The ratings in the printed copies of the August 2005 Ratings Supplement are incorrect and should not be used. (The download files and the ratings on MSA are both correct.)
For more details, go to uschess.org/Aug2005supp.php
Why is the August 2005 Supplement incorrect? If as you say the August 2005 printed supplement is incorrect, why mail them out to the affiliates?
I think it’s safe to assume that the USCF was not aware of the problem until after the supplements had been mailed.
Having had some more time to study the problem, it may be more accurate to say that the ratings printed in the August supplement are irrelevant. NONE of the 24,234 players whose rating changed as a result of events rated in May or June are in it!
I have checked a dozen or so of the 22,558 players who are in the August printed supplement. I believe that in every case that is their current published rating, but it is also their rating from the June supplement.
What went wrong? Well, I’m not really sure. Probably the wrong dates were used when I created the PDF file, as what the list appears to contain are the players whose rating changed for the June supplement but didn’t change again for the August supplement.
I took a brief look at the PDF when it was created in early July to make sure it was formatted properly and I remember thinking that the page count seemed about right (we get about 300 names/page), but I didn’t actually compare anyone’s rating against our computer records.
Normally, someone like Glenn Petersen would have probably checked the printed pages by looking up the ratings for some of the players he knows, but Glenn was having medical problems when the supplement was being put together. (Not having the membership/ratings staff in the same state as the publications department takes away that additional set of chessplayer/proofreaders.)
I’ve found a few interesting typos in the front matter as well. I found a date of September 31st. Though several paragraphs were rewritten, there are still a number of paragraphs that are out of date and need revisions, such as the reference to 9 digit USCF event IDs on the inside front cover. (USCF event IDs are now 12 digits long.)
If I get this right, if a player had their rating changed in May or June 2005, they are not in the August 2005 supplement? If the player did not have a rating change since the June 2005 supplement, they are in the August 2005 supplement?
Yes. That’s why we sent out 1600 e-mails to TDs and affiliates yesterday, the printed supplement is useless (some might say worse than useless).
This also demonstrates why affiliates and TDs should make sure they have an e-mail address on file with the USCF. (And one that doesn’t block e-mail from the uschess.org domain.)