I may be running some tournaments that have a time control that is around the regular/dual cutoff. I like 10 second delay so I am going to use that. Should I make the time control something like G/60;d10 so it’s regular rated only and players rated 2200+ would not have the lower K factor or something like G/55;d10 so it’s dual rated and players rated 2200+ would have the lower K factor?
So, players rated 2200+ have a lower regular K-factor if the event is also quick-rated?
That sounds peculiar, but perhaps somebody on the ratings committee could step in here and tell me yes, believe it or not, it’s true.
Bill Smythe
Not on the Ratings Committee, but the second paragraph of this URL:
uschess.org/content/view/12202/141/
Reads:
For Micah’s purposes, I would guess it’s a wash unless he expects to draw a player or players competing for an invitational. On my list of things to consider when devising a tournament structure, this factor would rate about 938th, but others’ mileage may vary.
Ex ante, I would think a 2200+ player in one of Micah’s tournaments would probably prefer the lower K factor since they will have a bigger downside risk since they’ll likely be paired down all or all but one rounds. Of course, most probably wouldn’t care.
Since most players don’t care at all about their quick ratings, I don’t think it matters.
Alex Relyea
I don’t think most masters think or care about whether a tournament has a higher or lower K value with regard to rating. The difference is too small to worry about.
As a master, the things I look at is whether there is likely to be a good turnout. This will determine whether the prizes will be covered or reduced because of attendance. The second thing is the time control. I prefer longer time controls of Game 75 or more, but I would play in a Game 60 event. As I get older, I need more time to think. Heck, I need more time just to get up in the morning! 
Third, I look at the prize fund size and if it’s guaranteed. If the risk/reward ratio is good, then I will consider playing. Fourth, how good is the venue. I don’t like surprises; sitting on hard wood chairs; or playing in places with no heat or air conditioning. Fifth, how far away the event is from my home. This affects cost for travel which is part of the risk/reward ratio. I will travel a couple of hundred miles to an event if I like it, have had fun before, and enjoyed the scenic drive. For example, I have gone to the Parkersburg Homecoming in WV several times, which is a 200 miles from my home, because I had fun at the festival, bought a T-shirt and a chance in the Rubber Ducky Derby, and went to a concert besides playing chess. The prize fund was small, but the fun we all had was great.
I think that is something we as organizers underestimate, the degree of fun that we can put into the event. A good venue with a scenic view. Good playing conditions. Door prizes so that more entrants can get at least something. Various amenities, like coffee/tea, snacks for the players. A tournament T-shirt. All of these can be a draw to the event beyond cash prizes.
Indeed, most players care less about their quick rating. In fact, maybe one of you can explain to me why G/30 is a popular time control. Why is it so many players are willing to put their regular rating on the line for such a quick game?
G/30 is a popular time control because 1) most of the games played are scholastic and 2) most scholastic organizers are only concerned with getting the players out as soon as possible, and the players don’t know any better.
Alex Relyea
Chess is a zero-sum game, which means that if one player is more likely to lose with a faster control, then his opponent is more likely to win.
A player fresh out of school, for example, who is accustomed to G/30, probably believes that G/30 will worsen his opponent’s play more than his own, thus giving the player an advantage.
Bill Smythe
I’d word the second point a bit differently: Most scholastic and youth players won’t take more than 30 minutes to make all of their moves even if the time limit is longer than that. So a longer time limit for such tournaments will just mean that most players will be sitting around getting bored while they wait for a few players to finish. And when players spend a lot of time being bored. they often won’t want to come to future tournaments.
I also agree with Bill’s point: What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. You can’t play as well with a shorter time limit, but neither can your opponent.
Bob
Running G/30;d5 with an ASAP schedule, starting at 10 AM, playing five rounds, and awarding trophies by 2 PM (sometimes as late as 3 PM) is appealing to parents (of K-5 kids) who don’t want to spend an entire day at a tournament (a fixed schedule with G/30;d5 rounds 75 minutes apart wouldn’t finish until after 4 PM, and even G/30;d5 with rounds 60 minutes apart would result in round five not starting until after we’d often expect to be finished with the trophy ceremony). Then the rest of the sections (same time control) finish an hour or two later with comparative quiet for the final rounds.
Another old saying is “one man’s meat is another man’s poison” (for the archeologists out there it is “one man’s Mede is another man’s Persian”).
If one player rarely uses half the time anyway then a faster time control will affect that player much less than most opponents.
agreed,
Rob Jones
I agree that most players don’t care about their quick ratings. One reason is that the quick rating only has any meaning for quick events. Someone without a blitz rating will have their regular rating used even if they have a quick rating. I will admit that often a blitz event is run along side a regular event, so it is easier and simpler to just use the regular ratings. Maybe we need a requirement (if it doesn’t already exist) that the quick rating is used if there is no blitz rating. That might give the quick rating more meaning.
Many, many years ago when I was a delegate one or two players complained about the dual rating system. I took a survey of players at two or three tournaments. It was about 50-50 as to if a change was needed. As a result that year I made an motion to make G/60 and faster Quick rated only. It was defeated soundly by the delegates. I don’t believe this has ever come up again to the delegates.
Larry S. Cohen
former Delegate
[10 years of USCF politics is enough, even from the fringe]
That might be a decent idea, if the quick rating system weren’t broken so badly. Considering the current state of quick ratings, I’d prefer to stick with the more reliable regular rating.
Bill Smythe
Look no further than the World Open G/10 Championship demographics vs. the World Open Blitz Championship held in Arlington this past weekend. The problem with quick is a lack of interest and ratings that reflect this lack of interest.
Apart from my awful play it was very disconcerting to have to look up what a players true rating was as the wall charts indicated the higher of the quick or regular rating. Just look at what activity does for blitz ratings by comparison. Inflation vs deflation (not!) Activity drives accuracy. And I’m certain the 5/0 time control was wildly popular for the blitz. As it was 10/2 was conducted just like blitz and I would cheerfully repeat this experience but with more appropriately rated players in the future.
The World Open Blitz Championship used the higher of a player’s regular or blitz ratings for section eligibility, pairing and prize purposes.
Absolutely, but what I was referring to was the sheer number of players and the astonishingly non-deflated ratings indicated on the crosstable. The main reason this deflation is not occurring is that the blitz system is relatively new and players ratings are initialized off of their regular ratings. The regular ratings are a lot more indicative of the player’s strength than quick ratings in most cases because of the paucity of play in this format.
It of course would have been more logical to initialize the blitz rating off of the higher of the quick or regular rating but the choice made proved to be a sound one as it stands. Despite the proffered protests of “quick ratings don’t matter and blitz ratings don’t matter”, chess players are a serious lot overall when it comes to ratings. Imagine if you will an unrated quick or blitz tournament that had the same prizes offered. I see lost dollars in my imaginary tournament if it ever were tried.
I just read this post, which I had overlooked.
In my experience, almost all players who express a preference do not like Dual rating. Thus the G/61 or d6 events we see, to avoid Dual. The only time a player told me he preferred Dual was a chess friend as we discussed what control to use for a series of match games between us. Even that was driven by the fact that plausible controls for the time we had available would be near the Dual threshold; he figured since we were gonna be close anyway, why not make it ‘official.’
But most players don’t seem to care whether Quick is tacked on to Regular-rated games in the faster part of the Regular spectrum, so long as the Regular ratings are properly recorded. Thus we saw events played at what should have been Dual-rated controls that were rated only as Regular, for various reasons, for many years, with no player complaints.
But…raising the threshold for Regular to anything slower than G/30 ain’t gonna happen. No point even trying that. A motion to simply abolish Dual rating, thus giving us three clear and separate rating systems in which an event is rated under only one system, might have a chance. (I would vote yea on that.) Might be interesting to see what happened in discussion.
Membership meeting in Phoenix, maybe?
I think dual ratings were started in a misguided effort to improve the alignment between quick ratings and regular. The effort hasn’t worked at all. In fact, dual ratings tend to perpetuate and extend whatever differences may already exist.
Let’s suppose, for example, that a brand-new player scores 4 draws against players each of whom is rated 1800 regular and 1700 quick. Then the new player will start right off the bat at 1800 regular and 1700 quick.
Bill Smythe