Wrong season for conspiracies, John. This is the time to reason together.
Gary Walters is a candidate for the Executive Board of the USCF with a 40+ year passion for chess. Is he a chess outsider or someone that got lost in the system. Either way he has a lot to bring to the USCF. Do we owe him due diligence? can we afford to be unaware? Was ignorance of previous candidates the cause of our lawsuits?
It looks like Gary Walters had USCF ID 12434391 until 1990. It appears that ID was issued around 1984. He was living in TX at the time that membership lapsed. The last published rating for that ID was 1790.
When he rejoined (probably in 1994), it appears he was living in another state (Colorado) and he was issued a different USCF ID, 12617923. He currently lives in Ohio and is rated 1847.
We should probably flag ID 12434391 as a duplicate ID. Gary, if you read this, can you confirm that this is a duplicate ID for you?
Merging the ratings history would be a bit more complicated, since we cannot rerate events prior to 2004. I doubt it would make a big difference in his current published rating.
In this particular case (if this is such a case) that is irrelevent as the older ID has no history showing up in MSA.
Not really. Had someone notified the USCF office (or the office figured it out) when he rejoined in 1994 that he was a former member with an established rating of 1790, his post-event rating from the first event we have on MSA would likely have been a bit higher than 1765/5. (The ratings estimator program, which uses the current formulas, not the ones in effect in 1994, says it would have been 1787, a difference of 22 points, not exactly earth-shaking.)
It looks likely that he was a member prior to the id assigned in 80s. Here are his appearances from 1974 (the earliest supplement that I have) until MSA become available
1974 Yearbook (1973 Annual): OH 1433
December 1974 CL&R (1974 Annual): OH 1581
December 1975 CL&R (1975 Annual): OH 1579
December 1976 CL&R (1976 Annual): MO 1633 11074031 (no ids in earlier issues)
1978 Yearbook (1977 Annual): MO 1646 11074031
Then the new id appears
January 1986 (1985 Annual): NY 1730/09 12434391
January 1987 (1986 Annual): GA 1730/09 12434391 (this was cumulative from 1983)
January 1989 (1988 Annual): TX 1751 12434391
January 1990 (1989 Annual): TX 1790 12434391
I suspected he was a member prior to that (based on the ‘40 year history’ reference), but I don’t have the back files that you do, Tom.
I think we probably do a better job picking up on after-the-fact duplicate IDs than we used to, but if the player doesn’t tell the TD he has a previous ID/rating, and/or the TD doesn’t tell the office about it, then trying to catch them by comparing names, addresses and birthdates is still going to let some dups slip through.
We also see the opposite effect when a TD incorrectly uses an ID for another player with a similar name.
Further, I think that small difference of 22 points would have waned (maybe to less than 10 points?) by the cumulative dampening effect of tournaments subsequent to that. In other words if he had been offset higher by 22 points, subsequent gains would have been slightly reduced, and subsequent losses slightly increased. (Which is the way the system was designed to work, I believe.) It’s reduced to an academic discussion - certainly not meaningful in terms of this particular rating.