During a conversation with the Legendary Georgia Ironman he mentioned the large percentage of children who join USCF and play in rated tournaments but do not play enough games to obtain a “regular” rating. We would like to know the exact percentage.
What would you do with this information if you had it?
I don’t see how that is a major priority of staff time. we know that most members only play in 1 event per year. We know that scholastic turnover in membership is very high as kids try it once or twice and never play again. I don’t see that as a particularly bad thing as you see the exact same pattern in other youth sports - baseball, soccer, basketball, etc.
My estimate would be far more than 50% - probably more like 75%.
But then again, many new adult members also do not reach an established rating either. And then many adult members do not play in any events in a year - a large % have not played in any tournament in years.
Please direct this request to the office along with a reason for the request.
Derived from the Golden Database and a peculiar skill in Excel formulas and pivot tables. Lots of assumptions in this data set (sub500 and sub1000 rating levels are arbitrary), so I would not assume any definitive judgments. Expiration and years are based on today, 7/22/14. Provisional rating based on Regular rating only; no consideration given to Quick or Blitz.
- 835,861 Member IDs in the August 2014 Golden Database (100%).
- 277,321 Member IDs who expired while Provisional (33% of total).
- 230,253 Member IDs who expired while Provisional and below 1000 rating (28% of total).
- 113,607 Member IDs who expired while Provisional and below 500 rating (14%).
- 74,432 Member IDs who expired while Provisional within the last 10 years and below 500 rating (9% of total).
- 33,605 Member IDs who expired while Provisional within the last 5 years and below 500 rating (4% of total).
There were, and are no plans to do anything with the information. Inquiring minds just want to know…
As has been demonstrated, a lot of data mining can be done from the Gold Master file. (The XML version has even more information in it.)
A minor nit to pick, but it grates on me slightly.
“Regular” is not the opposite of “provisional”. Instead, “regular” is the opposite of “quick” or “blitz” or “dual-rated”.
The opposite of “provisional” is “established”. Make the substitution (“established” instead of “regular”) and I’ll be a little less grated.
Bill Smythe
Bill, I’m not sure what you’re kvetching about.
I like “regular established.” Stats provided are based on “regular provisional.”
I would reverse the order, ‘provisional’ is a modifier of ‘regular’, not the other way around.
Works for me!
One of the problems with the forum is that when someone expresses an idea the nitpickers come out of the woodwork.
This is my fifth decade in chess and I have never heard anyone use the word “established.” The word used when discussing a rating has always been “regular.” This does not mean it is proper, or correct to use “regular” in lieu of “established.” What difference does it make? Everyone pronounces the Pirc defense as “Pirk,” when it should be pronounced “Pirtz.” Not that is a nit to pick! 
Just posted this on the blog: Questioning USCF
I had never, until this thread, heard of anyone referring to an established rating as “regular”.
Alex Relyea
I started USCF play in 1986. As far as I am aware since that time, ratings are referred to as “provisional” and “established”. It is possible that “established” supplanted “regular” in the jargon of ratings sometime before then.
When communicating in the written word, it is good to be as clear as possible. So, what may appear to be gratuitous nit-picking may actually be honest attempts to achieve maximum clarity. I would say that most posters here have the latter motivation. YMMV.
It has always been changing a “provisional” rating to an “established” rating. Usually the quibbling is about how many games it takes to get a “provisional” rating or how many games to get an “established” rating. The term “regular” has always been in contrast to “quick” or more recently to “blitz” rating. “Regular” in this case applies to the “established” rating. How players refer to terms is usually different from official parlance.
Picking nits is “established” practice, not only on this forum, but everywhere. 
As far back as I have been a USCF member (I joined in 1967), there have always been ‘established’ ratings and ‘provisional’ ratings, although the number of games for a rating to become established has not always been the same. (It used to be 20 games, now it is 26.)
When we set up the Quick rating system in 1991, we started calling the original USCF rating system the ‘Regular’ rating system to differentiate it from the Quick system, but whether it was a Regular or a Quick rating, ratings still start out as provisioal and become established after the designated number of games.
Now that we have three different OTB ratings (Regular, Quick and Blitz), any OTB rating is still either ‘established’ or ‘provisional’.
Is this Golden Database available for anyone to download? (I’m a USCF member but not a TD.)
It’s in the TD/Affiliate area. The tab delimited file *.txt I converted into *.xlsx format rounds up to 13MB zipped. If your email can handle it PM me your email and I’ll send it over.
The Regular/Quick supplement files are also available in the Members Only area. You will need your PIN to log in.