Rating lists were published as normal in January, May and September. The September list was revised 2 weeks after it was published. The table on the left shows the 10 highest rated 2008 ICU members, with their rating in 2008 and their rank in 2007 (blank if they were not members then). The table on the right shows the 10 biggest rating improvements between September 2007 and September 2008.

New Software

Substantial new software has been written to semi-automate the processing of tournament data. This has improved error detection and reduced the work load on the rating officer.

Software has also been written to generate the new format required by FIDE and used to submit several tournaments for FIDE rating. The graphs on the website used to display rating histories now show FIDE as well as ICU ratings. Currently there are 150 Irish players with FIDE ratings.

The website has a page of weighted ratings for the top men and women which is used in the selection of international teams. It is updated automatically as soon as new ICU or FIDE ratings are loaded into the website database.

New Rating System

Work has started on a reimplementation of the ICU rating system with the following goals:

• No change to the calculation method.
• Full breakdown of results on the web site.
• Tournament controllers able to upload files to the web site and fix problems online.
• Automated revisions in response to corrections or late reception of results.