There has been some discussion over in the Chess Life articles forum about when it is proper to assign ratings to players, and what ratings to assign.
I don’t think that it is appropriate to assign a player his FIDE rating, or his FIDE rating + x, in all circumstances. My personal favorite example is that of Frank Berry. He’s been playing for years, and has been a 1700-1900 player pretty steadily http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlTnmtHst.php?10386331. This is until the 2005 U.S. Open when he got a money floor of 1800. Anyway, his initial FIDE rating was 2033 (based on 10). I remember that, according to the HB Global rules this would have required him to play in the Open section, although apparently some logic was used and he was allowed to play in the U1800.
What do other people think about whether FIDE ratings should be used for players with well-established USCF ratings?
USCF sets rules on how foreign ratings are used when initializing a rating. In general, foreign ratings are ignored after that.
Organizers have considerable latitute in assigning ratings for pairing and prize purposes. The only rule is that an assigned rating may not be LOWER than a published USCF rating. Othewise, Organizers can (and do) assign just about any rating they feel is justified.
Right, but Frank’s been playing USCF rated games for decades. I think that it is far likelier that his USCF rating accurately reflects his playing ability than his FIDE rating, based on only 18 games. In other words, I’m saying that there seems to be no logical reason to assign a player with his history a master rating for prize purposes just because he has had a strong, brief FIDE career.
You might have a different point of view, Alex, if you were running events with a $2500 or larger first place prize in your ‘under’ sections. That’s a big incentive to ‘play down’ as much as the organizer will let you.