I understand the concepts of rating floors, how they’re calculated, etc, but one thing I’m not sure about is…
Are ratings floors based on…
a) highest established PUBLISHED rating? (as in the Bi-monthly supplements)
b)highest established TEMPORARY rating? (as you would see in MSA)
example, Mr. X’s highest ever supplement rating is 1980…
he plays in a tournament that temporarily puts him over the 2000 mark…
then, he plays in another tournament that takes him back below 2000,
next rating supplement shows 1990…even though MSA would show him >2000 for a short time.
Here’s the relevant section from the technical description of the ratings system. (The complete document is online in the ratings section of the website.)
I would interpret the phrase ‘highest attained established rating’ as meaning any post-event rating based on more than 25 games, not just a published rating.
It is worth noting that ratings floors were established by Delegate policy, not by the Ratings Committee.
That’s interesting. I was always under the impression that it was the highest published rating – from a supplement. But you are implying that it’s the highest rating ever reached – regardless of when it was.
Is there any way to check further on this? It might keep people from reaching a rating level – and then staying home for a month while the supplement gets published.
Since I’m the person writing the new ratings software, my interpretation of the rules is what is getting programmed.
I’m not sure how we would check what has been done in the past, in part because the rules for floors have changed over the years.
The only time this would have an impact is when someone has a post-event
rating higher than the highest 100 point interval of his or her peak published rating, eg, a peak rating of 1802 and a peak published rating of 1798.
I think they send out master certificates when someone’s post-event rating hits 2200, too.
With post-event ratings subject to periodic re-rating, we may have to review both of those practices, though.
There could be a way, but it would add a great deal of software updating. The MSA could show a persons rating floor in the General information of the MSA. There are a number of members with ratings over 1600, that have little clue of what their rating floor is.
It would be a nice idea. As a number of people have little idea of their rating floor, as they never have been on their floor. Players do not think of their rating floor(s), as they do not want to think of going down 200 plus points, but like the idea of going 200 plus points up.
Yeah, the rating floor info is somewhat confusing. In the rating floor info on the website, it says the lowest rating floor is 1400 (with the exception of the 100 rule) and the highest floor exists at 2100. Then how come some people have 2200 floors? And thest people did not ever peak at over 2400 nor did they win a >$1000 prize in any master class tournaments.
Secondly, what significance do the CCA ratings have to do with the USCF? Are the CCA floors just a reference list that they keep so that people cannot sandbag, or does it actually set your USCF rating floor?
Different origin. Most of the floors to which you are referring came from either ratings or prizes won. Floors of this type above 2100 were abolished a few years ago. However, 2200 floors were also given to Life Masters (don’t get me started on the difference between “Life Masters” and “Original Life Masters”). This was given for maintaining a 2200+ rating for 300 games. These floors remain in effect (unless the player asks to have it removed).
The CCA minimum rating list is maintained by Bill Goichberg to prevent sandbagging in his tournaments. Several other organizers use it, but it is completely independent of the USCF rating floors.
Hear, hear! I too had a one event high of 2107 which allowed me to sit on 1900 for a few months this past year. My highest published is somewhere around 2070. It seems as if Nolan’s interpretation is according to recent tradition at any rate.
Do they still give out Life Master Titles? Because I heard that they used to have class titles such as “Lifetime Class A” etc, but they were abolished some time ago. I was wondering if they did the same with the expert and master titles too.
If you can hold a master’s rating for 300 games, you too can be a Life Master.
The other class titles and norms from the past are no longer in effect, though they may still be show in a few places, such as the ratings supplement historical records.
The Ratings Committee came up with a new title system in 2003, but it has not yet been implemented. Provisions for its implementation are in the new ratings database, once we have the ratings themselves operational on the new system we will work on implementing this system as well. (It does not affect the computation of ratings so it can be implemented retroactively.)
