My courteous opponent played a whale of a game. He was listed on the wallchart as unrated: I said to him after the game, “Wow, you don’t play like an unrated player!” “Well, I was rated in the 1900s when I played back in Tennessee in the 1960s.”
At a guess his membership lapsed before the USCF started assigning ID numbers back in the mid 70s.
Based on that ID number, he was assigned a USCF ID somewhere around the end of 1986, so it appears he rejoined around then.
It appears that membership also lapsed and that he rejoined the USCF again in 1994. That membership also lapsed, and he rejoined in early 2008, and yet again this month.
However, apparently he did not play in any USCF rated events between 1986 and his recent event, so his old rating from the 60’s was never attached to that ID.
The office may be able to look him up in old printed rating supplements or the microfiche of the ratings cards from before the mid 70’s.
I’ve forwarded this information on to Walter Brown for researching.
“Once Rated, Always Rated” only works if:
A. The player tells the organizer/director that he has an old rating.
B. The organizer/director tells the USCF that the player has an old rating.
C. The office is able to find that old rating and add it to the player’s records.
Which of the above did not happen here? Not sure.
Since the event just ended last night, the organizer only has had the chance to rate the event, pack up the playing site, and sleep.
The player did tell me that he had a rating when he was a teenager by playing in a single US Open but had no proof of this aside from saying it and obviously the MSA doesn’t show anything earlier than 1991 and he stated he has not played in any other events aside from that US Open that was around 45 years ago.
Since you’re forwarding to him I won’t so he doesn’t get duplicative emails.
There were also opportunities for his rating to have gotten attached to his member rating in around 1987, again in 1994 and yet again in 2008, but since apparently none of those renewals were associated with playing in a tournament, the issue probably just didn’t come up before now.
However, Sevan did supply an additional piece of information that Walter might be able to use, his having played in a single US Open. That might provide an additional place to research his rating and it suggests that his old rating is probably based on no more than 12 games.
With rerating it should be a relatively simple thing to take care of, assuming Walter can find him in our archives. (His performance certainly seems to give credence to his claim of being around a 1900 player.)
The rules also give the TD the discretion to assign a rating for pairing purposes in cases like this. It’s not clear from the crosstable if that was done here.
Every year the USCF gets several requests to look up a returning member’s rating from before 1977, so while it is unusual, it also isn’t unprecedented. This one goes further back than most do, though I do think there was one returning member from the 1950’s a year or two ago.
It would probably make things easier knowing where the US Open was played (and that seems like something that would be remembered).
Someone telling me he played 45 years ago when he was a teenager and only having played in that US Open and no other tournament isn’t logically going to get a TD discretion based rating provided but tossed to the wolves in the open section.
No, but play a 5 minute game with him and you’ll have a good idea of whether he’s a 1200 player or a 1900 player.
Is this something most TDs faced with this situation do? Probably not, but I’ve done it more than once. The goal is to get players properly placed for pairing purposes, which affects all the players, not just the ‘unrated’ one.
He blundered his queen in a probably winning position, plus I was down to three seconds plus delay.
Walter’s been researching this, he thinks he has found a player by that name who meets most of the information posted above, though it appears he may have played in more than just one tournament back in the 60’s. (The ratings cards don’t generally identify the events, and sometimes not even the dates of the events.)
Above & beyond the call!