Leeds chess club

Established 1834

HOW GRADES ARE CALCULATED

Points are allocated in respect of each game. For a win you score the opponent's Grade plus 50, for a draw the opponent's Grade, and for a loss the opponent's Grade minus 50. There is a proviso that if your opponent's Grade differs from yours by more than 40 points it is assumed to be exactly 40 above (or below) yours. This is to prevent a player increasing his Grade by losing to a much stronger player, or decreasing his Grade by beating a much weaker player. If the opponent is ungraded, his Grade is estimated, using all available information.

The Grade is calculated by dividing the total number of points scored by the number of games played. If there are at least 30 games in the current period, then the Grade is based on these games alone. If there are not, results are brought forward from the previous period to make the total up to exactly thirty. If there are not 30 games in the two seasons together, results are taken from the season before that. Games are never taken from further back than this; the maximum is two prior grading periods.

Results are brought forward in two different ways, depending whether the Grade is Rapid or Standard. With Rapidplay, any games brought forward from a previous period will be the most recent games in that period. This is possible because the dates of Rapid games are (almost) always known. With Standardplay, unfortunately, this is not the case. So, instead, the required number of (notional) games is brought forward at the average score for the period.

For juniors under the age of 18, an enhancement is added to their Grade to take into account their expected improvement over the year. This enhancement is six points for juniors of age 15 to 17, eight for juniors of age 11 to 14, and ten for juniors under the age of 11. The enhancement is added after all calculations are done, and is included in the published Grade.

Next season.

The new chess season will start in October and should finish around May 2011. If you would like to play for Leeds Chess Club in the league this season, please click here and fill out the form. We are desperate for 3 teams and I need to know how many interested people we have. Thanks! Oh and you can view the provisional team lineups here.

New discussion area.

Hi members, just to let you know that you can now find a new discussion area on the team news page. Of course, this is a password protected area so you may talk about anything regarding your chess without giving anything away to other clubs! Also, if you forget the password or don't know it, send me an email and I'll let you know what it is. Cheers!

Book Club.

Click here to view books that are available for loan.

New grades.

Both the 2010 ECF and YCA grades have finally been published, click here to see what your YCA is if you play for Leeds Chess Club. Click here to see what your ECF is.

Leeds Vs Bradford.

Leeds are to take on Bradford in a pre season graded match, both Leeds and Bradford are hoping to get the best players from their respective leagues to join up. If you play in the Leeds league and would like to play for us in this match, click here for more information and a link to the entry form.

Next chess club night.

We are next meeting at the North Leeds Working Men's Club on Wednesday 01 September from 6.30pm onwards.

Leeds Chess Club Championship 2010.

The Leeds Chess Club Championship is now underway, the 2nd round is almost complete and 5 rounds remain. You can view the official Leeds Chess Club Championship page here, which is being updated on a regular basis.

Join Leeds on chess.com.

I now run a Leeds team on chess.com here and you can join if you fancy playing some team matches with us. We're currently playing matches with France, Kazakhstan, Austria, Australia, Korea and many, many more... It doesn't cost anything to join and play and new matches are started on a regular basis so you always have a chance to get playing some serious chess for us!

Team line ups for next season.

The team line ups for next season have been released, you can find them here.