I may be running a closed K-5 tournament at a local school. I expect it to be the first tournament for all the kids and I was wondering about the details of how this would wind up getting rated? Hopefully it would be with a pre-rating of something based upon their age??
Correct. The players’ pre-event estimated ratings will be their age (in years and fractions of a year) X 50, so someone who is exactly 6 years old on that date will have a starting rating of 300, some who is 6 1/2 will be 325, etc. (Someone who is 26 or older will have an estimated pre-event rating of 1300.)
There are a number of events rated each year in which all players are unrated, there have been 30 so far in 2007. Last year there was one with 32 unrated players in it.
If you look at the crosstables being produced today, you will see that there is no such thing as an “unrated” player. Some players have ratings based on zero games - but they do have a pre-event rating!
Of course, like Schoedinger’s Cat, you don’t know what the rating is until they enter a tournament…