Apparently arbitrarily 6 points have been removed from my rating. I have noticed some reports about bulk rerates etc. However I have not been advised what was wrong, in case i want to dispute the loss of my 6 rating points (which i do)! Sure some might say 6 points is trivial, but on more than one occasion I have spent a full weekend 30+ hours sitting at a board concentrating feverishly, plus hundreds of dollars for room, board, and travel and that’s not including countless years of study and practice the only reward being to gain 1 to 3 rating points! So every point is precious and i would be most thankful, if someone would tell me where my 6 rating points went, if not to please put them back! Also i don’t notice my name in the rating supplement anymore?!!
Sincerely,
Desperately in need of my rating points, Shaun Graham MBA USCF ID 12590577
Its’ the new policy of the rating department to get players into chronological order. Did check your rating, and it stands at 1902 (as of 03.02.05). This is you’re first time you have gone over 1900. This will place your rating floor at 1700, not at 1600 as it stood before. Even with your re-rating making it at 1902, even if you can check your own MSA and know its’ in chronological order. It does not mean the people you were paired up with in the past are in chronological order.
If only one person you were paired up with is not in chronological order, that player would in time be re-rated and so will you. Any games after that one player needing to be re rate, will force all you’re games after that needing to be re rated also. That would mean anyone you play with also needs to be re rate as well.
When they do a re rate again for the large amount of backlog events, you can find your rating going up or going down. In fact you can find your post rating to be in the 1800’s or in the 1900’s, it will effect you’re rating floor as well.
This is one of the reasons I thought (and still think) that re-rates were a bad idea. It annoys people without significantly improving the predictive value of the ratings.
What rating supplement are you referring to? You are in the December annual list. You didn’t play in any tournaments in the period covered by the February supplement.
I have been over 1900 for the last 4 tournaments since 7/20/2004 i have seen no new tournaments added to my history, i have seen no tournaments newly rated that were not rated in fact my rating was 1904 dropped to 1903 went to 1905 and then to 1908. Now suddenly out of the blue 6 points are gone and i’m at 1902. There is no explanation as to why or what the cause is. I can not point to any place and say ok person X was rated incorrectly so i didn’t actually win said points. There is no way for me to dispute this visually arbitrary reduction in my rating. Systematicaly 6 points were deleted from my rating history with no explanation. Please point out why or place my 6 points back.
Thank you,
Shaun Graham MBA USCF ID 12590577
Desperately in need of my hard earned 30+hours(average time at a board during a tournament) to get my 1 or 2 rating points
Have rechecked your tournament history, it shows this order for your tournament history for the classical ratings. 1899 - 1902, 1895 - 1899, 1896 - 1895, 1883 - 1896, 1851 - 1883, 1850 - 1851, 1836 - 1850, 1823 - 1836, 1807 - 1823, 1768 - 1807, 1755 - 1768 (as of 03.02.05). After that, the tournaments ratings are not in order. As it was place into order by the ending date of the event, not when it was rated. With the re rate of the tournaments, it has taken away the 6 points and any history of being over 1900 except for the last event. When they do a rerate of the events again, it could even remove you’re last tournament over 1900.
I don’t know all the specifics yet, Shaun, but your rating was manually adjusted from 1836 to 1851 on June 18th.
I don’t see a reason for that adjustment, you don’t appear to have been in any events that were mistakenly rated twice. Do you know why that adjustment was made?
When we did the rerate, that correction was no longer in effect, so when we rerated the Jerry Spahn Memorial, which was your first tournament (or at least the first one rated) after the 15 point adjustment, in the re-rate you were assigned your 1836 rating from your previous event, since there was nothing in the tournament history record to support that 15 point manual adjustment being necessary.
Interestingly enough, even though you started out 15 points lower than before, by the time we rerated all of your events in the proper order your rating had gained back 9 of those 15 points.
If you can come with a justification for that 15 point adjustment, I can re-enter it back into the system. Then when we do the next re-rate, you will likely have gained points instead of lost them as a result of rerating.
Yes the rerate changed my entire rating history. I look at each tournament and use the ratings calculator after each event. None of the last 6 -10 events i was in was rated out of order. I went over 1900 7/20/2004 and have played in 3 additional tournaments after going over 1900 completely not reflected and again there is absolutely no explanation as to why the 6 points are gone. There is no way to check the validity of those points being removed. I should not be required to go on faith that the deduction is correct with out being shown some evidence.
Again someone please restore my 6 rating points (gained from an average of 30+ hours over the board blood sweat and tears to get 1-3 points), unless the EXACT SPECIFIC reason to why they are gone can be specified.
My rating was adjusted because some hoodlum sent in a fake tournament for 40-60 oklahoma players that never existed called the MO Tournament staged in Florrissant Missouri. The tournament never existed, so Janet Evans and the USCF corrected the ratings for all of the players in the false event.
My rating was also adjusted in April for a USCF mistake here is the quote from Larry King (You can see why i have to keep such a sharp eye on my rating- The scenario a player whom i beat named Kent Swearingen rated around 1950 was reassigned a false provisional rating of 1650 or abouts so i was not given the correct rating and bonus)
"Dear Shaun,
I will adjust your’s and Kent’s ratings and post the correct ratings on the website.
The above will take two to four weeks to process because of the ratings department’s lack of people and current workload.
The MO Fall Open should have been fixed by the rerates, I hope. At least it is for some of the players effected, and it appears to be for Shaun. The tournament that he refers to is the STILLWATER OPEN (040307338). This might also help get a correct rating for Swearingen.
I am well acquainted with the problems from the fake tournament in Missouri, and yes it has been pulled from the crosstable history so its effect has been undone in this first rerate.
One of the advantages of the new system is that we can pull events that shouldn’t have been rated, or that were rated twice, or that were rated twice as regular or quick instead of dual rated.
I was not personally familiar with the Stillwater Open problem, though I suspect it was one of many similar problems due to players who had been inactive for many years returning and being treated as unrated again. (In, fact that’s WHY I want to rerate all the way back to January.)
We plan to rerate back to January fairly soon. BTW, I just did a test rerate of the Stillwater Open (as an isolated event) and when Mr. Swearingen’s correct pre-game rating was used Shaun’s post-event rating went from 1807 to 1825.
In a full rerate pass that may not be the exact difference, but it appears that Larry’s 15 point estimate might have been a bit conservative.
So my advice to Shaun is sit tight and we’ll get you your points back (and possibly a few more) when we do the next rerate, which will definitely be before creating the April Supplement records.
Remember that all ratings in between official published ratings are unofficial anyway, and TDs are being reminded of that.
Is an explanation of the re-rate being sent out to the USCF membership? There’s a nice explanation on the MSA home page. Will this be in the April Chess Life, for members who don’t check the internet, and who may see a surprising change in their rating?
Consider the case of someone who hasn’t played in any tournaments for a couple of months. His February supplement rating was 1701. Without receiving any explanation, his April supplement rating is now 1699. What do you expect this member’s reaction to be?
Is it too late to implement an algorithm that says that an inactive member’s supplement-to-supplement rating never goes down due to a rerate? If that can be done, I think you’re going to avoid a whole lot of discontent.
Also, it creates additional inconsistencies based on when an event is rated, and coming up with consistent ratings regardless of when the TD submits or corrects an event (within reason) was one of the major motivating factors in going to rerating.
I think I didn’t express myself very well. My concern isn’t with the idea of rerating, which I agree with. My concern is about member relations. Chess players can be very protective of their ratings. Our members should get prior notice if their ratings are going to be changed. If that’s not possible, they should at least get a contemporaneous explanation. If they won’t be told about a change in their ratings until May, then that article should tell them that the change will come with the June supplement. They shouldn’t find out about a rating change when they see the label on their April Chess Life, without being able to read an explanation inside.
Personally, I’ll gladly take a rating fluctuation of a few points instead of waiting 2 months for USCF to rate the tournaments.
Even playing for over 20 years (and I’m still a young punk), I remember waiting and waiting until the new supplement would come out. These new changes are extremely awesome. It’s long overdue, but no new software implementation will be flawless.
Yea, we’re going to have the kickers and screamers over a few points, but the benefits of having tournaments rated on a timely basis is extremely valuable.
There is a disclaimer on the msa.uschess.org site, but no one really reads it. But you can’t fault USCF for it.
And more importantly accurately. It’s nice to see that the games will at least be rated in order. It might not matter much to those of us who have pretty much plateaued, but for people who are rising rapidly, order really matters.
With the new rating software and procedures, I think everyone has to get over the notion that they have a God-given right to their X number of rating points just because they saw that rating once on a crosstable.
Re-rating is an extremely GOOD idea, but it is necessary for everyone to accept all of the consequences.
There has always been, and will always be, considerable upward political pressure on rating points. It is absolutely essential for USCF to resist this pressure, and to worry about accuracy instead. Otherwise, ratings will become so inflated that each individual rating will become meaningless.
Caving in to pressure from players who want higher ratings is exactly what caused drastic rating inflation in the mid-1970s. By now, this inflation has largely been corrected, although USCF ratings are still about 50 points higher than FIDE ratings.
With anything that happens in life, designed for the common good in the form of progress, it has its’ consequences. The reason for the progress of re rating events, was the tardy directors or the events placed on hold by the rating department. If Friedrick Nietzsche (1844 - 1900) had to give the answer to progress, he would say there is no progress when progress is used.
During the past few years, directors sent in reports on disk and paper. Making computer disks rated before paper when the event was on the same day. With online reporting, will make events rated before computer disk and paper. So the rating department came up with the re rate.
With the re rating of the events, it feels to be a step for the common good and being progress at the same time. The consequences of the re rating has made everyone unsure what their rating will be weeks or months after the tournament has been rated. The progress to fix one problem, was a trade for a new problem – Nietzsche is right, there is no progress.
