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BGonline.org Forums
title hierarchy
Posted By: Henrik Bukkjaer In Response To: title hierarchy (Casper van der Tak)
Date: Monday, 4 April 2011, at 2:07 p.m.
Casper, the list of "future" players I did put up here are just the current contestants - they will not all make it that's for sure.
Remember, we have currently zero SGMs and only 6 GMs, in a federation that has been among the more dominant ones in backgammon for years.
The norms have been scored going back 20+ years for tournament results, and approx. 12 years for ratings. It will grow slow going forward.
We've done the math on this one as well, compared to chess etc. and one thing you should notice, is that in BG you have a smaller percentage of the players being members of the federation than you do in chess. All the "hobby" and "family" players are not in the federation (unfortunately) - it only counts the ones that really do play the larger tournament. In chess you have so many people listed on the low end of the rating list. Even a big program for schools and junior players.
So the lowest rated players in DBgF would probably wipe the floor with the average "i play once in a while recreational player" whereas I (who have not played any chess in 20 years), would easily beat up the lower rated segment of players in the Danish chess rankings. The low end in chess is simply not as strong as the low end in backgammon. That might change if we succeed in getting backgammon more widespread.
Also, the game is more "flat" in the so-called "levels of complexity" (which is a stupid word to use, it has nothing with complexity to do really). That means your IM segment (the lowest title) will be somewhat broader compared to the GM/SGM titles, if you compare to chess. In chess you typically have 3 IMs to each GM. In DBgF we'll be handing out around 6-8 IMs per GM.
Final thought on the subject: Looking at the number of DBgF GMs and comparing that number to the number of Danish players having reached the GIANTs 32/64 list it doesn't seem too tight. In chess you have over 1000 GMs worldwide currently. I bet they are not all in the world top-100 :-) nor have been at any point of their careers.
Originally when reviewing the concept Peter had drawn up for this, my initial thought was "we have to be careful not giving out too many of these then they'll loose value". But having looking at it many times now, looked at alternatives, and discussed in details with Peter the thoughts behind this and the target, I think the bar has been raised to the correct level. The idea is - there should be none GMs who are not completely worthy of their title - and those 6 persons there, I'd never hesitate to praise in a strong championship field. You can't point out a single of these 6 names and say "he shouldn't have been there".
As for the number of IMs it's a question of oppinion - what do you want for that title to be. DBgF wanted strong players that would stand a chance playing the best, but still had some distance to go, before being top-notch. They wanted to give one IM too many, rather than missing out on someone who should clearly have been there. And they wanted to start the system of, actually having some players titled, not come with a system and then name a few players and that's it. There are incentives in this system to be used by organizers and clubs alike, to approach the local media, etc. with recognized titles that people can relate to from the chess world.
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