Does peak or published rating trigger a ratings floor

[Martha]

I run a large K-8 scholastic chess program. We are getting ready for our year end awards. I am not sure the the rerate or June supplement information will be available in time for our events (May 10th and May 13th). I have 2 players whose ratings have gone over 1600 since the April Supplement. I would like to think that they will remain over 1600 after the rerate, but one might be close. The USCF documentation regarding the rating floors reads:

Rating floors:

Rating floors exist at 100, 1400, 1500, 1600, , 2100. No player’s rating can drop below 100. A player’s rating floor is calculated by subtracting 200 points from the highest attained established rating, and then using the floor just below. For example, if a player’s highest rating was 1941, then subtracting 200 yields 1741, and the floor just below is 1700. Thus the player’s rating cannot go below 1700. If a player’s highest rating was 1588, then subtracting 200 yields 1388, and the next lowest floor is 100, which is this player’s floor.

So, going over 1600 should trigger the 1400 floor, which might be a worthy milestone to celebrate. Consequently, my questions are:

1. Does “established” mean “published in the ratings supplement” or just not “provisional”? In other words, are their current ratings sufficient to trigger the floor? If they are, I don’t need to wait for the June supplement to hand out the new awards. If not,

2. Any hope that the June supplement information will be available by next week?

3. If not the June supplement, might there be a rerate over the weekend?

I am sure I am not the only scholastic coordinator anxiously awaiting the year end information. Our state meet and the SuperNationals all rated after the April Supplement and are out of order with several other tournaments. Mike, any push you can give to have the information available sooner rather than later would be most appreciated.

Many thanks,
Martha Jenkinson

[nolan]

‘Established’ means that the rating is based on more than 25 games.

It is possible but probably not very common for someone to have an established rating but not yet have a published rating, if a new player were to play in a lot of events in a short period of time.

The anticipated schedule for the next rerate and the preparation of the June Supplement was posted on MSA yesterday.

If as a result of rerating any of your players had their peak established rating drop below 1600, that would affect whether they had a floor of 1400 or not.

Our experience with rapidly rising young players suggests that in most cases rerating actually raises their rating rather than lower it. I will leave it to the theoretists (mathematical and/or conspiracy) as to why that is the case.

[relyea]

So just to make sure I have everything straight . . .

We have a local player who just hit 2301 in tournaments rated today. However, he has some poor results from tournaments that were played earlier but not rated yet. Presumably, when the rerate goes through he will never have been over 2300. Does that mean that he can have a 2301 published rating, but still have a 2000 floor?

Alex Relyea

[nolan]

Published ratings are based on the information that we have at the time they are prepared, information that is subject to revision up or revision down.

I think people have placed too much value upon their historical significance. Except for finding players whose published rating hasn’t changed, old rating supplements would be better used as birdcage liner.

[RagingHell]

.