All Change!

I TOLD last month how Fide planned to boost the ratings of players rated U2000, using a formula designed to combat what is seen as deflation in the elo system.

Grandmaster Keith Arkell has been complaining about deflation for several years.

Certainly some players, who once were comfortably rated in the 1900s, find themselves struggling to stay in the 1700s.

Some might put this mainly down to ageing, but chess statistical experts think otherwise.

Originally the boost, which I detailed in my blog, was to take place on New Year's Day, but quite a few officials claimed this was too soon.

Accordingly the change will now occur on March 1, along with other anti-deflationary measures, including moving the rating floor from 1000 to 1400, which will mean many weaker players losing their international rating.

Sometimes being close to a subject makes it hard to see what exactly is going on - a bit like being unable to see the wood for the trees.

One person who can take a much more detached view is grandmaster John Nunn, who, although never a Candidate, was rated in the world's top 10.

In other words he was a big fish in a big (chess) pond.

Nunn, as he puts it himself "more or less" retired from playing chess about 20 years ago.

But recently he has started competing in a string of 65+ seniors' events, where once again he is a big fish, albeit in a smaller pond.

To him the most noticeable change in the game in the intervening period has not been a decrease in ratings, but an increase in (legitimate) computer use, including "extensively" among 65+ seniors.

"This has certainly affected the way players tackle the openings," he wrote in December's issue of Chess magazine.

"The practical effect seems to be that players are reluctant to repeat an opening line and they tend to prepare 'one-off' opening variations which they have not played before, solely to evade the pre-game scrutiny of engines."

Another big change over the past two decades, or perhaps even longer, is the vast increase in chess literature.

There was a time when a handful of books might be published in a year; now many more than a handful are published every month.

Faster time limits are another change that is noticeable, along with digital clocks almost totally replacing analogue ones.

Which of these changes is the most significant is arguable, but chess is thriving, at least if the number of international tournaments is anything to go by.