"5th South Wales International, Glamorgan University, 5-10 July. 46 played.
1-2= Stewart Haslinger 7.5/9 Rating gain 1.46, with Normund Miezis.
3-4= James Cobb (WLS), David Eggleston 6.5/9 + 1.17. Both gained IM norms.
6-14= Andrew Dunn +0.29, Stephen Gregory (qualifying for the British Championship ) + 0.39, Jack Rudd 0.04, Charles Story -0.25, Michael White -0.68 all scoring 5.5/9.
15-18= Jeremy Menadue 5/9 -0.30
19-24= David Collier -0.31, John Hickman 1.19, Ernest White 0.44 all 4.5/9.
25-33= John Wakefield -1.15 4/9.
34-37 Brian Gosling -0.59, 3.5/9
40-44= Guy Wagner 2.5, but only 0.5/4 against rated and thus did not get a rating performance.
The Welsh are to be congratulated on this valuable International Swiss.
The Rating gain deserves explanation. It is the number of points gained (or lost) on a player's FIDE Rating before multiplying by his k factor. For Stewart and James k=10 as they are both 2400 or over. Thus Stewart gained 14.6 points, quite a substantial leap forward. All the other English players have a k=15, apart from somebody who has played less than 30 games. In that case it is 25. This is complex by comparison with the English System, but one becomes used to it. You can readily see that Stewart clearly outperformed his Rating better than any other English player. His Tournament Performance Rating was 2651, which is the other way I often quote these results.
Stewart's field was 2378. Had it been 2651, then he would have had to have scored only 4.5/9 for the same rating result. Would it be truly comparable? That is very hard to say. It is very difficult for an English player to get into a tournament where he plays such a strong field, Yet that is one of the best ways to improve. That is why we need such events in England and the only one that comes close is currently the Staunton Memorial in August.
Stewart Reuben [11/7/08] "