A friend recently asked me if I would rate a match between himself and another player. I agreed bu noted that the players must be within 400 rating points of each other. He replied, “Oops, we have already played 2 of the 10 games.” The lower rated player is currently 1728, and the other player is 2200 (at his OLM floor). Are these games eligible to be rated? Obviously, both players played both games under the impression they were to be rated…
I also mentioned the 50 point rule. He said, well why can’t we just call each game it’s own match? Which got me thinking - what is the definition of a match? These guys plan to play 10 games, at two per week for five weeks. But who’s to say they couldn’t also call it two 5-game matches?
It seems clear that 2200 - 1728 = 472 exceeds the maximum allowable difference in rating for the match to be rated. The rules do not take into regard what the players intended.
It seems like these two guys realize that there is going to be a big increase in the rating of the 1728 player as a result of this “match”. Why do I have the impression that they want to find whatever loopholes will serve to accomplish this goal?
Maybe you shouldn’t have anything to do with this. Maybe you should tell the 1728 player to gain rating points in proper tournaments rather than from some compliant and friendly former master exploiting his rating floor to play Santa Claus with rating points.
Variations on the “match” theme have been tried several time over. When you get caught the USCF has rolled back ratings and the TD is sent off for rehab.
I know both players well and trust the integrity of the players involved. Neither would set up a match intending to abuse the system. Both have decided they like the idea of using “club” time to play rated games, rather three hours of blitz.
It seems the responses have indicated that I should tell the players involved that the match is un-ratable in the present situation (because of the rating difference).
Nonetheless, my question about what constitutes a “match” remains unanswered. If the USCF has indeed rolled back rating gains/losses, they must have some criteria about what constitutes a match.
Thanks to everyone for your responses and discussion.
Tim I went there earlier and was going to post the above, but that doesn’t say exactly what the new Match rules are. I know I have seen them somewhere but haven’t had a chance to track them down. Are they perhaps in the pdf of rule changes?
Are Playoff Games considered Matches? For example are City Championship Invitational consists of 2 sections of 6 with the winners of each playing the best out three to determine the City Champion. It is a long shot but strange things do happen. One section has a player rated 2362. The other sections top player is 2007 which wouldn’t be an issue with the 400 point difference. But the number 2 player in that section is only 1938 and this player could easily win that section. Say that happens, how do we have our playoff rated?
Or would this simply be a case of calling the office and explaining?
I would think it is not a match, since the playoff is the final stage of a tournament and the players have no control over who they will meet in the playoff. It seems that a key point about a “match” is that it is arranged by the players between themselves. You Playoff is not like that. As for how the Playoff is rated, isn’t it part of a single CC Invitational event, and wouldn’t the playoff games just be submitted with the other games in the CC Invitational?
The other element to question is: They asked you to rate the match but commenced play before doing so. Why? Why would you trust that prior play conformed to the rules? (Other than your previous answer that you trust them.) I don’t know that I would agree to rate something that has been ongoing, myself - I’d rather have the players first ask it be rated before a pawn is pushed.
I think the latter. It looks like a match, and sounds like a match, but isn’t a match, so you have to explain that it isn’t a match. It shouldn’t be a big deal, though.
A player on his rating floor cannot “play Santa Claus with rating points” without risking losing points, due to the following USCF rule:
“Any player whose rating is at that player’s floor and plays in a match will be considered to have submitted a request to have that floor lowered by 100 points. The USCF ratings department will review the player’s tournament history to decide if the floor should be lowered.”
As far as I knew, there were only two official repositories for official USCF rules: (1) The USCF Official Rules of Chess, 5th Edition; and (2) the list of current changes to the USCF Official Rules of Chess, online at uschess.org/docs/gov/reports … hanges.pdf.
These are the two rules sources on which TD’s are examined, and which TD’s interpret and apply. When I received my TD test, I was informed in the forwarding email that these were the two documents on which I was being tested.
The match rating rules that Chris Bird posted carry no information as to the authority that adopted these rules. Five years later those rules have not found their way into the RulebookChanges.pdf document, the latest version of which is January 2011. These match rules seem to be a random document of completely unknown status, and a TD would be ill-advised to follow it.
Better would be if the revisions to the match rules, approved by the Executive Board in 2006 and announced at that time, were added to the list of current changes to the USCF Official Rules of Chess that appears online.
Is it normal for the USCF EB to be messing with the USCF Official Rules of Chess? Why is that not a Delegates matter?
In this case, after the EB messed with the official rules, none of the steps required to make that change official actually happened, and still have not happened after five years. When TD’s apply the rules, are we obliged to read through BINFO’s and random “reports” on the web site to find every case where the EB adopted some resolution and then never bothered to make it effective by putting it in one of the places where USCF rules are codified?
The EB acted, in response to complaints of match abuses, at a time when it was about 9 months until the next delegates meeting. This action did not invalidate anything in the rulebook, but added new safeguards. The delegates were free to override the Board’s action at the next four delegates meetings, but no one proposed doing so.