Rule 28D Question: Unrated players

Running Chess Tournaments
1

I am a bit confused by the wording of rule 28D. If I have a top, middle,
and bottom section–aren’t unrated players allowed to win money in the
bottom section? I would think so–but after reviewing the rules today,
the wording of 28D confused me a bit.

I know that I won money at my first tournament, but that has been 23
years ago!

I will not allow unrated players in the open section, of course.

Someone please help clarify this for me. I have many unrated players
who will be attending a tournament soon.

I hope this question doesn’t make me sound dumb! :blush:

Sincerely,

William “Tom” Hales, TD
Asheboro Chess Club

2

I’m curious why you’re disallowing unrated players in the open section? I would have thought that an “open” section implies all players are eligible, including unrated players.

3

I don’t quite understand your question. 28D says “Players without official USCF ratings are eligible only for place (or top non-class) prizes and prizes for unrated players unless alternate procedures are used to assign ratings.” Are you asking about the meaning of “place prizes”? I interpret this to mean “top prizes in the Open section for which all players may compete.” (And isn’t an “Open” section open to all, by definition?)

4

28D. Players without USCF ratings. Players without official USCF ratings are eligible only for place (or top non-class) prize and prizes for unrated players unless alternate procedures are used to assign ratings …

What is your unrated prize? In your advertisment, did you place the unrated prize. Some would have it as under 1200 or unrated, … or unrated prize.

5

My bottom section is for 1449 & Under, which to me implies unrated
players included. Maybe that is where the confusion is.

I don’t have a problem with unrateds competing in the open section, if
that is okay, but I would discourage it at the very least.

I guess my absolute nuts & bolts question is: Given my bottom section,
wouldn’t unrated be eligible for prizes in the bottom section? I had
assumed they would, but this rule confused me a bit.

Is this rule basically saying that unrateds may not compete in sections
not set up to include them? That’s the way I read it.

Thanks,

William “Tom” Hales, TD newbie
Asheboro Chess Club

6

The usual meaning of ‘1449 and under’ is that it does NOT include unrated players. If you want to include unrated players, specify it as ‘1449 and under or Unrated’, which eliminates any ambiguity.

7

The short answer is that, in general, unrateds are not eligible for “under” prizes because they are not rated “under” anything – they have no rating. This doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t compete in a section, just that they can’t win class prizes. (And, to avoid confusion, all prizes in an “Under XXXX” section are, by definition, class prizes.)

There are a number of ways of dealing with the unrated problem, but they all have to be thought out before the tournament (and preferably before you print your flyers). You can have an Unrated prize in the bottom section (unrateds eligible only for this), you can make the unrateds play in the Open, you can have a staggered prize-amount for which unrateds are eligible in each section.

Or, you can rule that all the players in the bottom section (or whichever one you want to put the unrateds) are eligible for the (class) prizes in that section. If you are certain that all the unrateds will be beginners, this will work. Occasionally, however, you will get an unrated who is a fairly strong player, and doing it this way will almost guarantee a dispute.

8

Having the ‘1449 and under’ does not grant the unrated players a prize. If the flyer said ‘under 1449 and unrated’, then you would not have a problem. It is not common to have ‘under 1449’, as you are break up the players in the class C range.

Would have to say you do not have any prize for the unrated players. Since the advertisment is out, nothing you can do to recall it. The only hope I can see, come up with the unrated prize. The players understand this is your first event, do not see the players in the under 1449 would mind if you change it to under 1449 and unrated. If you have one, you should have a back up prize.

9

Here in Pittsburgh we don’t consider the place prizes in Under XXXX sections to be class prizes. So, unrateds may enter any section and are eligible for the place prizes in that section. For the larger Grand Prix-level events we normally have additional limits on what the unrateds can win which differ by section. For example we might have limits of $50 in the U1400, $100 in U1800 and no limit in the Open.

10

Well, any prize restricted to players under a certain rating is a class prize, whether you call it that or not. Using the term “place prize” for these often leads to some fairly pointless logic-chopping down the road.

There is no perfect solution to the “Unrated problem,” and the staggered-prize system is as good as any. It’s a self-correcting problem (more quickly now than in the past).

11

Question: Should someone with a quick rating but no regular rating be
considered unrated in a Game/75 tournament? How do you pair
unrated players in SwissSys? I found that SwissSys rejected the
imported “unr.”, so I put in 0. Is this the correct procedure?

What Martinak said makes more sense to me. Our “Under 1450” section
does offer a class prize for the best score under 1200. I understand not
including unrateds for this category, since there is no way to determine
if they meet the criteria (under 1200).

However, if they qualify to enter a section (which they must in order to
play in it), then defacto they should be able to win the place prize.

I think the problem here is the definition of “place” vs. “class.” Now that
I have reread 28D, and after discussion here, I think an unrated would
be eligible for 1rst or 2nd place in the lowest section, unless specifically
excluded from the lower section. Perhaps it would have been best to
adverstise “1449–Under including unrateds.” Next time, I will have it
read that way to avoid any confusion.

The huge injustice I want to avoid is thus: I know of someone playing
their first tournament. They are, of course, unrated. Am I to tell them
“First you must join USCF, and that will be $38.00. We also need $25.00
to enter the tournament. Oh, by the way, you can’t possibly win a prize
unless you happen to be a closet master and play in the open section.”

The injustice to unrated players is great, while the liklihood of an unrated actually taking the prize is relatively small.

I think among most players, it is generally understood that unrateds will
play in the lowest section (unless there is another unrated section for
them). At least, this has always been the way I have seen it done.

When I played in my first tournament 23 years ago as an unrated, I won
first prize in the lowest section. I beat a 1600+ in doing this. I was not
coming to the tournament trying to cheat anyone, but simply playing
where I was assigned. Of course, I was elated and excited about playing again. If I had won without getting a prize, this could have made me
not want to play again.

If rule 28D means that unrateds may not win a prize, the rule should be changed. It does not encourage newbies to get involved.

It should be understood that unrateds will play in the lowest section unless otherwise specified. In order to achieve a rating, they must play other rated players, so putting them in an unrated section would not
work. Forcing them to play in the top section is neither fair to them, nor
the folks in the top section. Every player in the top section paired against an unrated would gain an advantage over those who weren’t.

Forcing unrateds to play in the open section and get crushed at their first
tournament just seems silly to me. A lot of these unrated are kids. How likely are they to show up again?

Can you accurately assign a rating to a person who looses to a 2200, at 1900, and an 1850? Are they a 1300 player, or a 1000?

The only tournaments that should possibly exclude unrateds from prizes are big money events. Or force them to play in the open section.

I wish I knew the final word on 28D. The way I am reading it, it does not
exclude unrateds from place prizes, only from class prizes.

Additional thoughts are welcome!

Sincerely,

William “Tom” Hales, TD
Asheboro Chess Club

12

What is the logic behind excluding unrateds from prizes?

If it is “you have no idea of their playing strength” or
“they can’t be properly paired” then the same applies to
provisionally rated players also. I have found provisional
ratings can be very deceptive.

Just a thought…

Sincerely submitted,

William “Tom” Hales, TD
Asheboro Chess Club

13

Some unrateds (a minority, to be sure) are simply too strong for the class sections. (This is probably more common in NY and LA than elsewhere, with the large Russian immigrant communities.) It’s not so much that the unrated might win an undeserved prize (since class prizes are usually small), as that the U1400s (or whatever) are being done out of “their” prize.

14

The problem with having unrateds eligible for class prizes, or for prizes in class-restricted sections, is a matter of fairness. It is not an issue on what would be fair for the unrated, but rather what would be fair for the class players that find themselves competing against an unrated who may be so strong they essentially have no chance against the player. That issue of fairness to the other class players becomes more noticeable as the size of class prizes increases. Some tournaments handle this fairness issue by having either a separate unrated section (HB is one example of this), or by having a separate unrated prize (the US Open is often an example of this). As mentioned earlier, some tournaments allow unrateds in an under-xxxx section but have a limitation on the amount an unrated can win in that section.

If a player has a quick rating but not a regular rating (or vice versa for a quick tournament) then the quick rating is generally used as the rating (similar to the logic behind assigning a rating to a player that has a valid foreign rating so that the player is not treated and paired as unrated).

Provisional ratings are a bit vague, but are less vague than no rating at all. Since they are vague, a few tournaments limit provisional players to the same section the unrateds are limited to.

Depending on the local group of players, you may or may not have complaints about an unrated being eligible to win an under-xxxx section.

15

This is a program bug; it was discussed in another thread last week. If a player has a Quick rating but no regular rating (extremely rare until recently) you get an error message. Delete the “unr” or replace it with 0.

Whether you want to use his Quick rating for pairings and/or prizes, or count him as unrated, is TD discretion.

16

That’s correct. Place prizes in an Open section are (must be) available to all. To avoid confusion, refrain from using the term “place prizes” for the top prizes in a class section. This is the default policy under the rules. If you want to do something else, write it out and announce it.

17

It doesn’t seem to me that the rulebook agrees with you. Consider the last paragraph of 33F:

“When substantial cash prizes are offered in sections for lower-rated players, unrateds are ofter ineligible to enter or have a prize limit far below that of rated players.”

That prize limit phrase would seem to me to be referring to the place prizes in that section.

For example, grabbing my June CL, and looking at the display ads:

Page 63, Northeast Open:
Under 2000/Unr: $800-400-300-200, Top Under 1800 $500-250.
Under 1600/Unr: $800-400-300-200, Top Under 1400 $500-250.
Under 1200/Unr: $500-300-200-100, Top Under 1000 $200.
Unrateds may not win over $100 in Under 1200, $300 in Under 1600, or $500 in Under 2000.

These prize limits must be referring to the place prizes in the UXXXX sections, so the unrateds are eligible for those prizes. Similarly for the Pacific Coast Open ad on page 65 (where they just use U2000 rather than U2000/Unr). The Continental Open ad on page 66 is the same (again without the “/Unr” in the section title). And similarly for the other CCA events.

Interesting is the unrated treatment in the Houston Open ad on page 67, though I’m not sure exactly what they mean.

18

In my previous reply I gave a variety of examples from CL TLAs that don’t appear to agree with your understanding of the rules. I thought it might also be useful to look at National events. From the May 2005 CL, most aren’t explicit about which sections and which prizes unrateds are eligible for (except for events with a special unrated section). The only example that I could find is:

May 28-30. 63rd Annual US Amateur Champ East
Booster: U1400 … (Unrateds only eligible for 1-5)

So here too, the section while not explicitely welcoming unrateds in the title or UXXXX description obviously allows them to enter and makes them eligible for the place prizes in that section.

19

While the rulebook tries to cover most situations, it cannot anticipate every possible situation.

This is largely a tournament DESIGN issue, not a tournament DIRECTING issue. A well-designed tournament does not raise these kinds of problems, because there is no doubt raised about who’s eligible for what.

20

28D1. Non-USCF rating verified. Players who are know to have ratings or categories of other types, such as foreign, FIDE, regional, or USCF Quick (or if a Quick tournament, USCF regular), which can be varified.

“It is recommended that such players not be considered unrated and that their ratings be used, adjusted if necessary to be consistent with the USCF rating scale (Official Rules of Chess, pg 112).”

Only would use the quick if there is no official regular rating. In any case, the rating has to be official not web. If you did not give notice to use the web rating, if the quick rating is un-official and no regular rating (un-official or official), the players rating should not be used. Its’ still up to the director, as some would use web rating if there is no official rating.