USCF ID numbers

Running Chess Tournaments
1

Most US Chess members have an ID number of 1xxxxxxx or 3xxxxxxx. It is my understanding that new members (since 2020) get IDs starting with 3.

This raises the question whether anyone has an ID number starting with 2? The answer is yes. I found two such members, one on the Overall Top 100 list (began playing in 1991) and another on the Blitz Top 100 (began playing in 2002). I imagine there are more, perhaps a few thousand. Most are probably retired from tournament chess.

What did someone have to do to earn an ID number beginning with 2? Are these the albinos of US Chess?

Michael Aigner

2

If memory serves, those ID numbers were the result of some sort of USCF scholastic promotion, decades ago. I seem to remember that there were small green membership forms, each with a pre-assigned ID number beginning with 2. Someone else will probably remember more about it than I do and fill in the details for you.

– Hal Terrie

3

I think the ID numbers starting with a 2 were for JTP players.

4

Yes. I think it is the format Mr. Terrie suggests for the purpose Mr. Parker suggests. If I recall correctly, Greg Shahade is the most noteworthy player with a “2” ID.

I think there are five generations of IDs.

By ZIP Code
Sequentially Numbered eight digit
Green form JTP
Sequentially numbered seven digit plus check digit
3 series

Alex Relyea

5

There are over 50,000 current and former members with IDs that begin with a 2; these were from the green pre-numbered JTP forms that were used in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Less than 1% of them are current members, but that’s true of most blocks of new members from those years, regardless of their ID. Of the ones that are current members, 2/3 of them have played in a rated event in calendar 2022.

There are 3 masters and 2 senior masters on the November rating list we just created with an ID that begins with a 2. The highest rated of them is Marc Esserman.

Greg and Jennifer Shahade both have IDs that being with a 2.

6

Aside from the numbers that begin with a 2, the ID number can give a reasonable estimate of when that ID was assigned. We know the 10 numbers were part of the initial numbering, done by state, moving more or less from east to west. The 11 numbers were ones issued after that, assigned sequentially. That got changed to 12 around 1980, probably the result of a software update. There were not many 11 ID’s issued.

I started getting involved in membership processing in 2003, we were in the 128’s or 129’s by then.

During the 80’s and 90’s the office would periodically purge the member file of inactive lapsed members to save disk space, which was quite limited back then. So we do not have records for every member during that era. The last time I checked there were still around 500 IDs in tournaments on MSA that do not correspond to an ID in the membership database because that ID had been purged. If we ever scan the old rating supplements and make them available, we might be able to use OCR processing and find those deleted IDs.

Around 129 we started adding a check digit, because we were getting many instances of transposed IDs (12345687 instead of 12345678) being valid once we went to online rating report submission. The check digit meant that a single transposition or one-digit typo in an ID almost always resulted in an invalid ID, but it also meant that we were using up blocks of numbers 10 times faster than before.

Just before we switched to the 3’s in July of 2020, we were assigning IDs starting with 173.

There’s no geographic pattern and not much of a date pattern to the IDs that begin with a 2, because the office would send TDs a bundle of pre-numbered forms, and they didn’t always send them out in order, and TDs would use them over a period of months or years. The biggest problem with them was that kids would lose their copy and not know their IDs and the TD at their next event would just pull out a new green form and give them a new ID, because there was no way to look them up online and getting a published rating took several months, due to both lags in event processing and in creating, printing and sending out a rating supplement.

A few years ago Judy told me they still saw one of those pre-numbered green forms every few months for a new player. I think I’ve still got a handful of them in an old TD bag, along with some wall charts, quad charts, pairing sheets, pairing cards and possibly a few adjourned move envelopes.

7

Don’t throw them away! They could become collectors’ items.

Bill Smythe

8

Collecting dust, maybe.

9

I still have some pairing cards that I use to teach new TDs. Send them to me when you go to throw them out.

10

This must explain USCF ID 21004359 whose first rated tournament was in 2002 and wasn’t even born until 1996.

11

As far as I know the JTP program is ongoing. According to what is on the US Chess website the current program was approved by the EB in 2019. To see the text of it go to the US Chess home page, and under Chess Clubs click on Junior Tournament Player Program.

12

The forms with 2xxxxxxx numbers came out when the JTP program was much wider than it is now and could be used for every player up to at least eighth grade (might have been through high school). There was some confusion and some players with expired IDs would ask for a new JTP ID instead of renewing their 1xxxxxxx ID even though their old ID was still usable for JTP.

The usage of those forms declined when JTP was limited to just third grade and under sections or twelfth and under for school affiliates running an event for only students of that school. The forms became almost unnecessary when non-member IDs could be created on-line by TDs (some TDs were not website savvy).

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