No, no, no.
If established player A is paired against opponent B, player A’s rating change does not depend on how many games B has played, nor on whether B is established or provisional.
Only player B’s rating change depends on how many games B has played – and in addition, you have the formula upside down. The fewer games B has played previously, the MORE his rating will change, given the same results in the current tournament.
Bill Smythe
The only thing you would be putting in their face would be ONE of the tables on pages 266-268.
For example, if the player has a K-factor of 30, you would give him the table in the upper left corner of page 267. This table has a grand total of 16 lines and 4 columns – the columns being “rating difference” and H, D, L. This would fit easily on one side of a business card.
On the other side of the card could be printed the instructions:
“Table shows rating change per player per game, as a function of rating difference, for a player with K-factor 30. Use column H if higher-rated player wins, D if game is drawn, L if lower-rated wins. Winner gains points, loser loses points. If game is drawn, lower-rated gains points, higher-rated loses points.”
Bill Smythe
Dear Thunderchicken,
Bill Smythe has done a great job of trying to explain how to make your formula more exact. Please listen to him. Looking up a K-factor in the rulebook and using your estimating formula is not that complicated.
If you use any formula besides the USCF formula you are estimating. Because you do not know the exact rating of either player in the USCF computers at the moment they rate an event, all you will ever be able to do is estimate a ratings change.
For close estimates, follow Bill’s advise.
Tim Just
thunderchicken
Finding the current rating of a player right after the tournament, is not the right way to deal with chess. Ratings will go up and ratings will go down, find the rating after the tournament or match is a wast of time. Spending hours to find out if the rating will go up or go down after the tournament is like making the argument who is going to win the presidential election.
The goal of the rating was designed for the tournament director only for the pairings of a swiss tournament. If the tournaments are designed only on ‘round robins’ like they were in the 19th century, then a rating would be pointless. World Champion Lasker never had any rating, as the tournaments during his era were ‘round robins’. If going to my tournament and have a rating of 1800 and nobody has a higher rating, then the player is ‘ranked number one’, as only a rating change from one tournament to the next only change the ranking of the pairings of the next tournament. A expert and a 900 player can still go into a store and get the same bottle of pop for the same price.
A rating has one worth outside of chess, it is not worth a warm bucket of spit.
To you maybe, but to a 9 year old, their chess rating is extremely important to them as a meter of accomplishment. When they reach their personal best, it gives them the energy to strive for more.
Telling a kid that their rating is just a bucket of spit it like telling them that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. You have to realize that in a kid’s mind, a number is just as important as winning a tournament. Seeing that look on a child’s face after beating someone 500 points higher than they are is like watching them open up a new toy truck at christmas. It makes managing worth it.
Thunderchicken, you hit that one right on the spot. Whenever I got to a local tournament, the first thing the kids (maybe ages 5-10?) want to know is everone’s rating. Because everything has to be concretely scored. In tennis people have world rankings, a baseball player has a batting average. A chess rating is the equivalent to these things for the kids who are learning and feel the excitement.
If little Tommy was a 750 player, and after a great tournament scoring 4/5 in the under 1000 section. If you tell him “Congratulations Tommy you are now an 800 player!” He will feel happy and proud of his work. Maube he can even go home and tell his parents that he is better than his friend Jesse now who is only 780.
But, if you tell him that ratings are stupid and meaningless, do you know how demoralizing it can be? This is true even for adult players. One man I know one day finally became a master after playing the game for about ten years. He was so ecstatic that he even bought lunch for a couple of us the next day.
You have to realize that most kids like to win for the sake of winning. To them it’s a competition, a fight. Ratings are important to them. And for adults, although most probably won’t have dramatic reactions like the man I described, will also be able to track their progress through ratings. You may be able to look at a game from 2001 and 2004 and not be able to tell the difference, but if his rating went up from 1950 to 2100, then he has definitely improved.
This is absolutely true. But make it 5-14 
Just went to a big scholastic event, and almost everyone wants to know how their opponents are rated.
Wanting to know your opponents’ ratings is normal, even for adults. Obsessing about your own can be unhealthy.
When a player reaches the point where he cares more about his playing strength than his rating, he has reached a turning point. The best way to gain rating points is to gain playing strength. The best way to do this is to play in a tournament with strong players. For example, a 1300 player should play in the under-1600 section rather than the under-1400. He’ll lose a lot at first, but will learn, and improve, and gain rating points in the long run.
Bill Smythe
Never had a time in my life to live in a fantasy, new that Santa Claus never existed as ‘childhood is a time in life to act like a adult’. Why treat a six year old different then a twenty-six year old man. During a game of chess or in life never treat others different because of age or gender; make sure that everyone is treated as equals, the age of the chess player does not change the facts, the gender or how they look does not change the facts. If we are under a marxist system you would understand, we all work for the people: chess only finds the best of the next generation, others if the use of pure eugenics could improve the human breading. Teaching the next generation that ‘Santa Claus does not exist’ only improves the state. Teaching chess for the next generation will improve the skill level of the new workers for the state.
Right, let’s treat a 6 year old like a 26 year old and give him a full time job to work.
Remind me not to come up to Michigan to your tournaments.
The six year old has a full time job, at the time of six to sixteen (if the labor quits their education) the use of labor will be the education at the school: the labor is for the betterment of the state. If the state use chess for the improvement of the citizenship, the skills of chess will improve critical thinking of one unit at a time.
OK, so what’s the point of having ratings then? Like you said, they’re as useful as a bucket of spit.
The funny thing is that when someone says that trying to become a better player and not worrying about your rating will cause your rating to rise with your skill, it is true. However, I know a few people who obsess over their ratings, and play only to increase their rating. Ironically, these people make progress the fastest. Contrary to common belief, by playing to gain rating points, their chess skill improves dramatically. A friend of mine is able to draw from the most hopeless looking situations. Afterwards, his opponents feel as if a 1/2 point was stolen from them. I asked him how he can play on from such a futile position, and he tells me something like having to minimize the damage to his rating at all costs. He hordes his rating points like Scrooge hordes money in his bank.
As long as something motivates you to play well, you will improve. It can be ratings, or even the prize money! I’ve seen some adult players perform excellently in large events with large prize funds, while performing poorly in small events where winning a quad only gets you $40-50.
Ratings are also very psychological. People generally play much better against people with similar ratings than they would against significantly higher or lower players. Some players fear the stronger rated player, and others underestimate the lower rated ones. A rating does not determine the strength of play in a certain game, but it determines the overall skill of the players. A 2000 might beat a 2300 in one game, but the 2300 will consistently perform better in a series of several games.
In an unfortunately large number of cases, this effect is due to sandbagging – deliberately performing poorly in cheap events in order to get your rating down, so you can play in a weaker section in the big-money class tournaments.
Some, maybe, but others play better against stronger opposition than against opposition of their own strength. They rise to the occasion. For my own part, I prefer opposition about 200-300 points higher-rated than I am. It gets the adrenalin going.
But I do, as you said, tend to underestimate lower-rated players. I probably get into lost positions against them at least 50% of the time, but usually (not always) manage to squeak out of it in the endgame, which is the part of the game which most often demonstrates why their ratings are lower.
Bill Smythe
My friend, people like you’re friend in the topic above, are the players that ‘burn out faster’ then other players. If the goal is the chase of the rating, the game of chess is only a side issue. If chess is the goal for enjoyment, then it matters little if the player is or is not a USCF member; as chess could be the enjoyment of the ‘life of the tournament’, or the game of chess that give enjoyment.
On the other hand, the chase of the rating if it becomes more important then the game itself. Then some time in their life, the time and place when it dawns on them, they will never be greater with their personal rating. Have seen many class A players, no matter how many hours or how many tournaments they might break over once or twice during the time they are on this middle earth, just too become a expert: for such a small part of their life. They spend hours, they spend personal capital, they take the bulk of their life to chase after that title of expert. The chase of a rating, the goal for some is low, for others it is a goal of that title that comes only with a rating.
For some the goal is the rating that grants the title of master, others the rating that grants the title of expert: then finding they can only become as best they can the rating title of a class player. If the goal is the rating title of master, finding out the best they ever shall be will be as a class player: they do burn out so fast when they understand the limits of their chess life when the goal was always so grand.
I wish this forum had a grammar check.
Grammar: sir, what part of ‘grammar’ would you design? Talking about grammar does not place importance of the debate: this is a ‘chess forum’ not a ‘chap book’.
I’m just saying your ramblings are difficult to read, due to your incorrect spelling, run-on sentences, etc.
And it’s a forum, not a form.
We could have the federation place a spell check. The run on sentence prose has been around myself for years; as it could be the prose style of the 18th and 19th century: then again my prose is so different. The prose of Mister Forsythe are difficult to read, enjoy.
Thanks and greatings for being the spell checker!
What would be better than a grammar check?
An ignore button!