My first FIDE rated tournament

Of course I will post this last game, against Marc Chung Choong - whenever I feel like it, or if public demand will just make me do it earlier than that..

A bit late, but here's my ninth round effort from the tourney. 

I should have been executed brilliantly in this game! The stardust move my opponent missed is now a TT problem, rated 2398 last time I checked :-)

After I made my move, it took me a second to spot it for him!

He thought and thought... fiftenn minutes passed...

I could see the crusher! But evidently he was somewhere else...

I didn't know what to do! To stay near the board? To go to the bathroom? To take a stroll?

Fifteen minutes later, with 21 minutes on his clock to my 56, he missed it and played something lukewarm...

Then I knew he was mine  (I wanted to have a red demon's head emoticon here)

Annotations will follow, on public demand, should there be any...

By the way, the rating appended to this game, was the Belgian rating I got following my performance in this tourney. 

I still need two more FIDE-rated games to have a FIDE rating. 

Ideally, I could play a strong open, face some strong opposition and score no better than 50%... as this would give me a fair evaluation. Scoring better than 50% before you're rated, works against you, as mentioned in an earlier post. As someone who doesn't play many FIDE rated tourneys, this is quite significant - even if in this case the difference was only some 70 points (between my actual performance and what the FIDE calculators give me out of it, after tax...)

Hi Izthak,

I read some of your posts and cannot find the reference of "Scoring better than 50% before you're rated, works against you" What do you mean by this?

Interesting post, thanks. 

Hey simplydt, 

thanks for writing!

Are you familiar with the FIDE table for calculating a rating performance based on a tournament result?

Here is an abridged version of the table used to compute it:

1.00	+800
0.99	+677
0.9	+366
0.8	+240
0.7	+149
0.6	+72
0.5	0
0.4	-72
0.3	-149
0.2	-240
0.1	-366
0.01	-677
0.00	-800

In this table, the left column gives you a result (multiply by a hundred to get a percentage score), and the right column tells you, how much stronger your result was, then your average competition. 

Example: you played against people who average 1600, and scored 8 points out of 10 - let's say you lost one, won seven and drew two. 

8 out of 10 is 80%, or as the left column has it, 0.8. 

Now we go to the right column and discover that your result was stronger than the average competition (1600) by 240 points - so that your performance rating should be 1840. 

If you scored only 2 points out of 10 (we reverse the result now), symmetrically and by the table, you would be 240 points WEAKER than the average competition, in other words, 1600-240 = 1360. 

So far so good. 

It's necessary to say that if you have no established FIDE rating, your initial rating will be calculated according to the performance rating you achieve in your first tournament, or tournaments, until you reach 9 rated games within a period of 2 consecutive years. 

However, probably in order to prevent inflation of the system through people achieving high ratings due to playing exceptionally good tournaments, FIDE breaks this symmetry when treating new players. 

In our example, if you scored 2 out of 10 against 1600 rated opposition, your rating would still be 1360. 

If, however, you score BETTER THAN 50%, a different formula is used, according to which your performance rating will be considered to be just the average of your opposition, plus fifteen rating points for each half point achieved above a 50% result. 

This means, that with 8 out of 10, which is six half-points above the 50% result (5 out of 10), you will only get, in our example, 1600 + 6*15 = 1690. 

Now I hope that my point is clear. 

If you think that you're an 2000 player, good tournaments for you have the opposition rated 2000 or more, on average. The further away below 2000 they are rated, the worse for you. 

Just by example, and all according to the table: you score 2 out of 10 against 2240 opposition - you get 2000. 

you score 4 out of 10 against 2072 opposition, you still get 2000. 

5 out of 10 against 2000 opposition still gives 2000, but - 

6 out of 10 against 1928 opposition will only give you 1958 (although the performance WAS 2000)

and 8 out of 10 against 1760 opposition, will land you an 1850 rating, although your playing was 2000 strength. 

Hope this helps :-)

However, you have a slight compensation for this rule with the k=30 factor for your first 20 games after you're rated, which helps correct a low first FIDE rating. So if you feel your initial FIDE is not what it should be, your best bet is to play in strong opens as fast as possible

Thanks a lot for that detailed explanation, it helps a lot indeed. Basically, it stops an unrated player from getting 10/10 beating 2,000 rated players and get a GM rating of 2,800. No worries, my odds, especially now, of ever doing that are next to impossible. I wonder if i could put a few pounds bet on that it will happen though. Hmmph.

Thanks again! 

<Hicetnunc> you're absolutely right :-)

In the current case, the differential between my calculated rating and my actual strength isn't that great (it's under 100 points) so there's no real problem... however I'm glad that the average competition was at least over 1900, as otherwise it would really have been "a headache" to get it up...

<Simplydt> you're welcome :-) I'm glad that you know more now. 

I would think that a better rule would be to limit the initial rating of new players, to not more than 300 points above their average competition - as I'm sure that giving that guy, who scored 10/10 against 2000 competition, an initial rating of 2300 and a FIDE Master title, isn't really an unsafe bet.What do you think?

By the way, if he would score 10/10 against 2200 competition, I would be in favor of having him rated 2500, but of course he wouldn't have a GM title (which requires three norms in addition to the rating), or even a GM norm (which requires a 2600 performance against a field with a required number of GMs). 

This doesn't completely belong in this thread - maybe as an afterthought...

That successful tournament, which I played last spring, inspired my club to ask me to play for them in the Belgian league, for their top team. 

Today was my first league game (round 1), when we played against a city I never heard of, some small place in Belgium - I really forget how it's called...

Probably the connection to this thread is, that in my first tournament I only got 7 games which count towards a FIDE rating - and today was my 8th. 

I played a nice game, in Capablanca style - where it all looks simple and placid, but there's plenty of tactics beneath the surface. The game proceeds on rather calm lines, complete with an ending of gradual advance (as Nimzowitsch teaches), where my horrible blunder at the end didn't take anything from the absolute winningness (to coin a word) of my position. 

five and a half points out of eight games against opposition averaging FIDE 1929, is a solid 2070 performance - which for me, is certainly reason enough to be proud. 

However, according to the rules of how rating is actually calculated for people who are new to the system - this performance is only worth an initial rating of 1974 - a full hundred points less. 

That is - I need a ninth game. If I draw that game, and my opponent will be rated 1929 - this would be my rating: 1974. 

Well, whatever. What I'm really here for tonight, is to share the game with you, with my thoughts and analysis during it. I think that I played a pretty decent game overall (if it wasn't clear by my use of the great minds of the 1920's in previous paragraphs...)

Later I would check everything with Houdini, and maybe I'll publish it a second time further down this thread, with some changes. We'll see about that. 

By the way - the rating mentioned next to my name, is the fair and correct Belgian rating, which I've obtained after my spring tournament. My opponent's rating is from FIDE. In Belgium he is rated 2010. 

By the way - I don't recommend the analysis above to anybody... it is so full of holes! The variations, the ideas, the conclusions... 

I have checked it with Houdini - it is like Swiss cheese. It's amazing that anybody can have a thought process that goes like that and still beat 2000+ opposition... crazy indeed!

Maybe I will post corrections at some point - but do feel free to criticize and challenge my ideas. At least it could be basis for dialogue. 

I enjoyed your comments very much. I don't care if there are analytical mistakes (though I suspect there may be some inaccuracies in the rook endgame ) : at least you're a real chess player, who plays OTB, makes human mistakes, is able to think by himself and has a good sense of humour !

Few people on chess.com can compare

Agree with hicetnunc, nice comments that you put a lot of thought in. You're being humble and friendly and you're explaining your ideas.

Those fide/local rating transitions are quite weird indeed!

I'm from the netherlands, some place very close to the belgian border. I played in the belgian competition mostly, I'd say around 70% of my rated games were in Belgium.

For some reason my fide rating is the same as my belgian rating, it just get's equalised. So if I played your opponent, his fide rating would count for me. And if I were to play a tournament in Australia, I could win or lose belgian rating points, if I'm playing fide-rated players.

I mean who cares about : "better was 18...Bxg3 blah blah blah blah 35...Rd7 and black has a 0.187 advantage (with wind behind 2m/s)..."

Anybody can run a game through an analytical engine and get the same results. Only the human insights have real added value.

<Hicetnunc> and <Hattrinkstinkyduiker> thank you for your very friendly comments :-) They were a true joy to read!

Especially lol about #33 :-) It's nice to have more action on this thread, I don't like to be the only one posting...

At some point I will post my Houdini-assisted corrections - however, I will only write about them from a point of view of ideas and analysis (Houdini teaches me many ideas, manoeuvers and stuff), rather than just include a variation with an engine score, which does nothing to improve one's game or understanding of it. 

I believe in educated use of the computer - not to just jot down numbers and prove people wrong - rather, to see where you didn't understand something, and look at things newly, assisted by a powerful chess player who sees really a lot - and sees it quickly. I really learn a lot this way - AFTER I make my own unaided analysis - and writing about my thought process in detail, makes it later clearer, where things don't totally correspond to reality... :-) I think that I'm following here advice by Botvinnik - maybe by Kotov, or both. 

On the other hand - how many times the computer has actually no idea what is going on, and its evaluation number doesn't reflect the real situation.

It has to be clear and real to ME before I post anything about it. There are some variations where he suddenly says - hey! Here you have +5.00 or even more than that - but I have no confidence in these messy variations - I won't play them and I won't recommend them in my threads. Human style vs. computer style, if you want... or maybe I need to be still stronger, more experienced and more tolerant of "mess on the board" in order to reach a stronger playing level overall - this is actually very probably true. 

About the rook ending - sure, there were places where I could have improved, or where my evaluation of other variations wasn't correct - however, I didn't drop the win at any point, and it was kept pretty straightforward throughout (as far as I know at this point - but do prove me wrong!)

About ratings, by the way - having played already in several countries (Israel, France, Belgium and Italy) I suppose that the Belgian national rating is pretty much equivalent to FIDE as regards strength. It's just nice to also have a FIDE rating - as one day I want to get better and qualify for the CM title - and maybe at some later day, for the FM title.

Very lightly edited now, just to get rid of some annoying spelling mistakes... I write in a hurry and never bother to look behind until it's too late. 

By the way - to you engine haters out there, look now at the note to black's 61st - I think you're going to like it...

@solskytz

I have read this thread once and would read it later thoroughly. Thanks for sharing your Thought Process. It was instructive as well as a good read. :)

Wishing you to be an IM within an year or two. :)

Thanks, Tao :-)

I don't have that much time for competitive chess, or even for study... however - if I can make CM by 2016 or 2017, you won't see me complaining :-)

In my writing I seek to entertain, of course :-) you need to give people incentive to keep on reading - otherwise there are millions of annotated games to follow...

Just a quick note, in between some pressing items on my agenda...

At the present point, the raison d'etre of this thread is satisfied. I've entered this first FIDE rated tournament in order to have an initial FIDE rating. 

After it was over, I still needed two more rated games to enter the lists. 

Yesterday's game at the Belgian finally satisfied this need, so I'll appear in December's list for the first time with a rating - and if I calculated it correctly, it should be the distinguished figure of FIDE 1979. 

This initial rating was gained through a 6/9 performance against opposition averaging 1934 - five wins, two draws (including one miraculous save from yesterday, as you'll soon see) and two losses - in itself, a 2059 performance, but the FIDE formula is more careful, and prefers to underrate people slightly - maybe so that the fall won't be quite as hard, or to encourage them to play more and raise their ratings little by little. 

Ratings and ratings... what really counts is the game.I have so much to learn!

The first ten moves of this game will now be annotated, and little by little I will create the time to do the rest. I also plan to send this game to IM Silman, with the hope that he'll present it in his analysis column. 

Now watch as solskytz saves an otherwise pretty hopeless ending by sacrificing his last piece and playing pieceless (though admittedly up one pawn) against an enemy's bishop + 3 pawns... :-)

In addition, you gotta love, at some point, the position on the long a1-h8 diagonal, where it has a full lineup of pieces neatly and symmetrically arranged across it - White R, B, N, N, then black N, N, B, R. 

The setup was so attractive, that I played Nd4 to get into it without even noticing that I was dropping my d5 pawn... :-) talk about artistic impulses in chess. 

There was an idea behind the move, as you'll see, and it does gain the pawn back, but because of another "slight" miscalculation (I failed to predict black's 8th move (!!) from where the combination starts) the result wasn't "AS" favorable to me as I thought it would be. 

So many times I thought I would be "MUCH" better, only to find out that my best efforts were neutralized. As for the true drama of the game, starting from move 40 - well, just watch it!

...And still another appendix to this blog, as it turns out that my last league game in Mons (post n. 38) was still not reported to FIDE, due to some complex points relating to the Belgian league games. 

No worries, it will be reported for the January 2014 list, along with a sparkling little Carlsen-style beauty I played yesterday. 

Why Carlsen-style, you ask? 

First of all, because all of the pieces, except for a couple of rooks and a knight each, were removed by move 14 (!!), and because my calculations were sharper than Houdini's, so to speak - as the alert reader may soon verify... a position of apparent placidity, yet with considerable venom!

Move 14 was also the moment when my opponent realized that he needs to resign. Before I played it, he offered a draw. 

The thing was, that just before the further exchange of the last knight, my opponent wanted to grab a little "desperado" pawn. After my answer, he understood that there will be no exchange - but that his knight just can't leave the party (the party that the captured pieces were having just outside the board, and which he was going to join very soon...)

So - an initial rating based on six wins, two draws and two losses (7 out of 10) against 1940 opposition. The performance was 2090. In the January 2014 list, when this will be updated, I will still get 2000. Hooray!

The game from yesterday follows - 

This Solsky guy is quite the monster! My last seven official full-time games gained me six points without any loss, against opposition averaging 1950. Be afraid! Be VERY afraid!