uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlMain.php?10312345
What are your thoughts on how the above player got his floor?
Is it possible that his rating was above 2300 before 1991 and that it was adjusted before the following:
uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php … 2-10312345
tournament was rated?
Just a guess.
This player looks like he won the Open Section of a big tournament (Northeastern Open) in 1996. Sometimes if you win a big cash prize, you get a floor to keep you from sandbagging and coming back and winning again and again.
It could have taken awhile for the USCF to establish that floor - remember in 1996 it tooks months to get tournaments rated.
Like I said - just a guess.
The 2006 Northeastern Open ended on 2/25 and was rated on 3/12, so that doesn’t seem likely to have caused him to get a 2100 floor nearly a year later, though since the ratings system back then didn’t track corrections there’s no way to know for sure what happened.
There’s a gap between events in January 1997 and ones in October 1997, I wonder if there was a block of tournaments deleted?
I can ask Walter Brown to look at this tomorrow.
Oh no! You have unwittingly stumbled upon the correction mechanism introduced by the 2nd Foundation (USCF ratings Comittee) to keep the rating deflation in check.
Have you ever wondered how you can still maintain your rating despite having no clue of what’s going on in your games? I did! Now I know the answer.
Perhaps getting IM norms helps one to keep his rating whether he knows what is going on or not. 
Alex Relyea
You are not supposed to get a $$-floor unless you receive a class prize or play in a rating-limited section. Winning an Open event should NOT generate a $$-floor.
Now, there are certainly people who think that you SHOULD get a floor for winning a big Open event - but as far as I know this is not official USCF policy.
Yet.
Hmm, it does seem illogical that, if a 1750 wins the under-1800 section, he gets an 1800 floor, yet if this same 1750 wins the Open section, no floor is assigned.
Bill Smythe
Not if everyone else in the tournament was rated 1200 and it was just called an “Open.” Yes, an extreme example, but I imagine it was some sort of reasoning along these lines which lead to winners of “Open” sections not receiving a floor.
Chris Bird
Really? What floor would you want to assign him? 2600? Not too many class prizes above that.
What this case ought to do is raise skepticism about the whole concept of “money floors.” They are (like all floors) a distortion of the rating system. The distortion is usually minor. But the only reason for them is to provide an extra service to the organizers of big-class-prize tournaments. Should the USCF be doing this?
There is also the problem that they encourage players to think of ratings as “something that qualifies me for a big class prize.” I’m certain the USCF shouldn’t be doing ths.
Well, at least you could assign him the floor he would have received, had he been playing in the highest section that would have assigned a floor normally. For example, if the section immediately under the Open was Under 2000, he could be assigned a 2000 floor.
I share, somewhat, your discomfort with money floors, and even with class prizes in general. They seem to be a necessary evil, though.
Bill Smythe
Class prizes, probably yes. Money floors … I’m not convinced. If the organizers of large-class-prize tournaments want to exclude certain players from eligibility, they can do it themselves. The USCF should just say no.
Having said that – since we do not live in a perfect world, I’ll suggest a compromise. Keep the floors on the MSA, but decouple them from the published rating. E.g., the player might show as having a rating of 1850 and a “floor” of 2000. If an organizer wanted to use the “floor” instead of the current rating, he would be free to do so. At a minimum, this would remove a minor but real inflationary factor.
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Yes ‘decouple’ – this seems like sound common sense to me.
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