Initial FIDE rating

A change is coming to the method for a player to achieve a FIDE rating.

Effective 1.July.2014 the two new aspects are:

–only 5 games is necessary for the initial FIDE rating (down from 9 games)
–there is no longer a performance norm required of 3 games against a FIDE rated player with 1pt or more scored. Playing a single game against a FIDE rated player and scoring a 1/2 pt gets.

So the possibility exists, if you meet 5 FIDE rated players in a single swiss event, to achieve your initial FIDE rating.

The rules for a RR are still in effect where you play a 9R-RR and 4 of the 10 players are FIDE rated. So long as everyone scores 1 pt or more against ANY players you have a FIDE rating at the end.

I just played in a FIDE rated tournament last weekend (The Washington Open). I played 3 FIDE rated opponents and scored 1 out of 3. Will I only need two more games to get an initial FIDE rating or six more since this tournament occured before July 1, 2014?

Also, any update on G/60 becoming FIDE ratable?

I will validate that. Today during our update seminar for International Arbiters, Walter Brown validate that this was happening (as the rating regulations online does not reflect this change).

G/60 is capable of being FIDE rated. You’re question is probably more to the line that it’s ratable for any rating bracket rather than just U1600 FIDE rated players.

Currently you can do G/60 + 30/sec increments as the time control for anyone rated up to 2199.

Of course you can do 4 rounds of this in a single day now. The maximum of 3 games in 1 day was lifted and it’s only based on maximum of 12 hours of play in a single day based on a game that lasts 60 moves (so it could go longer than 12 hours).

The Game-60 discussion will be had again during the next set of meetings in Tromso.

I’m not sure if this is a serious question or not, but assuming that it is:

If you want to get a rating this month, i.e. in the July FRL, you’ll need to play six more games. If you wait until next month, you’ll only need two more games to get rated.

Alex Relyea

This all assumes that FIDE correctly registers all of your games against FIDE opponents. I mention this as in the very first FIDE event I ever played in [back in 2004] I had 5 different opponents that were FIDE rated. I finished the event with 3 points out of 6. As I had the required (at the time) 4 players needed to get a FIDE rating out of the event my final game was not counted by FIDE. This was a victory over a master who as I recall also had a very high FIDE rating. I do recall calculating that if the final game had also been included I would have had a provision (Unpublished and unofficial) rating of 2101. As I have never been near 2100 this of course sticks in my mind.

For those who really care this was the Reno Open over Easter weekend. You can see the results in the MSA and the missing result [Rd 6 game] on the FIDE web site under my history.

Larry S. Cohen

Well I’m waiting for a response from Walter on this…

No, this assumes that the national federation responsible for submitting the event for rating to the FIDE Rating Server correctly registers all of the games played against FIDE rated opponents.

FIDE calculates what is provided to it by the national federation.

This piqued my curiosity. The “final game was not counted by FIDE” makes no sense to me and does not jibe with what I have heard from friends who have FIDE ratings.

Check your opponents list at your FIDE rating page. At least three and probably all of the FIDE-rated players you faced at Reno 2004 are not included. I don’t know if that list only starts with opponents you face once your FIDE rating is published. If not, it seems either the tournament did not get FIDE rated for some reason, or maybe someone (perhaps wrongly) did not think your result was sufficient to gain FIDE “credit.”

Also, your first published rating is based on 11 games, per the FIDE rating site. Do the math and see if it adds up that games from Reno '04 were included. Maybe Sevan can shed more light on this.

National federations are not (or soon will not be) the only entities that can submit rating reports to FIDE.

How the rating reports submitted by those other entities will be paid for, ie, who gets the bill from FIDE when they get around to issuing one, is not currently clear to me.

Will this be retroactive? I have a lot of games against FIDE rated opponents, but it seems like I never quite got enough results in the required time frame. I have 13 wins 15 draws and 44 losses according to the FIDE website. For rating system that they want to push so hard, FIDE has made it difficult to get a rating. I guess this change will make it easier.

I believe it was stated during the seminar that there is a 26 month time limit for achieving one’s first FIDE rating. Results older than 26 months “age out.” (The current limit is 24 months.)

Correct that is changing.

Dear Mr Mark:

If you look at the USCF MSA page for the 2004 Reno Far West Open you will see the list of the players I played. If you pull up the 2004 Reno Far West Open on the FIDE web site [look under January 2005 for the event] you will see that it list me as having achieved 1.0 points against 4 FIDE rated opponents.

The following players [besides myself] are listed on the FIDE page for that event:
Michael Langer [who I drew], Dan Mackezie [who I lost], Ricardo De Guzman [who I lost], Stephen Fairbain [who I drew], and Gary Sims [who I beat in the final round]. As you can count up this should show as me having played 5 FIDE opponents in the event, and having scored 2 points against them. The missing 1 point, obviously from my lone win against a FIDE opponent is clearly missing. That is what I meant when I said the game was not counted. I and my 5 FIDE rated opponents are listed on the FIDE web site for that event. So, all of my opponents are there and my result was FIDE rated towards my initial published FIDE rating as I am listed for the event as well.

I will admit I have no idea how a player can be listed for a tournament and have only 1 round of his results left off. Also, I would guess that this means that my initial FIDE (after 9 or more games) rating was incorrectly calculated.

Larry S. Cohen

Yes, it seems strange. I don’t know if anything can be done after so much time has passed, but maybe you could point this out to Walter Brown or whoever handles FIDE rating issues at the USCF office these days. Also, not sure why these players are not included in your opponents list. Maybe that list only includes opponents you played after your rating was published.

Strange.

??? Yes it was a serious question and we are still waiting word back on this.

In the USCF rating system document, glicko.net/ratings/rating.system.pdf, it says in regards to initializing a players USCF rating based on their FIDE that “if the FIDE rating is over 2150, then this converted rating is treated as based on having played 10 games (N = 10).” However, now that players can have a FIDE rating based on 5 games, does it make sense for a FIDE rating based on 5 games to be based on 10 games in the USCF rating system?

A similar issue used to occur with the quick rating system: In one of the FAQ’s it says: (Q)-“I’ve only played in a few events, and they were all dual-rated events. Why does it look like I have more quick-rated games than regular-rated games? (A)-This was something that occured under our old ratings programming. Events submitted and rated after February of 2005 should not have this problem.”

Micah, USCF tends to work by the case method. Until VERY recently, players could not have a published FIDE rating based on 5 games, so the Ratings Committee has not yet had to consider what to do about those players, because the situation could not have occurred yet.

I understand all of this. I was bringing this up since players will now be able to get a FIDE rating based on 5 games.

Then please adjust your tone so it doesn’t sound so haughty. It may take the USCF some time to consider the ramifications of what FIDE is doing, especially since at present we have no data to see how 5-game FIDE ratings will hold up compared to 9-game FIDE ratings, sufficient data for that kind of analysis might not be available for several years.

BTW, I do not believe that the new FIDE rule is at all analogous to the problem with dual-rated events between 2001 and 2004.

I don’t think it was haughty and wasn’t meant to be. I apologize if it came off that way. I was simply bringing up this new issue now that players can get FIDE ratings after 5 games.

I agree the problem with dual-rated events is different than this new FIDE issue but the point I was making was that both could have ratings based on more games than the player has played.

And the other thing is that this only applies to people without USCF ratings. There might be (many?) Americans with low game count FIDE ratings, but then the FIDE conversion won’t apply to them. How many (non-Canadian) foreign players are going to come to the US to play chess with only a few FIDE-rated games?