I have a player requesting to play in my Reserve (U1400) section. He said he had not been a member of USCF and had not played in a tournament since 1979. He thought he played in a tournament about 1979 and had about a 1500 rating – but he did not think USCF would have a record of him.
I asked that he call USCF and check on whether they could locate a record. He has now rejoined USCF and the online Current Published Rating (May supplement) at his USCF ID states: “Unrated but manually corrected to 1686 (recently corrected to 1686*)”
Does this sound like he can play as “Unrated” in my Reserve section – or must he play at 1686 in the Open section? The use of the term “Unrated” is confusing to me.
Once rated, always rated. He should not be allowed to play in the U1400 section. It sounds like they found his old rating and added it manually to the database.
Once rated always rated is the byword of the USCF. So, the player admited to having previously had a rating over 1400 & as such would not and should not be allowed in a U1400 section.
As for the “once rated always rated” that is a matter for the USCF. I know that back in 1987 I had a player show up to play in a local club event who had not played in a USCF event for 8 years. They had to rejoin the USCF for the tournament, & I used a rating from a 1979 supplement for that person. I sent the event in with the person’s old rating and old ID number. The rating report when it came back from the USCF had a new ID number for the person and had them as an Unrated player. I then sent this back to the USCF explaining that the player in question had a previous established USCF rating. The new report I received back from the USCF now treated the person in question as a provisional player, with an average [figured somehow] ove the old rating and the rating from the tournament as listed for an Unrated player. That was then and this is now, so I do not know how the USCF would currently treat such a situation.
Larry Cohen
ps: It is a good idea to keep old supplements, especially an Annual, around for just such a circumstance. Although after 1990 is usually on the MSA.
In a typical month, the USCF probably processes a half dozen requests to restore a rating from 1990 or earlier for a member who hasn’t played in many years.
These days we can also reactivate his or her original USCF ID if it is among the thousands of IDs that were purged from USCF computer records in the 1980’s or 1990’s due to limited disk capacity. (We did not always have that capability until 2004, and there are some enhancements to that capability that are needed.)
Just recently, Walter had to go to the microfilmed records of the old ratings cards to find someone’s rating from way back in the 1960’s. (That person didn’t even have a USCF ID the last time he played in a USCF rated event, because that was several years before the IDs were assigned.)
The way such a restored rating is indicated on MSA may not always be clear, I’ve added that to the list of things that need to be improved in MSA.
In 1972, when I worked in the USCF office in Newburgh for the summer, I came across one of those rating cards, from around 1950, which simply said “Smith”, no first name, no state, that had a rating based on one tournament. I wonder if anybody will ever claim that identity.
I re-joined at a time when those “old” (pre-1980 or so) rating supplements just weren’t available, and was given a new ID. I was curious if it would be better to just keep the new ID, or to ask for the old one, or if that can even be accommodated.