In team vs. team tournaments, teams are usually ranked and paired based on rating average. What should an unrated player’s rating be in determining a teams rating average? Some ways of doing it are:
Use a rating of somewhere between 0-99 (this assures they are lower than any player with a rating)
Use a rating of 100 (the USCF absolute floor)
Use the average post event rating that the unrated players got from previous year’s tournament
Use the USCF’s age based initial rating
Use the average rating of the tournament
Ues the average rating of the team members with ratings
All six methods listed ignore which board has the unrated.
The TD can estimate based on which board the unrated is playing (an unrated on board 1 of 4 should be estimated higher than an unrated on board 4 of 4 if the rest of the team is the same).
Uh, don’t allow unrated players to play in a team tournament?
If that won’t work, I’d say either use the adjusted FIDE or other average, or leave the player off entirely and average the remaining boards only. (How often will a player’s first tournament experience be as a board in a team tournament? Will it be more cases of bringing in unrated ringers, i.e. to deflate the team average than legitimate new players which would inflate them?) Also, require that no more than one unrated can play per team and must be assigned lowest board.
Of all these, I’d be much more inclined to make a rule for the entity running it that players must have a rating to participate.
It sounds like you’re describing a scholastic team tournament. USCF rated? Are teams required to play in rating order? The simplest would be #6. An alternative is to use the rating of the player on the team on the adjacent board (if first or last) or average if placed in between two players. In practice, that won’t generally be that different from #6. Most of the others listed are just really bad ideas.
I adjust these ratings if necessary to ensure that players are rated in board order, e.g. in the K-3 section if board 1 is rated 250 and board 2 is rated 157 I’ll assign a rating of 156 to board 3 and 100 to board 4.
I never actually use the board 1 rating because the association has a rule that unrated players have to play on lower boards than rated players (unless the TD assigns a rating) , and if all the players on a team are unrated I’ll enter them as unrated. If the coach tells me that an unrated player is the strongest player on the team I’ll ask the coach to estimate the player’s strength based on his results against other players, and I’ll assign the player a rating under rule 28D5.
For IHSA events that often have unrateds spread among the various eight boards (sometimes board one) you can interpolate the ratings based on the adjacent boards (which I think is what WinTD might do when using that option). For an unrated on a low or high board that can make a noticeable difference from option #6.
Since I’m not totally certain how the interpolation logic works in WinTD I’ll do it manually, assign the team rating, and then set WinTD to use entered team ratings instead of calculated ratings. I’m fairly fast at math and feel confident in being able to properly interpolate per my own specifications. Simply using the WinTD interpolation option is used my multiple TDs for IHSA events.
Unrateds above the top rated player get the same rating as the top rated player. Unrateds between two rated players get the average of the players on either end. Unrated below the lowest rated player are given ratings that drop 50 points per board.
I said that it doesn’t make a noticeable difference because you’re assigning the unrated a rating not atypical for the team, and since any changes to a single board get divided out by the number of boards, the difference will generally be well under 100 even if it’s the top or bottom board that’s the unrated.
At the Glenbard South tournament there was a 17 point difference between the #22 team at the bottom of the top half and the #23 team. There was a 9 point difference between #11 and #12 and a 10 point difference between #33 and #34. Those differences are very noticeable for the round one accelerated pairings (44 teams and 4 rounds). #29 was 4 points behind #26. #21 was 4 points behind #20. #14 was 5 points behind #13.
Whether or not the differences are significant can also be argued. Personally I want to make a distinction between a team with an unrated on board one where boards 2 through 8 average 1100 and a team with an unrated on board eight where boards 1 through 7 average 1100.
An advantage of the system I’m using compared to extrapolation is that if a team enters the K-3 section, say, and board 1 is rated 1000 and boards 2-4 are unrated, I think 400 is probably a better estimate of the team’s playing strength than an extrapolation such as 925 (1000, 950, 900, 850). I also like the fact that the table assigns a higher rating to the team in older age groups: 400 in K-3, 475 in K-5, 625 in 6-8, 850 in 9-12.
This spreadsheet will account for an unrated player on any board.
Be certain to press update when you have entered all of the values
board 1 (50 points above the rating of the player on board 2)
board 2 (average of board 1 and board 3, unless board 3 is also unrated)
board 3 (average of board 2 and board 4, unless board 2 or 4 is also unrated)
board 4 (50 points below board 3)
In Ky scholastics if all 4 players are unrated then the team rating is set at 500.
If any player is rated then unrated players are listed on lower boards in the order specified by the coach and assigned a rating 50 points below the player above them with a minimum rating of 100.
Why?
Because that is the way we do it here.
The adult team event uses 3 player teams I think and I am not sure what they do for unrated players. That event is held somewhat irregularly.
The state scholastic team is held every year. The unrated players are in the event usually because they played in the qualifying tournament which was submitted too late for inclusion in the next month’s official rating, they do not have enough games to have a provisional rating, or they were added to a team from the club late (usually very young players on this one_) and have not ever played in a rated tournament.
Because it is unofficial and we don’t use unofficial ratings. Also, to be fair, then we would need to update everyone in the event with their unofficial rating. The event has 396 players if it is full. That is too much to do given the time we have to do it. I’ve been deeply involved in the event 6-8 years - it is the largest event we have in Ky and it is a bear.
Also, all we are doing is setting a team rating for pairing. It is a 4 round 16 team tournament with 4 sections - 6 players on a team playing four boards (2 alternates). G60 and all the rounds in one day. Alternates play in a side event and get moved in and out of that side event as the go into the main event. We do substitutions lake baseball - once you are in you are in. Players are in rating order on the board.
With only 16 teams in a section and 4 rounds to play, to win this thing your team ends up really having to win out or at least get 3 out of 4 to tie. It sorts itself out.
Usually teams without rated players do not do very well - occasionally one in the K-3 section with one unrated player will finish high.
It happens quite a bit in high school/middle school leagues in the northwest
Yes, a scholastic team tournament, not USCF rated but NWSRS rated. Teams are required to play in order of strength. Generally, a 150 point difference in rating is allowed (extensions to the 150 point rule are granted or denied on a case by case basis). How would you handle the unrated players if a team isn’t in rating order?
This spreadsheet is designed to use USCF ratings for team tournaments where the players are placed in their order of ability. However, the values are all zero until they are entered so it would be simple to use whichever rating system that you like. The web version is nice because our coaches can use it to determine if their team is eligible for an under section. However, if you prefer something that is always accessible from your computer, I can put you in touch with the guy who wrote it and he can share the excel spreadsheet with you.
Also, USCF rating of scholastic events is extremely important for drawing players into the organization.
Consider using the JTP option for the K-3 players. Once these players have USCF ratings, they will certainly want to keep them by paying the membership dues. There are also scholastic affiliates (or at least there used to be) that can use to purchase discounted memberships in a large volume.
I have no personal experience with the large volume discounted scholastic memberships, but I am certain that the office could help you.
As we have been discussing in this thread, viewtopic.php?f=5&t=18906, the NWSRS helps bring new players to tournament chess as it prevents players from having to pay USCF membership. Eventually, many of these players will go on to get USCF membership. JTP is an option for K-3 and I have considered using this in the past but as most other scholastic tournaments in the northwest are not using JTP for K-3, I think it would just be a waste of rating fees and lead to stale and inaccurate ratings for these players.
If you want a mechanical procedure, use the average rating of the players that have a rating, and if the team is more than half unrated, treat the team as unrated. If you want to let coaches estimate ratings for their unrated players, let them.
You really can do anything you want - but write it down and post it long before the tournament. The Ky rules are in the “blue book” of the rules and it is posted on the KCA web site, handed out to coaches at the beginning of the year and again at the qualifying tournaments for the state team. Someone may object to the method, but they certainly have every opportunity to know what the method is. and now since we have done it the same way for many years, few if any ever object.