There are requirements regarding ECF grading which hitherto have been met by Jon Griffiths and which, after June 2018, will need to be addressed differently by various organisers who so far may not even have realised they potentially had a problem.

The YCA AGM on 16/06/2018 appointed me its Hon. Grader, NOT to oversee an independent Yorkshire grading system (Chessnuts ends as a grading system after June 2018), but to continue the YCA's long-standing assistance to Yorkshire chess organisers in getting results of their events submitted to the ECF for grading, if such help is required. I recently became an ECF Grader.

Organisers are not, of course, obliged to use the YCA Hon. Grader's services. (Equally the YCA Grader is not obliged to take on the processing for any particular event.) This is what I envisage.

1) ECF-graded leagues (and the YCA) will enter their data into the ECF's LMS, which in due course will generate an Excel file for submission to the ECF Grader. This file needs first to be processed by an ECF Grader for various reasons. (This may well be he YCA Competitions Controller in the specific case of te YCA league.) “Automatic” submission has been mooted as a future development, but is not yet available. A league could arrange appointment of one of its own personnel as an ECF Grader, but otherwise I am available to do the necessary processing for leagues in Yorkshire. (I am not available to enter your league data into the ECF LMS!)

2) ECF-graded congresses fall into different categories.

a) Those doing manual pairings can submit results to me for processing and submission to the ECF for grading. Results can be supplied in different formats:

Swiss pairing cards are preferable. They should show ECF grading codes and/or clubs. Failing that a player list is necessary, showing ECF grading code and/or club, to facilitate identification. (Guessing players’ identities is bad practice!)

Round-by-round pairing-cum-result sheets are a less-preferable alternative, and would need to be accompanied by a player list showing ECF grading code and/or club, to facilitate identification.

The facilities of the ECFs LMS do extend to congresses, see http://ecflms.org.uk/lms/node/22226/home, so congress organisers might consider going down that route. However, the Swiss Cross-Table produced currently shows only game-results, not opponents, colours, byes etc.

b) Those whose results appear on the Chess-Results.com website can ask me to take their results from that website for processing and submission to the ECF for grading. Again, a player list showing ECF grading code and/or club is necessary to facilitate identification if such information doesn't appear on the website.

c) Those using the Sevilla pairing system can submit the Sevilla file for their event, asking me to take their results from the Sevilla file for processing and submission to the ECF for grading. Again, a player list showing ECF grading code and/or club is necessary to facilitate identification if such information doesn't appear in the file.

d) Those using the UTU Swiss pairing system or Tournament Director could submit the ECF-grading submission file created by it for their event, asking me to process it and submit it to the ECF for grading. I've never seen output from this program, so I can't guarantee it's usable, but presumably it is okay. This would need assessing.

e) There are doubtless other pairing programs in use. Electronic output from such programs could in principal be similarly processed, but would necessitate me assessing such output, and writing a program to process it (probably done within a day).

3) ECF-Graded Internal Club Events may in some cases be treated essentially as a congress (see above), but clubs may submit results of other gradable events in a similar fashion.

Result-publishing facilities on this website could be provided, but that is not part of the “job description” of the YCA Hon. Grader.

Steve Mann, sjmann@gmx.co.uk

18/06/2018