If a player registers for a tournament section well in advance, but then his rating increases above that section before the tournament, can he still play in the registered section?
For example, if a player rated 1390 signs up four months in advance for the U1400 section of a large tournmanent, but has a 1500 rating by the time the tournament starts, can he still play in the U1400 section?
The reason I ask is that I saw this exact situation happen in which the winner of the U1400 section in the 30th World Open started the tournament with a rating of 1500+ and ended even higher. This would have irritated me if I was another player in that section. Was that OK or did the TD make a mistake?
Unless otherwise announced, the official tournament rating of a player is his last official published rating (in the Rating Supplements). For a tournament played in June-July, the June rating supplement is used. Some organizers use the web ratings posted at MSA, but this is required to be advertised in CL and all advance advertising. Some organizers allow a player to use a rating higher than the last published, but a lower rating from that last published should never be used.
It isn’t dependant upon when you entered.
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I think as long as it doesn’t affect section or prize eligibility, using the most recent ratings information is fine.
But as we move towards rating events as soon as they pass validation, I think using the ‘published’ rating for section and prize eligibility will become more important.
I don’t have the rulebook handy, but I can come up with circumstances in which using a lower current rating instead of a published one might be justifiable, though it would have to be an exceptional case.