18-10-2011, 10:04 PM
I offer you jolly bunch of sailor boys another wind-up to mull over. (Mixed metaphors or what?)
Was Arpad Elo really wasting everyone's time while making his millions?
A five-year old could have calculated my 'best' rating when I won a tournament in Castlemilk over 25 years years ago. I'm a better player now (really!) but that shows up, negatively, according to my current grading.
I've got better but I assert, with complete confidence, that 'pool deflation' has totally scuppered me.
It's not my fault at all!
Yeah, so rate me, people, on my 'finest hour' ,please!
In 1986 or thereabouts, I was graded 1045. As a certain Mr Robert Lothian said at the time,
"Chris, that's a time not a grading"
As an 'ancient chess mariner' I've learned to like my ' grading albatross' rather as a prisoner learns to like his jailer Sometimes it works very much in my favour.
I terrify people who are around the 1300 mark because their grade is low enough for me to smack it hard if I win. They avoid my intimidatory gaze and pretend not to hear my indrawn breath and shake of the head as they blunder headlong into my well-laid trap.
2000+-graders love me, on the other hand, for all the wrong reasons!
First thing that a youngster asks me is not my name but, "What's your grading, mister? "
My reply is invariably evasive. "You'd be totally amazed!", I reply, smiling enigmatically.
I think most of us elderly gents tend to treat chess grades with the same necessary and healthy contempt we treat our golf handicaps.
We just know in our hearts that we're better, much better than our handicaps( read gradings)!
Playing at the top of our form, leaving aside our momentary lapses of concentration, we are quite sure we'd wipe the floor with any opposition!
Personally, I'm fiendishly delighted to see 'young 'uns' destroy ''auld yins' - just so long as I'm not the target!
Chris
Was Arpad Elo really wasting everyone's time while making his millions?
A five-year old could have calculated my 'best' rating when I won a tournament in Castlemilk over 25 years years ago. I'm a better player now (really!) but that shows up, negatively, according to my current grading.
I've got better but I assert, with complete confidence, that 'pool deflation' has totally scuppered me.
It's not my fault at all!
Yeah, so rate me, people, on my 'finest hour' ,please!
In 1986 or thereabouts, I was graded 1045. As a certain Mr Robert Lothian said at the time,
"Chris, that's a time not a grading"
As an 'ancient chess mariner' I've learned to like my ' grading albatross' rather as a prisoner learns to like his jailer Sometimes it works very much in my favour.
I terrify people who are around the 1300 mark because their grade is low enough for me to smack it hard if I win. They avoid my intimidatory gaze and pretend not to hear my indrawn breath and shake of the head as they blunder headlong into my well-laid trap.
2000+-graders love me, on the other hand, for all the wrong reasons!
First thing that a youngster asks me is not my name but, "What's your grading, mister? "
My reply is invariably evasive. "You'd be totally amazed!", I reply, smiling enigmatically.
I think most of us elderly gents tend to treat chess grades with the same necessary and healthy contempt we treat our golf handicaps.
We just know in our hearts that we're better, much better than our handicaps( read gradings)!
Playing at the top of our form, leaving aside our momentary lapses of concentration, we are quite sure we'd wipe the floor with any opposition!
Personally, I'm fiendishly delighted to see 'young 'uns' destroy ''auld yins' - just so long as I'm not the target!
Chris