I have not been a member in many years. How can I found out my current/highest rating?
1). What year was your last tournament? (an approximate range will do)
2). How many rated games have you played?
3). Which State did you live in when you last played?
4). Do you know what your USCF ID # was (past Chess Life magazines will show that, if you have any - will also show your last rating too)
5). What is your full name?
I have rating supplements back to 1988. If you’ve played since then, maybe I can find your rating.
(as to #5) I didn’t find a “Scott Pletcher” at MSA. I’m assuming this is your name.
The 1986 annual list (the ‘big book’) has:
Scott Pletcher (TN) 11097324 expired 01/1983, with an established rating of 1983.
If you haven’t played since then, that would still be your current rating. Should you rejoin, the USCF office can reactivate your old ID and reinstate your old rating.
Why doesn’t that show up on MSA?
Bill Smythe
The MSA only goes back to 1991.
MSA crosstable records go back to the last few weeks of 1991, member records go back to around 1987. (I think I have over 98% of the USCF IDs that have been assigned since then, starting at about ID 12530000.)
The USCF used to purge the computer files on the old minicomputer system every few years, whenever they were running out of space. Those ID’s are not available in computer-readable form.
The 1986 annual list was a several year cumulative list that was prepared just before one of those purges.
Any chance this list could be made available for download in Members Only area?
Would any of the crosstables from this list be available? How far back are crosstables available?
This could be useful for historical purposes as well as for past members renewing.
As far as I know, all of the data the USCF has in computer-readable form has been loaded to MSA. How can we make something available for download when it doesn’t exist in a computer-readable format?
As I said before, crosstables are only available in electronic form back to late 1991.
I don’t know what paper records there are for events before then, or what shape they’re in, but it would be either very time-consuming or very expensive (probably both) to convert rating supplements or crosstables into something that could be posted online.
The USCF does not have the resources, either time or money, to consider initiating such a project.
For example, scanning the 200 or so pages of the 1986 annual list to turn it into a PDF would be possible, but I suspect the file would be HUGE.
I tried scanning a page of it once, the OCR software I had was only able to recognize about 75% of the characters, it might be faster and more accurate to have someone re-type the pages than to spend hours scanning and correcting it on a page-by-page basis.
If, by any chance, the 1986 rating supplement is available ANYWHERE as an electronic text file, even though the data that created it is not, it should still be possible to recreate some useful data from it. That’s a programming task I would happily volunteer for.
That’s a pretty big IF, though.
Bill Smythe
I don’t know that there was ever a computer-readable file of that rating supplement. I think the way they created rating supplements back then was to print them on a line printer and use that as ‘camera ready’ copy for the printer.
That also means that the printed copies of the supplements from back then are not very high quality, which makes OCR scanning less productive.
Over the years the USCF has not been very protective of historical archives, computer-based or otherwise.
When I visited the USCF office in September of 1998, they didn’t keep a computer backup file more than a few weeks. If I hadn’t convinced Mike Cavallo to have Ernie (and later Laura) send me copies of the monthly membership files, I don’t know that we’d have all the records we have today.
They did keep copies of the crosstable files from the current ratings system, which went live in December of 1991. All of the computer-readable crosstable data that we have has been loaded to MSA.
With some help from Nancy Evans, Ken Sloan and Al Losoff, I believe I now have a complete set of the ratings supplement diskettes going back to when they started in June of 1992. All of the data from those supplement files is available through MSA.
I also created a set of supplement records dated ‘1/1/1990’ to include all of the rated members that weren’t in any of the supplement files, though I think there are some superfluous records in that data set, because I created it before I had a complete set of supplement files.
According to Bill Goichberg, the low point for USCF’s archival history might have been in the mid 1990’s when the USCF threw out many boxes of paper records, including some original tournament reports going back to the 1950’s. Bill says that would have included original records of several US Opens and US Championships from the 1950’s and 1960’s.
I don’t know what shape the records that are being stored in the trailer in back of the old building are, they may have deteriorated. If/when the USCF moves to another location, someone will have to go through the trailer and decide if any of those records are worth keeping.
Prior to the mid-90’s, the rating lists were printed out from the Compugraphic typesetter in one-column strips and pasted up manually. (Same for CL, by the way.) I suppose it’s barely possible that someone kept a backup file on a 5¼ inch disk (which could be converted to DOS-readable with enough effort), but it’s not very likely. Some of your readers don’t seem to grasp just how much publishing technology has changed in the last twenty years.
I thought the Compugraphics was leased around 1987 or 1988, I remember it having been discussed during the budget discussion at one of my first Delegates Meetings.
That may be how they did the bi-monthly supplements, but I’m not sure the 1986 annual used even that much technology, John. Looking at my copy, it sure looks like a photo repro of a computer printout. I think I ran across the COBOL source for a program to format an annual list once, too.
Considering how ubiquitous laser printers are these days, the days when I was selling daisy-wheel printers for word processing applications sure seems like a long time ago. And if I really want to go back, I can remember running galley strips for the Northwestern Engineer magazine through a waxer so we could do the camera-ready paste-ups. I spent many an hour with an exacto knife making last-minute copy changes. I spent a summer inking drawings in a drafting room and lettering them with a Leroy set, too.
That’s a shame! I’m sure that many chess historians would have paid USCF for those records, if only the office had offered. I certainly would pay for records pertaining to my local club, which was founded in 1946. Of course it wasn’t until the 70’s that my club became an affiliate and began running rated tournaments. I’ve corresponded with Judy via email about some of our old crosstables, and though she tried very hard to help me, she wasn’t able to find anything.
Hopefully, USCF will offer these records to the state affiliates and TDs before they destroy them. I’m sure it would be a chore sorting through them (for whomever takes on that job), but here’s one guy who would be happy to pay for anything found from my club. And I’ll bet others in my state would be willing to pay for anything found for Indiana.
May I suggest that the office offer state affiliates the opportunity to purchase crosstables before they are destroyed? Hopefully USCF won’t take the position that it would be easier and more economical to just dump them than to pay someone to sort through them.
And BTW: Mike Cavallo! Is he still around? He is listed as one of our club champions! I’d love to correspond with him sometime about his days in Evansville, IN.
Nolan:
Thank you so much!! That’s what I was looking for.
No problem, Scott. If you do decide to rejoin USCF, be sure to let them know your old ID and indicate that it will have to be reactivated.
I don’t know how many TDs would have the ability to find a dormant rating from the early 1980’s, but at this point you can advise the TD of your old rating as well.