28.01.2016

ECF National Grades for January 2016

The January 2016 grades for club members are listed below.

Congratulation to Robert who has reached the 190 mark and to Amardip who has broken through the 160 level.

Theo, Rafe and Laurie have achieved grades for the first time while Grace and Elena are battling it out for top girl both achieving a grade of 78.

First Name Surname ECF Standard ECF Rapid FIDE
    Jan-16 Jul-15  Jul-14 Jan-16 Jul-15  Jul-14 Jan-16
 Amardip  Ahluwalia 166 159  147  168  155  148  1826
 Gareth  Anthony 197 201  203        
 Caroline  Campion 106 106  114  101    113  
 Mark  Currah         32   36    
 Chris  Dunn 114 116  131 120  121  123  
 Robert  Elliston 190 188  181 175  170  170  2097
 David  Fryer 178 172  169 169  173  175  1978
 Donald  Grant  75    78    80 52    52  61  
 Peter  Kemp 196  197  200 199  199  209  2159
 Jonathan  Lawrance 169  168  160 154  154  166  
 David  Liu 172  170  158 178  174  172  1836
 Gary  McCulloch 138  130  109 140  143  136  
 Gerald  Michaud 166  158  155 165  157    
 Michael  Redman 125  124  125 120  118  122  
 Graham  Salmon 125  126  132      131  
 Kartik  Velayudham 138  139  123 135 128  112  1550
 Tim  Yu   99  103     77   82    
 Junior  Members              
 Roland  Bourne        120 112 112  
 Rafe  Chapman         17      
 Elena  Currah  65       78    69    38  
 Giovanni  Currah 101     96   107  103    90  
 Sara  Enache        33   45    
 Theo  Hall         41      
 Callum  Hynes         59    42    
 Laurie  Kendall         30      
 Maxwell  Kendall  32       58    32    
 Grace  Lamb  41     55     78    64    
 Lauren  Manchester         66    46    13  
 Oliver  Manchester 113  110   125  117    93  
 Thomas  Manchester   93    91    73 111    96    90  
 Thomas  Martin   42    39     68    67    31  
 Izzy  Merry-Dungey         22     4    
 Sophie  Rees 16      42    25    
 Liam   Scott        42    35    10  
 Evie  Seddon        29     4    
 Suriya  Velayudham  65     53    70    62    
 Leo  Yu 110     98   109   102    83  

A quick guide to ECF Grades

The English Chess Federation publish a list of grades for chess players every 6 months. Each player has two grades one for standard play and one for rapid play. A rapid play game is typically one that must be completed in 1 hour or less.

For adults and strong juniors the standard play grade is treated as the main measure of achievement while for juniors the rapidplay grade is typically used as best measure as most junior games are played at the quicker time control.

Your grade is calculated by taking the average of your last 12 months games' performances. These are games played in tournaments, for teams or in club championships. Performance is calculated as your opponent's grade +50 if you win or -50 if you lose. There are lots of special cases but this is basically how your grade is calculated.

What it indicates is that the higher the grade the better the player and if you are playing an opponent with a grade of 10 points less you should expect to score 60% against that opponent. If you outgrade your opponent by 40 points you should expect to win 90% of the time.

FIDE Ratings

You may not be surprised to learn that England is the only place in the world where grades are calculated like this and that the vast majority of countries have a 4 digit rating. So for those players who play in international tournaments they will also have a FIDE rating.