corrections is a big pain in the ***, IMHO. Also, when it’s late you “kena tembak” left and right 
It comes out when it comes out. Just my 2 cents…
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Comments
About the points you brought up. A player’s name can be just his IC number which is unique.
A one time correction of the base list, no matter how troublesome can be done in a couple of months, can’t it. State associates are responsible to ensure players can be identified. Anyway, I can’t understand why a person can have so many differently spelt names.
What is required is a computerise rating system. You just submit the results, key them in and the ratings are calculated instantly. That is where your services are required and I think there is no one in Malaysia more suited to do it than Andrew Ooi.
Furthermore, you have a popular blog where people can communicate with you with new ideas. This, I think LTP lacks and people are at a loss how to communicate effectively with him on matters relating to the rating list.
No need for national rating la, it is a waste of time and money for everybody. Malaysian juniors here play just to get rating? Should be the other way round! No wonder malaysian juniors has not progressed like Brueians, not to mention Singaporean or Vietnam.You play to improve and rating is just a ‘measurement’ of your performance? so save that RM1 and Zee pin can have longer honeymoon!
Don’t understand your rational. If you don’t have a rating change how do you know you have improved or otherwise? Malaysian juniors lag behind for other reasons and not because of playing just for the rating. Do you mean to say they have no rating systems in Brunei or Singapore and everyone goes and play for “improvement” which cannot be measured?
There is no need for a national rating system if everyone here is FIDE rated and all significant events are FIDE rated.
Unfortunately, we don’t quality in both instances, so we need a rating. We want a rating which properly reflects the local playing strength, amongst local players who want to measure their improvement in the game. Those do do not need any measure of their play can just ignore their so-called ratings, but there are those who want it.
FIDE rated events are very few in Malaysia and you won’t see much FIDE rating changes under current circumstances.
MOST IMPORTANT, organisers depend on the rating list to pair players in the Swiss system which is almost 100% used in local events. Do you want to go back to the days of random pairings????
No need for All to be FIDE rated laa. Anyway we have at least 3 events in Malaysia that are FIDE rated, and nearer to home there’s one in Bangkok and another in Singapore. Also the Malaysian juniors like to go overseas in FIDE rated tournaments leg to Vietnam recently - Hope that’s not just a dancing trip or holiday trip for KL teachers. So there’s enough FIDE rated tournaments. Also not difficult to get FIDE rating because threshold reduced to 1600 and soon 1400 or lower. This is by Malaysia’s nat rating standard is no standard.For pairing we have enough FIDE rated players which can be considered serious players, the rest unrated players just wait your turn to be good enough to earn one. If after 1 or 2 years you Malaysian Juniors are still not FIDE rated think again ( 1400 rating !) whether to take this game seriously :(. As performance measure you beat a few of these players should be a good measure. It doesnt matter whether or not Swiss system is used by organisers as top of the list are FIDE rated. Can easily get at least 5 to 10 FIDE rated players in most MCF endorsed tournament to take care of the prize winners list. So no random pairing here.
So dont waste Ze Pin’s time to have have too many nat rating event and better still disband the the need for such rating. Also solve the need for correcting your so called “very serious fundamental faults” in the national rating once and for all.
Sorry, I have re-read your posting and find it hard to understand what you are trying to say.
Eg, You mean if there are 10 FIDE rated players, the rest of 50 or so players go to the bottom and can be randomly paired as they are deemed equal and have no ratings. How is the Swiss Manager going to work??? There will be a lot of guesswork. Currently, whoever is the arbiter will come up with more or less identical pairing list using the rating list and Swiss Manager. Using your system, I think no 2 arbiters will come up with the same pairing list. There will be disatisfaction when pairings become arbitrary and cannot be standardised especially in the crucial rounds.
Again, I don’t think there are enough FIDE rated tournaments
(3 according to you)to sufficiently cater to local needs. Less than 1 per quarter??? Are juniors sufficiently financially capable to go to the “next door” tournaments? Can they afford to pay US$200 to take part in DATMO? OR even RM100 to play in Selangor Open?
Juniors cannot wait 2 years to see whether they are rateable by FIDE standards. Can you???
I think Andrew’s poll misses a very important point. A rating is important for Swiss pairing purposes. It is not whether the rating is important to the individual alone or even what he feels. The importance to the pairing system is paramount. How are you going to pair 80% unrated players???
Yes, those without rating goes down the list, after all Ze Pin’s list has “very serious fundamental faults” remember? And dont underrate our Juniors over 50 of them flew to Vietnam and mostly with own funds. So the USD200 for DATMO or RM100 for Sel Open should be peanuts, their parents are money printers altho well aware junior were never properly prepared that they got slaughtered! In the meantime while playing in these rated events you can actually calculate your provisional rating, only IF you perform. Given the low bar if junior cant even get any provisional rating over the 1 or 2 year span, junior should seriously forget chess. I am being generous by saying 2 years. 1 year taking in 5 events should be sufficient test.
I have said it before and I repeat it here. The national rating list has some very serious fundamental faults which beg correcting. A number of very active players have high FIDE ratings but low national ratings in relation to their peers. The answer given was it will work out over time, but mind you, these are active players and the discrepancies have not worked out over some years.Don’t you think more work need to be done with the current list which is updated without much thought. Anyone can see who the players are without naming them.
I see more people are coming forward to voice their dissatisfation over the delays with the list. The list may not interest some people but is important to others. People pay good money to play rated tournaments and don’t get to see anything for a couple of months. Naturally, they lose interest and feel “cheated”. Mind you, the fees are not peanuts!
Tell me, Andrew, in your opinion, is it “easily done” to come up with an auto-update program. I have seen you do wonderful things on your web-sites. It can be under LTP, or anyone MCF wants, but it must be PUNCTUAL and ADAPTABLE so as to provide an approximate gauge of local players’ strength relative to FIDE’s list. The Swiss Manager is now adopted increasingly and pairings are a breeze. Do you remember the days when they used pairing-cards and it took a good half hour to do pairings?
Think about it. We need to advance.