Some lists of players on LMS show grades for the players who have them. These are normally current ECF grades, but there is the facility to enter into a player-record an override grade (with the suffix “L”) which LMS calls a “local” grade, which will then show in various lists instead of any ECF grade for the player. “Local” grades could be ones used specifically by an organisation using LMS, affecting player eligibility rules and/or rules regarding board order.

Grades of any sort displayed on LMS do not feed back into the grading system when grading data is extracted and submitted for grading. The grading system uses grades held in that system, not any grades held in LMS. Thus “wrong” grades in LMS cannot lead to incorrect grading calculations.

New Grades

When the ECF grading system, which is separate from LMS, generates a new grading list, that is uploaded to LMS by the ECF, and this replaces previous ECF grades. For players with no “local” grade, the new ECF grade will then be shown in player lists. However, for players with a “local” grade, that grade will continue to be displayed until changed or removed.

LMS evidently has a facility to replace local grades with ECF grades. It seems that from the association/league's home page, you click on the “Admin” tab, then click on “Local Grades”, then, after selecting options, click on the “Remove local grades” button. (It is probably advisable not to select the option to include category-F grades.)

Calculated Performances

which are not valid “grades” but might be useful to organisers, and approximate to unofficial “live grades”.

It is common after a congress or similar events for a grading-style calculation to be performed on a player's results in that event, producing a sort of “grading” for that player in that event only. This is usually termed a “performance”, or a “grading performance”.

LMS will similarly generate a “performance” from a player's results in LMS, in a report reached by clicking on the organisation's Admin tab, then the Players tab, then the player's name, then the Grade (Std) tab. There is a warning at the bottom that this is not a player's “grade”, but players have been misled into thinking this is some sort of official “estimated grade”, which it isn't. It is LMS's unofficial calculation of the player's performance to date in events in LMS. It does not include other leagues, congresses, etc. not held in LMS, and so is in no way a valid “grade”. (Further, it uses “local” grades where present, whereas the ECF grading system would not.)

However, for an ungraded player, such a calculated performance might be used by organisers as an estimated grade for their organisational purposes. Such performance calculations for ungraded players might also interest congress organisers. For the player concerned it offers an answer to the question, “How well am I doing?”, and approximates to an unofficial “live grade”.

Confusion

There have been reports of players concerned about or confused by “grades” as represented on LMS.

1) A player was concerned that after the ECF January 2019 grading list had been published, his grade was still listed in his local league player lists as his old “local” grade. That could presumably be corrected by the organisers removing the “local” grade from the player-record.

2) A player was told his grade was variously recorded as X, Y or “estimated” Z, and he wondered which was correct. It transpired X was his ECF January 2019 grade, Y was his “local” grade on LMS, while Z was his calculated performance in only LMS results.

Steve Mann

12/02/2019