FIDE's blunder on Elo that nobody noticed
On October 1st we might get the worst change ever in the FIDE Elo regulations. That’s because FIDE decided to boost the rapid and blitz ratings of tens of thousands of players.
With the help of the data scientist Federico Versari we will dig into the data, using the 2022 September FIDE rating lists.
- The Statement
- Why did they poke the bear?
- Who was really affected by this change?
- Consequences
- Conclusions
The Statement
In the last FIDE congress they re-elected Arkady Dvorkovich, and all the rest was basically overshadowed. However, in the official statement by FIDE, we can read:
Following the proposal of Sabrina de San Vicente, Chair of the Qualification Commission, in the rating list published on October 1 2022, there will be a one-off change to the rapid and blitz ratings of players:
- If the player is unrated in rapid or blitz, then they remain unrated in rapid or blitz
- If the standard rating is more than 100 points higher than one of the other ratings, then that rating is moved up to: standard rating minus 100 points
- If the standard rating is 100 or fewer points higher than one of the ratings, then the player retains their rating
So basically if you have a standard Elo of 2000 and a rapid Elo of 1100, you will get a rapid Elo of 1900 on October 1st. Neat, huh?
Why did they poke the bear?
If you are familiar with the chess world, you know that there are a few youngsters from countries such as India that are now rising fast in the top 100 and that are heavily underrated in Rapid or Blitz.
Why is that? Well, because they got their Rapid and Blitz ratings when they were very young, and almost never played in such events. The result is a gigantic gap that can ruin the ranking table of important events, such as the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships.
I get it, FIDE wanted to solve this issue.
But did they actually solve the problem or did they screw up even more in the process?
Who was really affected by this change?
Let’s answer some hot questions that we got from the data.
"The data speaks for itself". - Someone famous
Who are the most affected players?
One would guess that Sarin and Praggnanandhaa are the most affected by this change, but they would be wrong. Here are our top 3's:
Top 3 Rapid
| Name | Federation | Sex | Title | Standard Elo | Rapid Elo |
Blitz Elo | Birthday | Age | Gain |
| Mendonca, Leon Luke | IND | M | GM | 2558 | 1391 | 2152 | 2006 | 16 | 1067 |
| Namitbir Singh Walia | IND | M | FM | 2339 | 1217 | 1664 | 2005 | 17 | 1022 |
| Papaioannou, Dimitrios | GRE | M | 2222 | 1191 | 1663 | 2009 | 13 | 931 |
Top 3 Women Rapid
| Name | Federation | Sex | Title | Standard Elo | Rapid Elo |
Blitz Elo | Birthday | Age | Gain |
| Yash Jyoti Bir | IND | F | WFM | 2099 | 1182 | 1530 | 2006 | 16 | 817 |
| Ishaq, Sara A | KSA | F | 2101 | 1230 | 1478.0 | 2002 | 20 | 771 | |
| Mungunzul, Bat-Erdene | MGL | F | WCM | 2316 | 1500 | 1521 | 2005 | 17 | 716 |
Top 3 Blitz
| Name | Federation | Sex | Title | Standard Elo | Rapid Elo |
Blitz Elo | Birthday | Age | Gain |
| Souhardo Basak | IND | M | IM | 2400 | 1437 | 1302 | 2007 | 15 | 998 |
| Karthik Kumar Pradeep | IND | M | FM | 2316 | 1509 | 1354 | 2004 | 18 | 862 |
| Martin, Nils | FRA | M | 2023 | 1353 | 1070 | 2010 | 12 | 853 |
Top 3 Women Blitz
| Name | Federation | Sex | Title | Standard Elo | Rapid Elo |
Blitz Elo | Birthday | Age | Gain |
| Mungunzul, Bat-Erdene | MGL | F | WCM | 2316 | 1500 | 1521 | 2005 | 17 | 695 |
| Sim, Jia Ru | MAS | F | WCM | 1944 | 1424 | 1159 | 2005 | 17 | 685 |
| Aydin, Gulenay | TUR | F | WFM | 2196 | 2089 | 1481 | 2006 | 16 | 615 |
Top 3 GM Rapid
| Name | Federation | Sex | Title | Standard Elo | Rapid Elo |
Blitz Elo | Birthday | Age | Gain |
| Mendonca, Leon Luke | IND | M | GM | 2558 | 1391 | 2152 | 2006 | 16 | 1067 |
| Praggnanandhaa R | IND | M | GM | 2676 | 1927 | 2599 | 2005 | 17 | 649 |
| Yoo, Christopher Woojin | USA | M | GM | 2563 | 1861 | 2105 | 2006 | 16 | 602 |
Top 3 GM Blitz
| Name | Federation | Sex | Title | Standard Elo | Rapid Elo |
Blitz Elo | Birthday | Age | Gain |
| Mishra, Abhimanyu | USA | M | GM | 2549 | No rating | 1682 | 2009 | 13 | 767 |
| Prithu Gupta | IND | M | GM | 2444 | 2394 | 1775 | 2004 | 18 | 569 |
| Petkov, Momchil | BUL | M | GM | 2511 | 1967 | 2026 | 2005 | 17 | 385 |
How many players will be affected?
Out of all the 387,824 FIDE rated players with a classical rating in the 2022 September list, 43,149 (11.1%) players will be affected:
- 30,532 (7.9%) players will have their rapid rating boosted for a total of 6,145,619 Elo points gained
- 26,311 (6.8%) players will have their blitz rating boosted for a total of 5,274,537 Elo points gained
These are estimations based on the current rating lists, but the result may slightly vary based on what happens this month.
How many Elo points will the players get?
Most of the players will get less than 200 Elo points.
How old are the affected players?
Most of the affected players are very young, as you could expect.
What’s the standard rating of the players affected?
Most of the affected players are below 2000 in classical chess.
Consequences
As a consequence of all this, you might think that at least they solved this issue once and for all, even at that cost.
WRONG!
This problem will happen again in a few years, when new young talents from all over the world will rise. In the meantime, they will boost the rating of almost 44 thousands chess players with no valid reason.
Besides, changing the K to 10 for over 2400 players will make very difficult for World Champion Magnus Carlsen to get back to #1 spot in Rapid and Blitz.
Conclusions
We really hope that FIDE reconsiders this.
They won’t, but still we had to get this news out there.
Hey, make sure you check Federico's blog because he digs into some other data to find the path to the FM title!
