Last night was a G/15;d3 tournament with 22 players (2 unrated). uschess.org/assets/msa_jooml … 1507096552
The 20 rated players had a net ratings gain of 291 points (changes ranged from +184 and +165 to -45 and -58 with a median of -3 to go with the +15.55 average). There are still players with quick ratings higher than their regular ratings.
The +184 had a quick rating about the same as the regular rating in early 2006, played five regular (only) vs two quick (only) events to raise both with regular about 200 above quick, and then played in 8 more regular-rated tournaments to add almost 200 more points to the regular (while playing in zero quick-rated tournaments). If all of those events had been dual-rated instead of regular-only then the quick wouldn’t have had a 589-point lag behind the regular rating (now only 405 points behind).
The +165 had hit the regular floor earlier this year and stayed there through two more tournaments and now has a quick slightly higher than regular.
Underrated players will have varying results that will generate bonus points to increase the average rating.
Dual rating more events will give more opportunities for that varying results to do those increases.
Game 30 up to game 60 are not quick chess they are just dual rated. The deflation in ratings lie in the fact that lots of stronger players (particularly juniors) gain mountains of rating points in non-dual rated events that do not accrue to their quick ratings. This is not a mathematical formula criticism of the quick chess system, rather it just highlights what happens when strong players stop playing quick and then return years later to wreak havok on other players quick ratings that may be more up to date.
I believe the solution lies in participation in the system and just realizing that the majority of stronger players in large tournaments without much quick activity are likely to be deleterious to your quick rating. I care about my quick rating but I am starting to realize that the fun aspect of chess is what I should seek to aim for and if the points follow it is all gravy!
Jeff Wiewel gets it right. There are inflationary factors built into the USCF rating systems that compensate for players with stale ratings given enough activity and time.
OP and others have long advocated for a fix to the quick rating system. The answer lies with us. Activity makes a slate rating much less stale in a hurry, and bonus points compensate put points increase the total number of points in the pool.
Any solution that involves 50,000 people all doing the “right thing” (whatever that may be) is doomed to failure. You may get as far as 500, conceivably, but then it will stall.
If the problem is inactivity, then a solution needs to be developed that deals with that inactivity, rather than bemoaning it.
Something like:
If a player has played 50 or more consecutive regular games since his last quick game, his regular rating, rather than his quick rating, will be used as his pre-event quick rating when calculating his and his opponents’ post-event quick ratings in that tournament.
And there could be a smoothing clause. For example, if a player has played 40 consecutive regular games since his last quick game, then 80% of his regular rating plus 20% of his quick rating could be used as his pre-event quick rating when calculating his and his opponents’ post-event quick ratings in that tournament.
One way of dealing with that inactivity was proposed: put all games into the Quick rating system while regular games were only for time controls having at least 30 minutes per player. That plan would have meant that there were no cases where a stagnant quick rating lagged behind an active regular rating. That plan was shot down.
I will normally play about a dozen regular-rated-only games from September through March and then about a dozen quick-rated-only games from May through July. Would your plan mean that my spring/summer quick-rated games would use 24% of my (lower) regular rating and 76% of my (higher) quick rating for calculating my opponents’ quick rating changes?
The +184 game in my post a few posts earlier played in five regular-rated-only events in 2006 and two quick-rated-only events. During that time the regular gain outpaced the quick gain by about 200 points. An occasional quick tournament with that 80%/whatever% plan would have only a minor modification in such cases.
If we are going to modify the quick ratings based on regular play it seems to me to be simpler to just expand dual-rating to everything over 30 minutes per player instead of the current 30-65 minutes per player.
Golf has multiple “rankings” that use the same information with different weights for different time periods for different purposes (FedEx Cup, Ryder and President’s Cup, plus the “world rankings” which I don’t think actually get used for much of anything but bragging rights).
Tennis at one point toyed with having overall rankings plus separate rankings for clay and grass so a clay court tournament results would go into both the overall and clay rankings but not grass ranking. (20-30 years ago, there were clay court “specialists” who were so dreadful on grass courts that Wimbledon used its own seeding system). Once the bulk of the North American season went to hard courts, it was no longer possible to sustain a high position without being at least competent on surfaces other than clay, so the need for the separate system went away.
Has anyone who uses quick ratings only for quick rated events found a massive imbalance in the winners of such events, e.g. a 1200 winning an open section? I’ve done it for years and usually found the players with higher quick ratings winning, regardless of their regular ratings, even down to class prizes.