I was finally given a rating and it has an “L” after it – can someone help me with that code? Thanks
Bill
Where is it you’re seeing the ‘L’? Is this on a Chess Life label or from the USCF website? If the latter, are you using the individual member lookup form or the Member Services Area?
oh…use my name:
William Hill
I am in Va.
I don’t see an “L” at uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlMain.php?12929211.
I see 1074 (P2) which means that your rating (1074) is provisional and based on (2) games.
If you type in his name and get a list of all the William Hills, there is a “L” next to his rating. Mike Nolan should answer this, but based on some spot checks I’m pretty sure that “L” is a code for players with fewer than four games.
Think John is right, as they will only have 0000 on your mailing label till you have 4 to 25 games with the slash. As you might have gone to a tournament that only have 3 rounds. Still the director would just place you in the unknown rating section.
Earnest,
Douglas M. Forythe, local td
Did look you up and it does say you only have 2 games, looked up the cross tables and you went to a tournament with 4 rounds, for some reason the director, gave you a bye in round two and you withdrew on round 4. Taking a little back that the director, gave you a bye in round 2, as it was your first tournament. So do not worry about the “L” after the rating, if you do not like it, just go to a tournament.
Earnest,
Douglas M. Forsythe, local td
ah, I see it now. Looks like it may have been a fat finger syndrome. Probably meant to put a 'P" instead of the “L”.
Internally an ‘L’ means that all of the player’s games so far have been losses. (I"m not sure if it actually shows the ‘L’ or if it just shows it as provisional, I’ll have to check that part of the code.)
This is more a question for the Ratings Committee, but as I understand it a provisional rating that is based only on losses is likely to be lower than one based on a combination of wins and losses, because until there are some of both there really isn’t much to go on.
Similarly, a ‘W’ would denote a provisional rating based only on wins. There is also a ‘D’ code for a rating based only on draws, but that one is fairly rare.
I’m in the process of changing how some of the data is displayed by MSA, I probably need to revisit the section where it builds the rating to make it clearer what is being shown. (I wouldn’t expect this change to get done in the next few days, though.)
Ratings based on less than 4 games are still unpublished, whether or not those ratings should be shown by MSA is something worth debating, I suppose.