Guidance for Rating Officers
by Mark Orr
created October 13, 2014; last updated October 28, 2019

This is a guide to the principal tasks performed by rating officers. Each main heading below (except Contents and Appendix) outlines a task, with links to further details in the appendix.

Contents

Rate an ICU Tournament

Follow these steps (with links to details in the appendix):

At the end of this sequence the tournament will be rated and all players statistics (including live ratings) will have been updated.

Publish an ICU Rating List

Rating lists are published 3 times a year in September (just after the new season beigins), January and May. Publication is not completely automatic, the rating officer has to initiate it, though it can be as simple as a single button click. The usual publication date is the middle of the month, around the 15th.

The rating officer has control over two adjustable cut-off dates that determine which tournaments and players are included in each list. See the appendix for details.

To publish a list for the first time, follow these instructions. This creates the new list and adds a new entry to the table of previous publications. The appendix gives details of what each entry in this table shows.

Rating lists can be re-published after a change. Simply make the change and then click the Publish button again. The old rating list will be over-written and a new entry will appear in the table of previous publications containing details of what affect the change had on the previous version of the rating list.

In practice, common changes requiring a republication are:

  • the rating of a tournament which has been reported late and which should be included in the list,
  • the re-rating of a tournament already in the list due to the discovery of a mistake in its report,
  • a change to one or both cut-off dates.

Monitor Foreign Rating Fees

Most ICU-rated tournaments are loaded onto the site by reporters so the rating officer just has to rate them. However, there is one type of tournament which the rating officer typically both loads and rates: "foreign tournaments". These are tournaments played abroad where the performances of one or more Irish players are rated against players with FIDE ratings.

The two guiding principles are that (a) players must opt-in to having their foreign tournaments ICU rated (except for certain exceptions, foreign tournaments are not rated automatically) and (b) a player must choose to have their games rated before the tournament starts (i.e. they must never be allowed to make that choice after they know how well they performed). These principles are why there is a procedure for prior notification which involves payment of a fee (further details).

Foreign rating fees are paid on the main site and synced to the ratings database once a day. The rating officer can view player details, tournament names and start dates here: Admin/Fees. At the end of the tournament each player compiles a report of their games in a standard format and emails it to the rating officer. Before loading the report, the rating officer should:

  • check the list of paid fees to make sure the player has given proper notification,
  • check the results in the report against the tournament website,
  • correct syntax errors in the report.

Assuming a matching fee for the player's report is found, then it should be marked as "used". Just click the word "No" and it will toggle to "Yes" and thereafter the fee will not be listed. By default, only unused fees (used = "No") are listed.

From time to time the rating officer should check the list of fees to determine whether any players have paid the fee but not sent a report. Having expressed a desire to have their games rated, players must follow up with a report, irrespective of their performance in the event.

Register a Tournament for FIDE Rating

FIDE require national rating officers to register tournaments: organisers cannot do this directly. Organisers who wish their tournament to be FIDE rated will send the required information to you and you perform the following steps to complete the registration:

  • login to the FIDE rating sever,
  • click Register Tournament,
  • fill in the details from the information supplied by the organiser,
  • click Submit,
  • send the organisers a link to the new tournament so they can verify it has been correctly registered.

Although organisers can't see the details of their tournament on the FIDE rating server (because they can't login), it will be available to view on FIDE's main site with a URL which looks like this example:

http://ratings.fide.com/tournament_report.phtml?event16=97666

Just replace the ID number at the end with the ID from the FIDE rating server to obtain the URL for new tournament.

Submit a Tournament for FIDE Rating

This is normally done by exporting the data for a tournament that has already been uploaded to this site as a FIDE-formatted file and then submitting that file to the FIDE rating server. Even tournaments that are not for ICU rating (such as rapid and blitz tournaments) can be handled this way except that, rather than ICU rating them, they would be deleted after they had served their purpose.

Instructions for exporting a file and (possibly) applying some manual edits are here. Note that the file:

  • must have a valid federation for each player,
  • must have a full DOB for any Irish players without a FIDE ID,
  • must not contain any foreign players without FIDE IDs,
  • need not contain any rating data at all (FIDE will set correct ratings).

To submit the file to FIDE:

  • login to the FIDE rating sever,
  • click View Registered,
  • click the name of the appropriate tournament,
  • click the small submit (abbreviated to sbmt) button in the top right,
  • click the large Submit button,
  • in the popup box click Choose File and search for the file you saved earlier,
  • click the submit button under Choose File.

If the file is accepted (there are no errors) then to complete the process you need to give FIDE IDs to each player that doesn't have one (if there are any). Click Give IDs to New Players and then for each player:

  • check that the player isn't in the list of possible matches with existing records,
  • if there is a match, select it and click Submit,
  • if there is no match, just click Submit (this will create a new FIDE ID for the player).

If a mistake in the tournament is discovered and you wish to reload a modified report then if the tournament hasn't been rated yet, repeat the above process, otherwise contact FIDE. You can also correct individual player data by clicking Change Player Details.

Register an Irish Player with FIDE

When an Irish national who is not yet registered with FIDE plays in an Irish FIDE-rated tournament in Ireland, you can register them at the same time as you submit the tournament. However, if they play abroad, you will need to register them and inform them of their FIDE ID so they can notify the tournament organisers, ideally before it begins. This is because national rating officers can only register players from their own federation.

To register a player, first make sure you know their full DOB and gender, then:

  • login to the FIDE rating sever,
  • click Give ID to Player,
  • enter their name (surname first, then a comma and space,then first names),
  • select their gender from the menu,
  • enter their DOB in the format YYYY-MM-DD,
  • click Submit.

Maintain the Documentation for this Website

Maintain (keep up-to-date) the documentation for this website which consists of:

  • a collection of articles (under the control of the rating officer) of which this page is one, and
  • for some pages, a Help link at the top (under the control of the webmaster).

For this, you first need to become familiar with all the documentation. Then if:

  • you can't answer a simple user query by referring to existing documentation then consider creating new documentation,
  • the webmaster adds a new feature then at least mention it in the Changelog and possibly also add new documentation for it,
  • you or the executive decide to implement new policies, reflect the changes in the documentation,
  • you spot typos or errors then have them corrected.

Appendix

Initial Tournament State

After a tournament is loaded by one of the reporters, the system will send an email to the rating officer. When you login to the website as rating officer and consult the Admin View of the tournament, it will be in one of three possible initial states:

  1. Status OK and stage Ready: this means there are no issues and the reporter has actively set the stage to Ready meaning they believe the tournament is ready for to be rated (although it may not quite be yet - see typical mistakes below).
  2. Status OK and stage Initial: this means there are no issues and the reporter has not yet set the stage to Ready, possibly because they have forgotten to (which is quite common). In this case, before rating the tournament, wait a while or contact them.
  3. Status Problems and stage Initial: this means there are problems and the tournament can't be rated until they are resolved. Wait a while to see if the reporter is in the process of fixing them or contact them.

In the last case if you click on Problems the system will popup a summary of the problems and there will be red flags against any players affected. A typical problem is a mismatch between a player's name and the name recorded in the database against the player's ID and the resolution in that case would be to edit either the player's name or ID which either you or the reporter can do.

Typical Reporter Mistakes

Resolving all major (red flag) errors doesn't necessarily mean the tournament is ready for rating because there are other types of mistake the system doesn't flag that reporters sometimes make, so you should check for these.

Foreign Players

There was a time in the history of the ICU rating system that foreign players (even the opponents of players in tournaments abroad) got ICU IDs even though they were never likely to join the ICU and these IDs still exist in the ratings database. Steps have been taken to minimise their influence but tournament reporters still sometimes enter these players with their ICU IDs which means the rating used for them will be based on a small number of ICU rated games (sometimes just 1) even though a much more accurate and up to date rating (their FIDE rating) will usually be available for them.

Even players who have at one time paid a membership subscription but are indubitably foreign (live and mostly play abroad) should be classed as foreign (unless they are current members). Sometimes foreigners (often titled players) temporarily join the ICU not to obtain an ICU rating but to satisfy eligibility requirements to play in Irish tournaments (often team tournaments).

Look out for such players and convert them to proper foreign players (with no ICU ID, a federation and an FIDE or Elo-equivalent current rating).

New Players

Sometimes reporters enter new players (without an ID and not foreign) even though they've recently joined the ICU. This is due to reporters not using an up-to-date player lists (these lists are regenerated every night so there's little excuse for not using the latest one). The result is that these players, without an ID, don't get their rating tracked.

Although it is possible to correct the problem later and rerate the tournament, it's better to avoid it entirely. The easiest way to check is to look for new players and then try to find a match in the database for them. If one can be found, and you're confident it's them (a matching name is usually not enough, something else is required for any degree of confidence, ideally a DOB) then give them the appropriate ID.

Tournament Names

Reporters are sometimes inconsistent about the names they give to tournaments. For example, one year it will include the word "Majors" or "Minors" (plural) and the next year it will have "Major" or "Minor" (singular). You should make sure tournaments are consistently named year in year out. Check how the tournament was named in previous years and if necessary correct it.

Also remove any of the following from the name:

  • remove the word Chess because it's superfluous, we all know it's chess tournament,
  • remove any year (or years, e.g. "2014-15", of a long running tournament) because the system will insert that when needed based on the start and end dates.

Tournament Dates

Check that the reporter hasn't inadvertently entered the wrong start and end dates (e.g. from the previous year's tournament) as dates are important (they determine the order in which tournaments are rated).

Occasionally it is acceptable to slightly alter the end date (which is mainly what determines tournament order) for cosmetic reasons. For example if a club's championship is divided into several sections with slightly different reported dates then, in order to get them to display together in the list of tournaments, adjusting end dates so they all match is acceptable as it is unlikely to affect rating calculations by much.

Time Controls

Sometimes reporters insist on spelling out the time control in laborious detail, e.g. "90 minutes per player per game plus an increment of 30 seconds per player per move starting at move 1". While not a mistake as such, this is unnecessarily verbose. In the example given "90m + 30s per move" is sufficient and succinct.

Queue a Tournament for Rating

Once a tournament has been cleared of any major problems it can be queued for rating. In Admin View perform the following:

  • click the edit icon next to Stage,
  • if the stage is still Initial, click Update to move it to Ready,
  • if the stage is Ready, click Update to move it to Queued.

At that point it will acquire a sequence number and links to the previous and next (if there is one) tournaments will be displayed.

Initiate a Rating Run

After a tournament is queued for rating it's ready to be rated at the click of a button but because the ICU system involves rating tournaments in strict order (a player's start rating for any tournament is the one obtained from the last tournament they played in), then if there are any tournaments after the one just added they have to be rated as well, even if they have already been rated before.

A rating run is where one or more tournaments are rated in order, starting from the last new or altered tournament and ending with the currently last in sequence. The tournament where the run should begin is indicated in the tournament list. Click on the name of that tournament.

A special case of a rating run is where the last tournament in sequence is also the last to be altered or added (i.e. there is only one tournament to be rated) and in this case all you need to do is click Rate. The tournament will then be rated immediately.

It's more common however to be rating several tournaments together. Sometimes this is due to reports being sent in late (so there are already some rated tournaments later in order to the one that hasn't been rated yet) and sometimes because reporters load several new tournaments around the same time (e.g. Minor, Major, Challengers and Masters). In this case click Rate All.

There are some differences between the two cases (Rate and Rate All):

  • Immediate versus delayed: Unlike Rate, where the tournament is rated immediately, Rate All causes the rating run to be handled by a background process so as not to hog the web server and slow down other requests that it happens to be processing at the same time. This process will start at most 60 seconds after Rate All is clicked and the page displayed will periodically report progress as the tournaments get rated. Total time to finish depends on the number of tournaments, but will roughly be a few seconds per tournament (plus a few more seconds at the end to calculate new live ratings).
  • Comment: the page displayed by Rate All has a text box into which you can (and should) type a comment (the reason for the rating run). Examples might be "Rating late reported club championship" or "Rating 4 Kilkenny tournaments". These comments may prove useful if you later need to investigate problems and will be appear in the list of rating runs.

Export a FIDE Rating Report

First export and save the file:

  • login to this site as rating officer and bring up the Admin view of the tournament,
  • if it's already been ICU rated and locked, unlock it by clicking the lock icon,
  • click FIDE which will pop up a dialog box,
  • click Update in the box to augment the player records with FIDE IDs or DOBs and federations,
  • click Dismiss in the second popup box with information about the updates applied,
  • now click Export which pops up another dialog box,
  • make sure the Type is set to FIDE-Krause and Ratings and IDs is set to FIDE and click Export
  • this produces a new text-only web page containing the report,
  • copy the report to a file and and save it.

Second, load the file into a plain-text editor to check it and apply any needed corrections. Typical corrections include:

  • add FIDE IDs for foreign players (common as the system only does this for Irish players at present),
  • add FIDE IDs for any Irish players that the system doesn't know about yet (rare).

You can use the FIDE rating server or FIDE's main site to lookup FIDE IDs.

Rating List Cut-Off Dates

There are two adjustable cut-off dates that control which tournaments and players are included in each list:

  • tournament cut-off: tournaments which end after this date are excluded,
  • payment cut-off: subscribers who have not paid on or before this date are excluded.

In September, because of the grace period, the payment cut-off only applies to members who did not subscribe the previous season.

By default, both cut-offs are initially set to the 15th of the month but the rating officer has discretion to alter them (within limits). Examples of why you might want to push forward these cut-offs are:

  • tournament cut-off: to include a tournament near the end of the month at the request of selectors,
  • payment cut-off: at the behest of members who have forgotten to pay in time (very common).

Publish a List for the First Time

To publish a list for the first time, wait until the 15th of the month and then follow these instructions:

  • login to this site as rating officer,
  • hover your mouse over Ratings and choose Lists from the popup menu,
  • you will see a table of rating lists in reverse chronological order,
  • click on the top entry (the list you want to publish),
  • now you will see some controls to alter the cut-offs, a Publish button and an empty list of previous publications,
  • alter the cut-offs if you wish,
  • click Publish.

The Table of Previous Publications of a Rating List

Each row in this table shows the following.

  • the date of publication,
  • the last tournament included,
  • the total number of ratings (T),
  • the number of created ratings (C, same as T for the first publication),
  • the number of unchanged ratings (R for remain; 0 for the first publication),
  • the number of updated ratings (U; 0 for the first publication),
  • the number of deleted ratings (D; 0 for the first publication),
  • an icon (resembling a scroll) which when clicked causes a popup to open with details of the publication,
  • an icon (resembling a pen and paper) which can be used to add notes to the publication details (e.g. what was the reason for a republication).