What’s the official stance on giving players the latest rating? If I’m hosting a tournament with internet access, can’t I just log onto msa.uschess.org and get the latest rating? Would this have any effect for class prizes? I talked with a few people and they said to just use the April supplement, since June will not be posted until after my 1st tournament this weekend.
However, I believe there are certain instances where using MSA is ok:
For example, I posted something about a long delay in a TD turning in results. Recently, these results where rated and some of his regular players had a massive rating difference. One in particular went from the mid 1550’s to just over 1700. This doesn’t seem fair to the player since these results should have been included in the April Supplement, had they been turned in on time.
But on the other side, this gives an unfair advantage to this player if I have a U1700 prize.
I don’t know what USCF’s preference or rule is on this, but my feeling is getting the latest rating possible, but there are pro’s and con’s one way or the other.
If you do have a tournament and use the MSA to get a rating, you should let the people that sign up for the event know you are going to use the MSA. As you would place on the tournament life announcement, or the state webpage or flyers the abbreviation “WEB” as the tournament will use a players’ on-line rating.
Most players do like the web and some would not, as some would not know there on-line rating, as they have not looked it up or do not have access to a computer. As you can have a section that is for the under 1600 section as a example, the official rating is 1599 and the web gives a rating of 1610; the player just came to the event to be in the under 1600 section, not too be in the open.
The only reason for myself to use the web, if the player does not have a official rating, only use it for the parings of the tournament if the player does not have a rating.
For the idea of a upset prize, that is all up to the director, can be given each round or after the tournament.
The USCF rule is that tournaments must use the last published rating unless you announce otherwise in advance. It is true this can cause occasional oddities when someone’s rating changes rapidly, but the players have a right to know what rating is going to be used. The question of provisional/unofficial ratings and upset prizes is entirely at the organizer’s discretion. However, I recommend that you think this through in advance and put the policy on your flyer, unless you really enjoy arguments with players.
According to Tim Just, TD’s can assign players ratings that are HIGHER than a player’s current published rating but cannot use ratings that are LOWER than the player’s current published rating.
As we move toward receiving rating reports via the Internet, which should eliminate most of the processing delays, TD’s may start using the unofficial ratings from MSA more frequently and may start considering them as ‘official’.
I think this may cause some changes in USCF rules or in the way tournaments are announced or promoted.
One of the reasons for having a ‘published’ rating is that it gives players some stability in terms of choosing what events and which sections they can play in. It would be frustrating to make plans to travel to an event only to arrive and find out that a game rated yesterday pushed me into the next higher section.
I was just thinking it was a matter of convinence to have a more “accurate” rating now that we’re in this great digital age.
I assume with the special circumstance that I’m under (about 20 tournaments rated last week by the same TD), some players, including myself where denied a more accurate rating with these tournaments that should have been rated months before, which is no fault of the player, or USCF. With one certain player, as I pointed out, this will force his rating a difference of 200 points, which greatly effects the player’s pairing number. But since this is the case you posted, this would solve my problem.
Would it be a possibility to have an “Unofficial Supplement” similiar to how you have the current databases? This would be great, since I’m probably in the minority who will have internet access at the tournament tomorrow. I’m not sure how big of a deal it is to do these exports, but someone who keeps a local database would really find this a major benefit.
If you put it into a web service or XML, I’d really be happy
As rfeditor and nolan pointed out, you should use the April Rating Supplement, which is official, for all players, unless some players have unofficial ratings which are [i]higher[/i] than those listed in the supplement, AND those players wish to use those ratings (that is if they ask you to use them). You should/must not use a rating lower than that published.
The relevant rules are: 28C and 28E
I do not offer a player his choice to use an unofficial rating, but if he asks me to use one which is higher than the last published (in the Rating Supplement), I will require that he show proof, in the form of a CL label or from the MSA site, that he has a higher rating. With that proof, I will generally allow it.
Just asking a ton of questions for my first real TD experience… but I didn’t mention it at all, just because of the whole TD problem up here with the unrated tournaments…
The problem I have with absolute rules is that they don’t allow for the totally unexpected.
Suppose there is a low-rated player whose ID is used by mistake when it should have been an expert’s ID. The expert did fairly well against other experts. As a result the rating for the wrong ID jumps by more than 200 points.
This happens in the last rate before the June supplement and it isn’t discovered for a couple of weeks, by which time the supplement is already at the printer or in the mail.
USCF acknowledges the error, but how should it be handled by TD’s?
Does the rulebook permit this exception?
Probably comes under “USCF Rating Regulations,” paragraph 7: “Imposed rating adjustments. The USCF Executive Director may review the rating of any USCF member and make the appropriate adjustments, including but not limited to imposition of a rating ceiling.” (Of course, that is not really what the rule was intended for; it was probably included to prevent a player form pumping up his rating with phony tournaments.) In practice, I would accept such a claim only if the player had a signed letter from the USCF saying that his rating should be something other than what was in the supplement.
First, the key here, I believe, is that “USCF acknowledges the error”. I assume the TD had been in contact with USCF in order to know that USCF does, indeed, acknowledge the error. In that case, I believe that the TD can and should assign a rating based on whatever information USCF has given.
Second, I would point out USCF 1A. Scope " …the rules of chess cannot and should not regulate all possible situations. In situations not explictly covered, the tournament director can usually reach a fair decision by considering similar cases and applying their principles analogously. The United States Chess Federation (USCF) presumes that its tournament directors have the competence, sound judgement, and absolute objectivity needed to arrive at fair and logical solutions to problems not specifically treated by these rules".
Third, although 28E1 specifically prohibits assigning a rating lower than the one last published, the inherent problems of requiring a player to play up in a class where he/she is not suitable, and the fact that “USCF has acknowledged a problem”, the principles addressed in 1A would seem to be relevant. The TD here, would, I believe, have great latitude in discretion.
I only used the MSA once for an unrated player not listed in the April supplement / Feb golden database. This allowed me to give him a rating, which was only a provisional based on 4 games.
I was going to use it for myself but decided against it, which happen to work out well, because 2nd round I would have played a 2300
