I looked at his MSA record and found his January rating listed as 2700 based on 6 games. Yet if you look at his tournament history his first tournament result has a pre-event rating of 2099(p5) and a post-event rating of 2219(p8). Was his FIDE rating of 2111 used as a basis for the pre-event rating of 2099? How did he end out with a provisional rating of 2700 (p6)?
We didn’t have his FIDE ID in his member record at the time we created the January supplement on December 3rd, it wasn’t provided to us until December 20th.
Recently we have seen a number of very high initial ratings for players who won all their games, and it is one of the rating system issues that I think needs work, though possibly only at the high end of the scale.
In his first event he defeated a 2400 player and two much lower players (1100/1200), and when dealing with a player who has won all his games the ratings formula currently uses only the rating of the highest player that a previously unrated player has defeated, not the rating of other players.
BTW, the ratings formula currently caps a rating at 2700 when using the ‘special’ formula (which applies to players with 8 or less games as of the start of the event or players with all wins or all losses), which is why his rating wasn’t higher than 2700.
But after we added his FIDE ID he had a provisional pre-event rating coming from his FIDE rating of 2099 based on 5 games (so he was no longer using the ‘all wins’ portion of the special formula) and his post-event rating from that event came down to 2219. It has since gone up to 2286.
What if you have a new player actually play at 2700 level? Then he should arguably have a 2700 rating. I suppose one might do tests on whether such high provisional ratings are actually predictive of future results.
Anyway it is indicated as a provisional rating. I don’t think we allow provisional ratings to be used to obtain invitations to the US Championship or awarding the NM and SM titles. So it’s not clear to me that a change is needed in how we report ratings for such people.
Of course an existing FIDE rating made the issue moot here.
His first event was FRIDAY NIGHT ACTION (201010228541)
He had a half point bye in round 1, defeated a 2430 player in round 2, defeated a 1220 player in round 3 and defeated an 1150 player in round 4.
In regular rated games, he is currently 16-1, with the sole loss being in the second round of the K-12 in December. (He had a half point bye in round 1.)
How do you define ‘actually play at the 2700 level’? Is defeating a 2400 player, a 1200 player and an 1100 player really sufficient to earn a 2800 provisional rating?
The fact that we’ve got a 2700 ceiling in the special formula and actually HIT IT surely must suggest there’s need for review and possible improvement.
Would people rather the ratings committee did that review or someone else?
