18-11-2011, 12:51 AM
Well, our three intrepid competitors trooped off this afternoon after the usual anti-ryanair weigh in at Robin's flat in Prestwick. You would have thought that two engineers (Robin and Gary) would have realised that you can't weigh cases on scales sitting on a soft carpet......wrong! Duuh, we have cracked it now though, so off they go with their £40 return to Riga tickets, followed by 4 hours in a rather nice, modern bus to Vilnius. You will have noted that these three competitors have graduated with an honours degree from the Moore school of economics. I hope they may do quite well, it should be an interesting additional guide to Fide strength throughout Europe/World events. I think that the smaller the country and pool of players, the less accurate their Fide grade is, especially at lower levels. Their seems to be different standards in larger populated country pools, but we always compare favourably with them. Spain and Italy seem most overrated, the Eastern European/former Warsaw pact nations are pretty accurate, countries like us are underrated. Dougie Bryson highlighted that improving players that are willing to travel (albeit mostly just over Hadrians wall) may very slightly skew the overall grading results and that seems fair comment, but the numbers involved are unlikely to have a significant effect on the overall picture.