Updated: Dmitry Barash, Feb 16, 2012
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In view of shortly forthcoming Spiegel Cup finals I decided to look at the history of those tournaments. Published on the Web (on MACA and USCF) cross tables go back to beginning of 90s (and the history perhaps goes even further),
but the number of players varied a lot in 90s, for example at the end of 90s there were mostly 6 players in each age
group. Note that in Maryland (where I lived for 7 years prior to moving to MA) the similar finals were called Sweet
16 (and obviously had 16 players per age). Ten seems to me to be the optimal number to exclude random players, and
to include all the top ones.
Therefore I set the start point in 2001, since then there were constantly 10 players in each group (with couple exceptions during all 12 years) except for HS in 2012, which was open and had 19 players.
| HIGH SCHOOL |
2001 |
2002 |
2003 |
2004 |
2005 |
2006 |
2007 |
2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
2011 |
2012 |
| Average Rating |
1635 |
1761 |
1816 |
1786 |
1979 |
2008 |
1934 |
1867 |
1871 |
2028 |
2047 |
1745 |
| Rating MAX-MIN |
839 |
737 |
1002 |
874 |
479 |
532 |
608 |
658 |
386 |
256 |
267 |
1439 |
| Winner Points |
3.5 |
3.5 |
3 |
3.5 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
4 |
3.5 |
4 |
4 |
3.5 |
| Second Place Points |
2.5 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
2.5 |
3.5 |
| Third Place Points |
2.5 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
2.5 |
2.5 |
3 |
2.5 |
2.5 |
3 |
| 14 & U | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 |
| Average Rating |
1574 |
1709 |
1729 |
1658 |
1591 |
1708 |
1719 |
1783 |
1839 |
1936 |
1928 |
1980 |
| Rating MAX-MIN |
991 |
801 |
780 |
534 |
352 |
204 |
250 |
255 |
401 |
231 |
500 |
651 |
| Winner Points | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3.5 |
| Second Place Points | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 3 | 3 | 2.5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2.5 |
| Third Place Points | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 3 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 |
| 11 & U | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 |
|---|
| Average Rating | 1402 | 1411 | 1240 | 1356 | 1383 | 1483 | 1541 | 1555 | 1681 | 1579 | 1492 | 1628 |
| Rating MAX-MIN | 944 | 468 | 304 | 331 | 549 | 424 | 471 | 548 | 543 | 735 | 529 | 451 |
| Winner Points | 3.5 | 3 | 3.5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3.5 | 3 | 4 | 4 |
| Second Place Points | 3.5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2.5 | 3 | 3 | 2.5 | 3 |
| Third Place Points | 2.5 | 3 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 3 | 3 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 |
| 8 & U | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 |
|---|
| Average Rating | 918 | 960 | 1089 | 1198 | 1056 | 1159 | 1124 | 963 | 919 | 1056 | 1037 | 907 |
| Rating MAX-MIN | 402 | 333 | 465 | 557 | 266 | 606 | 587 | 618 | 364 | 460 | 607 | 526 |
| Winner Points | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3.5 | 4 |
| Second Place Points | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Third Place Points | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2.5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 3 | 2.5 |
It’s easy to notice that in all ages except 8&U tournaments became much stronger by the average rating.
Top Players by overall number of points and tournaments
| Name | pts | trn |
|---|
| JAMES LUNG | 24.5 | 9 |
| ANDREW C WANG | 23.5 | 7 |
| MIKA ANDREW BRATTAIN | 22 | 7 |
| CHRIS WILLIAMS | 21 | 8 |
| WINSTON HUANG | 19 | 7 |
| REILLY NATHANS | 19 | 8 |
| MICHELLE XUEYING CHEN | 18.5 | 7 |
| FELIX M YANG | 16.5 | 7 |
Top players by the number of award winnings (only top 3 places count in each final)
| Andrew Wang | 7 | 5 wins (!!!) and 2 second places (!) but he skipped two finals in 2007 and 2008. He decided not to play this year. |
| James Lung | 7 | Unique achievement: 7 times in a row (!) got trophies (one first, one third and 5 second places), while being second he was twice announced the co-champion. |
| Mika Brattain | 6 | 7 participations in a row, 6 times was awarded (3 wins, one second place and 2 third places), in 2011 was 4-th. |
| Winston Huang | 5 | 6 participations in a row, and during the last 5 of them he got 2 first places and 3 third |
| Josh Bakker | 4 | 2 wins, one second place and one third, but in the middle he was 5th in 2004 |
| Max Enkin | 4 | 4 trophies in 4 participations: third place (2002), 2 second ones (2001, 2003), and a win (2007) |
| Reilly Nathans | 4 | 2 wins and 2 third places in 8 finals (2001-2007, 2009) |
| Chris Williams | 4 | 2 wins and 2 third places in 8 consecutive tournaments (2001-2008) |
Players, who won finals more than once:
| ANDREW WANG | 5 |
| MIKA BRATTAIN | 3 |
| JOSH BAKKER | 2 |
| WINSTON HUANG | 2 |
| BARY LISAK | 2 |
| REILLY NATHANS | 2 |
| JACK STOLERMAN | 2 |
| CHRIS WILLIAMS | 2 |
| GRANT XU | 2 |
| FELIX YANG | 2 |
No one of them played only twice. From interesting decisions the following should be mentioned:
- Bary Lisak played 3 times (2005-2006, 2009): 2 wins, then second place.
- Jack Stolerman played 3 consecutive times (2001-2003): two wins, then 4th place.
- Grant Xu played 4 consecutive times (2009-2012): 10th place, then two next wins(!), then 14th place(!!).
All others from the above list played at least 5 events.
This is what I wrote before the 2012 finals:
If statistics talks only about the past, it is incomplete! Let’s try to predict the future based on the past results.
Obviously no one knows who will win this year finals, but we can look who has better chances. I divided each final into two parts by rating to see if the second half has any chances to win or at least to get trophies.
The chance to become a champion for a player from the second half is really small – it happened only twice in 44 finals! In 2007 Genesis LUNG, who was only 6-th by rating became a champion in 14&U.
In 2002 Daniel WITKE was the last 10-th by rating in 8&U but became the champion!
In all(!) other cases winners were from the first half.
But it’s quite possible to win a trophy for a lower rated player. In average two players from the second half won trophy (second or third place) each year out of 8 such trophies.
The prediction matches the results 100%:
All winners are from the top half by rating. And exactly two players from the second half won trophies: both 3-d places in 11&U and 8&U!
Note 1. I don’t have tie-breaks for 2006 and 2011 (all other tables were published on MACA page with places ordered by tie-breaks). I calculated the tie-breaks myself, hopefully I did it right.
Note 2. Although finalists were determined and pared by rating on February the 1st(usually), I used their last rating before the tournament (the one used by USCF).