One of my goals is to start running more “Unrated Free” tournaments which qualify for the Activity Means Members TLAs. To me, it seems clear that Unrateds Free has to mean that person either does not have any USCF rating (regular, blitz, quick, online, etc.) or more likely that they do not have a regular USCF rating (please read do not have to mean has 0-3 lifetime games, I am aware of Rule 28). My thought is that someone with a regular rating but no quick rating who attempts to claim free entry (even if the tourney is quick/dual rated) because they are “unrated” is making a nonsensical claim.
To phrase differently, there is no way I’m using some of my precious 8 lines in the TLA to explain that “unrateds free” means no USCF rating. For a longer paper flyer with no space limitation, I still feel like its a waste of space to say things like “if you have a regular rating but no quick rating, you are not unrated and any attempt to claim free entry in that circumstance will result in an entry fee surcharge of $50 and some physical punishment.” Would others add the disclaimers to their flyers and/or allow the free entrys in the circumstances I’ve described?
I’ve often written TLAs for tournaments which use regular ratings for pairings and prizes which say something like “$20 discount to players rated under 1200 or unrated.” If a player with a 1300 regular rating and no quick or blitz rating tried to claim the $20 discount because he’s unrated at quick chess I’d tell him that he didn’t qualify for the discount. I doubt he’d get very far with an appeal. A player with no regular rating but a 1300 quick rating would have a better argument, but I think I’d be within my rights to assign him a 1300 rating for tournament purposes and deny him the discount.
Assuming you’re using regular ratings for pairings and prizes, I agree that it’s a nonsensical argument for someone with a regular rating to claim that he’s unrated because he doesn’t have a quick rating. It would be like saying that he’s unrated because he doesn’t have a Chinese rating. The trickier case is when a player has a rating in another system, like USCF quick or FIDE, which can be converted to a regular USCF rating for tournament purposes. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to decide in advance whether a player like that qualifies for a free entry. If not and you want to avoid possible arguments you might say something like “Director may assign ratings per USCF rules.”
Instead of “unrateds free”, it probably wouldn’t take too much space to write “free entry to players with no USCF rated game history.” Or, perhaps shorter (since eight lines is limited): “free if no USCF rating history”.