In the 1980s, USCF adopted a rule that no opponent could count as less than 1000. The result was enormous inflation at the younger scholastic levels, and progressively less inflation as age increased. But even high school players were inflated enough so that when players who started out in scholastics tried their first event against adults, they got clobbered and lost many rating points. The word spread that this was not a smart thing to do, and the number of kids in open tournaments dropped dramatically. As young players need to face strong opposition to improve, I believe that we failed to develop many Masters and some GMs that would have resulted without this misguided rule.
During this period I held an elementary school tournament in which most players were unrated and the rated players were probably all under 700 strength, however the rating system had inflated some of them to 1300 or 1400. An unrated player scored 5-0 and because he beat another unrated or two who wound up 4-1, his initial USCF rating came out as 2089. I suspected he was incredibly overrated but hadn’t seen any of his games, so there was always a chance he was the next Fischer.
When he entered his second scholastic tournament a few months later and was #1 on the wall chart by a big margin, I made sure to watch his game in the first round. Not only did his strength appear to be in three digits, but when his opponent castled illegally, he didn’t notice. After his third tournament his rating was down to the 1600s and he never played again. Luckily, his second tournament was not an adult Expert section, or he really would have been humiliated.
Players should start out with their initial performance ratings, not artificial numbers which are justified by “they will find their true level eventually.” There’s no point to assigning a rating far above or far below the initial performance, as even though everything self corrects eventually with sufficient play, these will take much longer to reach appropriate numbers, and by the time they do so the system will have many new misrated players added to the rating pool to replace them.
Thanks, all good info! Nolan’s stats are very educational, as well as your experiences. A starting rating floor does not seem to be any solution, clearly. There is still the effect where the same player in a group with an average rating of 500 will not be able to raise his rating as fast as if he played in a group with an average rating of 1500. I took my son out of the lower rating group and his rating moved up fast. Had he stayed exclusively in the scholastic group I don’t think he’d be as good. But this is what others have already said, and should be the incentive for all scholastic players to break out of the scholastic rut. The scholastic players need to get out there and play better people and their group would improve their averages. I don’t know what would entice them. I explained this to my son sometime ago, that an 1100 player is not better than most 900 players in the scholastic world, that and telling him he can win money gave him confidence and motivation to play in adult tournaments. I was fascinated, as Will pocketed a good amount of money, why other scholastic players didn’t see this opportunity. Moreover, I hate being relegated to a mere Chess parent. I would rather play than be pushed out into the hall to pace back-and-forth. How Chess parents do that so often is amazing to me. So adult tournaments give me something to do while I wait. For sometime I thought we lived in the out-backs of Chess. Even the stronger players live on the other side of the state. But now we are becoming the Mecca of Chess and I may be able to get decent lessons for my son. Exciting times, indeed!
Even the 100 point floor (now 100-150) is limiting, as the statistics show that players rated under 300 are far less likely to perform up to their expected performance when playing players rated 200 or more points higher.
However, we also know that most players with ratings under 200 who play in 3 or 4 events will show significant gains.
Playing against stronger players has always been considered one of the best ways to improve. (I’m sure there are limits to this, having a 500 player play a large number of games against masters might take a VERY long time to show any benefits, assuming the low rated player doesn’t get completely discouraged and quit.)