It’s good to see Hikaru Nakamura playing again, at the Grand Pacific Open in Victoria, Canada last weekend. It was FIDE-rated and he seems to have picked up four FIDE points by scoring 6-0. He’s solidly in sixth place on the live ratings list of the world’s top players.
But I wonder about the propriety of gaining points in a tournament where none of your opponents come within 400 points of your rating.
Oddly enough, Nakamura himself tweeted last month: “After seeing people picking up rating points off beating weaker players, I am convinced chess ratings should be weighted like in tennis.”
Of course, he could have lost points in Canada…
Note that in the FIDE rating system, if the opponent is rated more than 400 points above/below the player, the game is rated as though the opponent’s rating is 400 points higher/lower than the player’s rating. See Article B.02.8.54 of the FIDE handbook.
Often a player has no idea who is entered until he shows up at the event. I see nothing wrong with a player entering a tournament where he is by far the highest rated unless there is a rating cap. As an organizer I would hope that the addition of a very strong player would encourage other strong players to enter. How would it look to the rest of the chess world if the organizer banned the #6 player in the world because he’s too good?
I always liked the old USCF rule, since abandoned, that you could not lose rating points if you won an event. That encouraged stronger players to play in a greater variety of events and stay more active.
We can find no documentation for that rule, so it is not clear when (if ever) it was in effect, possibly before the first computerized ratings programming in 1977. (The rule is not included in the source code for the COBOL program that was used in the mid 80’s, nor in the dBase/Clipper code that was used prior to 2005.)
People can’t even agree on exactly how it was phrased. Was it ‘clear first’ in an event? And what about someone who takes a draw in the last round because that clinches the Under 2000 prize?
The current rule that we ‘round away from zero’ means that most players will gain or lose at least one point in an event.
Mark Glickman has suggested the possibility of maintaining internal ratings in floating point (which we already do within an event) and rounding to the nearest integer for display on the website and in rating supplements. That way someone could gain or lose a fraction of a point in an event and not have that gain or loss rounded to a whole point.
I remember contacting the office (before email) about players losing rating points after winning a tournament , and they may have made hand corrections for some players.
As I posted on Thu Jan 14, 2010 8:02 am #177235:
Chess Life, November 1981, p 6:
US Open Meetings
Ratings, Sustaining Memberships Among Issues
“In addition, it was decided that the clear, untied winner of a tournament of individual players should not lose rating points providing the tournament includes at least eight players. Anyone losing rating points in such a situation should request an adjustment from the ratings specialist in the New Windsor office.”
“These changes will be implemented by the office as soon as possible, probably before the end of the year.”
I am sure the players at the Grand Pacific Open were gladto see and play with Hikaru Nakamura.
I was reading Mike’s post thinking “As I recall, this applied to clear first” and then I see Tom’s post. Great job. Tom, did it say what meeting this was in? Was this a delegate decision, a RC decision?
ADDENDUM: “This policy shall be posted on the USCF website.”