Dual rating is an annoyance and an unnecessary complication in the rulebook and ratings structure.
The larger debate…when Dual is abolished (how hard is it to make a motion from the floor? sheesh…someone find some backbone…) is whether G/30 d/5 should be Quick or Regular. A question of whether the minimum control for Regular should be 30 min total or 35 min total. A question of optics and personal preference. I tend towards Regular starting at >35min total so that G/30 d/5 is Quick (and amusingly, G/30 d/6 would be regular). YMMV.
Edited for time control threshold. Also…a PM pointed out that many scholastic events are run at G/30 d/5 as a minimum control to get Regular ratings, so a 35min cutoff is unlikely to pass with scholastic-interested votes. I can think of a few long-running tournaments that rely on the G/30 d5/ control heavily as well. That’s a fair point that would probably push the hypothetical control ranges to
5min Total < Blitz < 10min Total < Quick < 30min Total < Regular Only
The cutoff isn’t a hill I would die on. I only care about the wonderful possibility that someone might have the wherewithal to propose abolishing Dual rating.
It is not a question of “finding some backbone” to make a motion from the floor. It is trivially easy to make a motion from the floor. In each delegate’s packet is a copy (or perhaps two) of a form used to submit a motion from the floor. A delegate simply writes the motion out and hands it to the secretary. (More copies are available from the secretary for those more … prolific … delegates. )
Motions made from the floor come at the end of the meeting, after the advance agenda has been completed. Bear in mind that, by the time the advance agenda is completed, the Delegates are usually restless to get out of the meeting. Some have flights booked; others have the final round of the tournament bearing down on them, and would like to get at least a bit of lunch before the round. Unless the motion is pretty trivial, the almost guaranteed outcome is that it will be referred to one or more committees or to the Executive Board.
One should remember that motions made from the floor have typically not been discussed in workshops. One should also remember that while motions are debated and voted on in the meeting itself, the actual work behind the motions (extended back-and-forth discussion, consensus building) happens in the workshops. I do not think it is an overstatement to say that the workshops are at least as important, and quite possibly more important, than the meeting itself. Regrettably, there are delegates who blow off the workshops and just swoop in to the meeting. This often causes repetition in debate during the meeting of points that were thoroughly hashed through in the relevant workshop(s) and slows the meeting down further.
A quick look at this year’s advance agenda should suggest to the reader that this year’s meeting will be long. My sense is that a motion to eliminate dual rating would almost automatically be referred to committee, most likely the ratings committee (and perhaps the rules and scholastic committees as well). It is also my sense that any attempt to restrict regular rating to total playing time of 35 minutes or more is simply not going to fly with the scholastic crowd.
Imagine four new players starting out playing both quick and regular and obtaining 1100 ratings in both. Then they concentrate on regular only (because there is no dual ratings available) and improve to 1800.
Now a new player plays in a quick tournament with them (their club opted to have a quick rated event), scores four draws and obtains an 1100 quick rating. The following weekend, purely by chance, the same new player draws the same four players and obtains an 1800 regular rating. If the two weeks were in the reverse order then the quick initialization would be to 1800 and the result would be 1450 quick (if the quick initialization was based on four games) or 1689 quick (if the quick initialization was based on 10 games) or 1100 quick (if there is no quick initialization from a four-game provisional rating). [a ratings committee member can correct any miscalculations here]
If there is no dual rating then the small number of quick-only events would seem likely to cause the quick vs regular lag to be even greater than what it is now. That is just a guess, so it might be nice to have some way of testing that. Oh wait, there is no overlap between blitz and non-blitz so the blitz ratings will be “pure” excluding their initialization. Hmmm, would it be worthwhile seeing what happens to them after a few years before making assumptions on how the quick ratings should be handled?
Undercutting my last post a little, for the 25% of our meeting nights that have USCF rated activity my club plays either G/90;d5 tournaments or G/10;d3, G/15;d3, G/25;d3 tournaments. Thus there is no dual rating for our club events and our members can generally get in about a dozen of each type of games.
We have a number of players with a quick rating higher than their regular rating, sometimes much higher. In June 2005 my regular rating dropped out of expert to 1988 at a time when my quick rating was 1904. Since then my regular rating has bounced between 1949 and 1988 (currently 1980) and by quick has bounced between 1880 and 1996 (currently 1996).
The best cure for getting accurate quick ratings may be to simply have players play more quick-rated events.
Ken…all good points. Hopefully newer forum members read carefully to understand all the background work that goes into this stuff. It’s completely understandable why abolishing Dual rating is unlikely for another year or more. Again I reiterate…I have little care over what the final control range would be – I simply stated a personal preference with no regard to influence groups.
Spoiler, the rest of this post will be thinly on topic and drift into criticism on the realities of the USCF governance model. The criticism is not aimed at Ken or any particular Delegate, but as commentary on the whole. It’s the reason why we can’t get simple stuff done like the obvious need to abolish the Dual rating process.
Delegates getting restless about the meeting length…from my view in the cheap seats I think “Cry me a river.” The Delegates have asked for their responsibilities both individually (accepting the appointment) and collectively (assuming and acting on so much Delegate control over subject matter that really should be committee driven). That a hypothetical Delegate would cry “Uncle,” during the 1.5 days of the year they are all together is rather pathetic.
“Oh but who are you to say anything?” My volunteer activities outside of work take up a substantial amount of time and cost. EB members and I relate closely on those commitments in time, travel cost, and donations. I can’t complain about the situation–I worked for it and accepted the commitments. Chairing an active group 11x the size of the Delegates takes time and energy. That could be spent studying and making progress towards 2200 but it’s not. I’ve been around the USCF a few decades and “get it” why things are the way they are. There is no energy left for sympathy towards restless Delegates.
Real boards meet more than once a year. Real boards make up their committees through the board membership, and everyone is on a committee. Real boards meet quickly to ratify decisions already debated and ratified through committees. The USCF is making progress, and despite the legal structures in place we’re a long way from having a Real governance culture.
When I said Membership meeting I meant just that: the general membership meeting open to any USCF member that takes place near the end of Workshop Week.
As I understand it, any USCF member (maybe there is a minimum age?) can make a motion at this meeting, and it will be considered during the Delegates Meeting, a day or two later. I attended one general membership meeting, at Cherry Hill 2002, and seriously considered making a motion to freeze dues at their then-current level for one year. (That was the meeting at which the ill-fated dues hike to $49 passed, with widespread support.)
I was advised that any motion at the membership meeting was likely to be referred to committee by the delegates, and that the dues increase that year was already a done deal. So I sat back and enjoyed the show.
Also, there is no chance the threshold for Regular will ever go slower than 35 minutes, with delay/increment factored in. It might someday revert from the current 30 to the former 35, (with no deduction-for-delay allowed) but even that is a long shot, I think.
But: It might be interesting to see what non-insider, non-Delegate USCF members who attend the membership meeting out of curiosity think of a motion to eliminate Dual rating. Just be done with it. Out, out darn spot on the purity of the rating system. You stay too long for any good you might have done.
Motions passed at the general membership meeting go to the head of the agenda. But that is passed - not made. So just showing up at the general membership meeting and making such a motion would not guarantee it would get to the floor of the delegates meeting. Even if it did it would most certainly get referred to committee as it would need to be studied and considered with multiple points of view solicited.
But I would be surprised if it even got enough support in the general membership meeting to make it to the delegates meeting - but who knows?
I know the Delegates will not pass a motion to eliminate Dual rating that was sponsored at the general membership meeting. (Has any motion from that meeting ever been approved by the Delegates in the same year?)
But I would be genuinely curious to see the reaction from members of the demographic that would attend the general membership meeting. I know what I hear about Dual rating from players, TDs and chess friends, most in the relative boonies. Some of what I read on the Forums agrees with what I hear in the wild; some of it does not.
At the least, it’s time for someone on Ratings or maybe the EB to defend the concept of Dual in the face of widespread perception that it has not ‘fixed’ Quick ratings, even after 13-14 years.
The argument we hear on the Forums: “There is no problem to fix” is self-defeating for those who support Dual. Can anyone make a strong case for: “There was a problem, it still exists, it’s better than before, Dual is part of the reason it’s better, here’s how things will get better yet, with Dual as part of that solution.”?
Is there any other sanctioned rating system, anywhere in the world, that uses the Dual concept?
I would say the reason the blitz ratings correlate so well is simply that the blitz system is newer. That said, it’s highly unclear to me that quick ratings are “deflated”. They’re lower, sure - but what proof is there that quick ratings should be the same as regular ratings?
I’ve registered a large number of players for CCA blitz events, which all use the higher of regular/blitz ratings. The most common situations, by far, are that either (a) the player has a higher regular rating, or (b) the player has no blitz rating.
Actually, because of dual rating, I would be surprised to find that there were more blitz events than quick events.
It’s not entirely clear to me that an unrated blitz event with the same conditions would not draw well (especially if it were held at the end of the World Open). I’ve run unrated events that were very profitable, and rated events that lost money. The USCF imprimatur is important, but it’s not the sole determinant of success for any event.
Well, I’ll take the opening offered by the “topic drift” to opine about the Delegates’ Meeting. In doing so, I’m likely to burn through some political capital, but what the heck …
One thing that utterly frustrates me about the meeting is how very inefficiently time is spent at the beginning of the meeting. The meeting is supposed to start Saturday at 9 AM with the roll call of delegates. Lately, there has been an effort to make sure the meeting starts on time, which is very good. Then there’s boilerplate business that goes quickly and smoothly (re-elect Delegates at Large, accept the minutes of the previous year’s meeting, appoint the parliamentarian, approve the advance agenda, and certify election results).
Then come … reports of officers and staff. And this is where the wheels come off the wagon. There are ten hours scheduled for the meeting (9-12 Saturday morning, 2-5 Saturday afternoon, and 9-1 Sunday). By the time the Delegates get to the reports of officers and staff, it’s probably 9:20. One can usually count on these reports to take the rest of Saturday morning. (According to the unofficial minutes of last year’s meeting, which agree with my recollection, the Delegates were lucky to get through the reports and the election of Delegate-appointed committees before the break for the Awards Lunch.)
While there is useful information in these reports, my own impression after attending the previous eight meetings is that they are all too often an occasion for political grandstanding and feel-goodness in front of a captive audience. One year, we were treated to the spectacle of a non-delegate (and, as I remember, a non-USCF member, although my memory is fuzzy) addressing the delegates at length during the President’s report on a matter to come before the delegates later in the meeting. I vividly remember scrambling during that scene to try to find a parliamentary maneuver to put an end to it, with no success. That did result in a motion from the floor to limit other reports to a maximum of ten minutes, but the damage was already done. Sometimes I think the delegates would do well to pass a standing rule that all reports are limited to a maximum of ten minutes.
The Awards Lunch also doesn’t help matters. While the meeting is supposed to resume at 2 PM following the lunch, one can pretty well count on the lunch running over and the meeting starting from fifteen to thirty minutes after the scheduled start. I was grateful last year that President Haring made an effort to start the meeting promptly after the lunch.
The last round of the U.S. Open is usually scheduled for 3 PM Sunday, and the Delegates’ Meeting is scheduled to end at 1 PM. I can understand the feeling of “cry me a river” concerning the meeting ending on time, but I can also feel empathy for the delegates who are playing in the tournament and have to get to the round.
With a total of ten hours scheduled for the meeting, and with the three hours from Saturday morning essentially written off, that leaves at most seven hours to get through the agenda. Then again, it doesn’t help that some delegates blow off the workshops, which decidedly slows down the progress of the meeting itself. Being a delegate absolutely involves more than showing up on the weekend and waving your voting credential around in the air.
OK, I guess it’s time now to count the damage and figure out how many people I’ve offended or insulted …
And now you understand my motivation for “calling the question.” The delegates are short on time and long in the toot–as the saying goes. Since I will not be there this year I hope someone else can help move things along.
I believe that there have been. However something like changing the rating system would undoubtedly get referred to the Ratings committee - as well it should be IMO.
So can I get away with -My report was printed in the delegates call, you had opportunities to get further clarification in the workshops, and you have seen the financial statements. In summary we had a good year, I recommend we pass the budget as presented at the workshop?
As I mentioned in a post in another thread, it used to be the case that the line by line review of the budget was done twice, once at the workshop and then again at the Delegates Meeting. At least we have got past that. This would just be the logical next step. I am really tired of people who aggressively protect their positions as Delegates but then protest that they are too busy or too poor to fly in before Friday night.
Let me add to the chorus of support for that idea.
You might also consider having plenty of copies of the report available to hand out at the meeting to any delegate who wants one. That would zero out the legitimacy of any delegate whining “OK, it was in the delegates call, but I don’t have my copy handy.”
Each Delegate not only gets an advance copy of the Delegates Call by US mail, but also gets a copy in the packet that’s handed out along with the voting credential. The Delegates Call is also available online, and can be accessed during the meeting by any Delegate with a laptop or smartphone.
(All of which is to say that I agree completely with Mr. Smythe.)
)