Very long delay with the federation not rating tournaments.

Running Chess Tournaments
1

This is my question for all tournament direstors, that have sent in rating reports. On May 9, 2004 on Mothers Day, the MSA was updated, now they did rate one event a match and nothing more.

Have a event out called QT - VII, the ending date was January 29, 2004 then mail January 30, 2004, the federation received Febuary 3, 2004. A quick match, myself and a friend, and my friends that had a match; our friend wanted a established rating. The tournaments he has gone are rated, he now needs 6 more games to get a established quick rating, lost all 4 games, and the friends did play a long match. At the time my rating was over 1700 now down to the floor of 1500, so there will be a huge difference in the time of the event rated in the difference of the rating. As of Mothers Day it has been 96 days since they received this event, with the next MSA update it will be over 100 plus days.

There is also the QT - IX, have sent in the event, there is no return letter, the check has not cleared. This event was on Febuary 26, 2004 and was sent in Febuary 28, 2004. Have called and emailed the federation, did not get a phone call or return email.

One that was rated, it was the Forsythe - King III match, from December 11, 2003 to December 18, 2003, the true final score was Forsythe 8 King 6, but they rated it as Forsythe 5.5 King 2.5. Asked Larry Pond, they got it as Forsythe 8 King 6, they wanted a few extra dollars to have it duel rated, even sent the extra cash. Even that it was under the old rating fee, did change it around to pay for the current fee. Mr. Pond told me to send in more money, they know that the computer did not rate the full amount of games, and to have it duel rated.

There is Forsythe - King IV, not posted on the received list, played on March 18, 2004 and sent in March 22, 2004. There is the QT - X, played on March 19, 2004, and send in March 22, 2004. Now they should be close to be rated.

Learned a trick dealing with the federation, from this time on going to send in certified mail of all my events. It has to be done, as some times they will not send me back my return letter to tell me the event was received, one time they sent me a return letter with some other event: so some director got a returned letter telling him they received my event.

The ones that have been sent out certified letter was a package of events, Forsythe - King V match, ending on April 17, 2004, a match finnished on April 15, 2004, the duel rated called Jackson Action III, played on April 17, 2004 – all sent out on April 19, 2004. Quick XI, the one ending on May 6, 2004 the duel rated, Did you ask for a draw? – sent out on May 8, 2004.

The Forsythe - King III, we do not care if it is corrected, or the quick be rated. the QT - IX, the federation has not cashed the check, talked too both players, if the event not rated, they do not care if the event is rated, we still play to play a huge amount of events this year. This year, there are 11 events the federation have not rated.

My question with the other directors, are you having a very long delay with the federation not rating your tournaments? Puting my MSA Tournament Directors list up: check it and make sure in the next few weeks that the events that have been told are rated.

uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlTnmtDir.php?12313120

Earnest,
Douglas M. Forsythe, local td
12313120

2

I’m not an organizer, but I checked under the main affilliate in our area. They have rated events Tues-Fri every week as well as weekend activities. The last rated event occurred on Mar 21. It was rated on the April 23 run. No event from this affiliate was rated in the last run.

The normal rating lag has been about one month. Right now it’s a good bit longer than that. I’m sure they’ll have a push to get things in before the June supplement cutoff. Does anyone know when the supplement cutoff usually is?

3

Looked into the received list and the federation has not received the QT - IX sent out 2/28/2005, or the Forsythe - King IV match, sent out 3/22/2004, or the QT - X, sent out 3/22/2004. Did not have the mail return my letter, so were is the missing events. Do know they have 5 events they have received, one dating to received for rating on 2/3/2004. The other three have been sent on May 5, 2004 – it was sent out certified letter with a return postcard. Hope to see Quick XI and Did you ask for a draw? on the received list next time it is updated.

Hope the office can tell me what happen to the missing events. Phone calls and emails do not work, this might.

Earnest,
Douglas M. Forsythe, local td

4

The June should be post in one week, the cut off is around two weeks, so the posting is on 5/10/2004, give a week and they should have the June official on 5/17/2004. They do need time to get the rating list published and out in the mail.

You say there is a lag in the events being rated, would accept that if the other events are not rated way before the others, as of June 2003 have now 23 events rated, if you count the 11 events not rated, that is 34 events, still have untill June 7, 2004 to make the first year of doing tournaments again.

The reason being annoyed, most of the people in the events have or will play quick or regular events, as the events are taken out of order only makes wild swings in their ratings. There are 11 events, with 32 sections not rated. With them rated out of order it just makes such wild swings in ratings for some that could be the difference of 100 or more points depending when it is rated. Like my friend in January there could have been a difference of 200 or 300 points but have now lost over 200 points and now at my floor so his final rating will be way off.

Earnest,
Douglas M. Forsythe, local td

5

I think the plan is to do the final ratings run for the June Supplement in the next few days, probably no later than Wednesday.

It took a while for me to get the updated crosstables to MSA because I’m still rewriting the job that does that. (I’ve managed to cut the MSA update time from around 8 hours to 2 1/2 hours, but it still needs to be sped up.) I’m still working on the new programs to update the ratings in the member records, that should be completed on Monday.

They hadn’t originally planned to do a ratings run last week, but had a recurrence of the problem they had in February when a block of events that had been entered and was ready to rate just disappeared from the file. To make sure they didn’t lose any more events, they ran a rate Wednesday morning. (As far as anyone knows, they haven’t been losing any data once the event is rated.)

The May 5th rate had a total of 425 events (and 777 sections) in it, which included 4 events that ended in January, 63 from February, 223 from March and 135 from April.

I’ve added a new ‘Tournaments Rated’ lookup feature on the ratings page to complement the ‘Tournaments Received’ lookup.

6

We have been considering the advantages (and disadvantages) of having the new ratings system do a periodic re-rate of events to have them in true chronological order. (We would definitely do this just ahead of each ratings supplement, perhaps as frequently as monthly or even weekly.)

The biggest plusses are that this enables us to make corrections and fix the ‘out-of-order’ problem. This would also free us from the ratings ‘batch’ cycle and allow us to rate events every night, or possibly even several times a day. (In the extreme case, it would be possible to rate an event submitted online as soon as it passed validation, possibly within minutes of when it was submitted.)

The biggest negative is that someone’s rating could change, possibly more than once, as a result of a rerating–without that person having played in any subsequent events. Some see this as a major source of complaints to the USCF office.

What do you think?
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7

If you can get the events rated before the official June 2004 rating list comes out, there would not be little problem. If the QT - VII, QT- IX, Forsythe - king IV and QT - X, as they were done in January till March; that is 4 events and 16 sections. Not sure if the Forsythe - King III can be changed or the quick section be rated, the shift in our ratings have changed not so much with the regular rating, the shift in the quick with so many quick events, my rating has droped over two hundred point to hit my rating floor of 1500.

Having a event in December and January (if not rated in the batch before the June 2004 rating list) not having the event not rated till after the posting of the rating list of June 2004 would only be official untill August 1, 2004 when the August rating list will be official. Telling my players why it could take till the August rating list to have the event and rating official, it is hard to tell them its’ the gremlins in the software.

Asking to have the 4 events with 4 sections that was sent in April 19, 2004 or the 3 events with 9 sections rated that was sent in May 8, 2004; having them rated at this time would be asking to take other directors events to be placed on the back burner.

Earnest,
Douglas M. Forsythe, local td

8

On the question of re-rating, as good as it sounds, in my case have this year, 51 rated (as of 5/9/2004) sections in my rating history. There are a number events and sections, still need to be rated and other tournaments not of my own. Going back and re-rate the former games, would only lead to a great deal of events and peoples ratings changed, as the other players have gone to other events.

With the smaller staff in the office, and the greater need to have tournaments rated faster. Just get the rating of the events rated faster is what the tournament player is asking. If you go back and re-rate events, how far can the computer go back into the history.

Earnest,
Douglas M. Forsythe, local td
12313120

9

Until the proposed re-rating procedure is implemented, what is the current effect of having tournaments rated out of order? My son has been playing in rated events for a bit more than a year, and all have been rated chronologically up through January '04. As of the Mother’s Day rate, his three most recent tournaments have been processed (end dates 3/13, 4/10, and 5/9, respectively), but events ending on 2/7 and 3/6 are still outstanding. When these are eventually processed, will the lack of a re-rating procedure leave his current rating unchanged or not?

TIA,
Jim

10

Dear Chess_Dad:

With the question of re-rating a event, for me telling you the difference of the rating change being better or worse is a toss up. For the whole membership the re-rating would be a total wash. The reason, could have gotten more rating points if it is taking out of order, on the other hand can lose more rating points if it is taken out of order. If you play in a event and have it rated just once every cycle of the rating list (Febuary, April, June, August, October, December), the rating would only be good during that cycle. If you only play in a few events then the rating would not change or only change a few times during the cycle.

As most players play less then 12 events in any given year or even less, just re-rate a event might not change nothing but a few points gained or lost. Would only see players that would only go for the big tournaments with a state title on the line, with them they only play very few events in a given year, or even not play that year.

If the federation does a re-rate then some players that have not played in a tournament in months and not even during the cycle would have their rating changed during the next cycle. Case in point, talked to a director (not the director of the event) at the Toledo tournament and he told me his quick rating went up (if right one point but can say it was less then 10 points), he has not been in a quick event in ages, and could not understand the reason why it went up.

The other problem if you do not have a established rating, say the rating say 1150/19 then it is re-rated to say 1148/19. Then would would see this April 2004 1150/19 then June 2004 1148/19, unless they go back and change the information on the computer. If then look at the rating list on paper would show 1150/19 but on computer would show 1148/19.

Say for example, have the rating (print) supplement, gives the rating of 1603, the federation re-rate a past event, then changed the rating (web) supplement to 1599; at 1599 after the event the player can claim a cash prize for the under 1600 section. With the federation given two different ratings, if given this player a cash prize for under 1600 some player(s) would feel cheated seeing evidence of a rating of 1603, if not given the cash prize, the player would feel cheated.

If the federation gets back to a system were they rate events in order, then the issue of having re-rated events would not be a issue. If the federation does this, in the long term would make the membership have less faith in the ratings then more faith. When the re-rating can make a issue of a cash prize or a trophy for the scholistic players, just makes a issue that the 5th edition never had to deal with. If the rating department does do re-ratings, when will the policy board, the members of the TDCC make the final rules dealing with the official rule of prize funds when a rating is official in two different publications, one paper and the other web.

If the rating department does this, then when will the 6th edition come out.

Earnest,
Douglas M. Forsythe, local td
12313120

11

I don’t know that there has ever been a time when events were guaranteed to be rated in chronological order, because that’s so dependent upon TD’s getting their events submitted promptly.

Even if the USCF was completely caught up, delays in submitting events would still be a problem, along with corrections. (Based on the number of complaints about incorrect results, I would guess that at least one in twenty tournaments has some kind of ID or result error in it.)

From the comments I see, I think players (and their parents) would consider a system where events are rated VERY QUICKLY, such as within 24 hours of submission, preferable to one where events are held several weeks to get a higher percentage of them into chronological order.

I’m not sure how to measure non-chronological rating frequency, but when MSA first came out the tournament history was sorted in event ending date rather than date-rated order as it is now. Nearly every player I looked at had one or more events rated out of order in their last half-dozen or so events.

The Ratings Committee does not feel that non-chronological rating is a serious problem because the ratings system will correct itself. That’s more likely to be the case for relatively active players, say over 20 rated games/year. But I see quite a few e-mails every week from players complaining about events being rated out of order.

One important point to remember is that ratings in between publication of the rating supplement are UNOFFICIAL.

12

The problem does start with the directors, for the main reason they are out of order. If like in other parts of the form, the director sends in the tournament report longer then seven days should be addressed. Never going to have a time that all the directors will send in the tournament report within the seven days after the event.

There are also a great deal of errors, have looked at my crosstables and have found a number of errors in the past year. Just change the problem could take weeks or never if the director is not in the mood to help. Know the old line, the directors point the finger at the federation and the federation points the finger at the directors, the players may or may not know there was a error.

Talking of having a re-rate event in a few days, if the federation rated a event with a error, can the federation live with the knoledge that the director can spot the error of a single game being off, or that the name of a player is wrong on the crosstables if he does not know or seen that person before. If it then falls on the player to point out the error then it would take weeks to check out the story and data.

Earnest,
Douglas M. Forsythe, local td
12313120

13

“What do you think?”

Mike, this is a very important decisions that will affect a lot of people! As someone who has been a member since 1966 and a TD since the 1970’s, I would think only rating an event once and either sticking to the old system or new of doing so would have much less confusion:

(old): All events submitted on-time (within one week) rated in chonological order, even if it means waiting that one week each time to rate the event, (this is the way it was done in the 70’s) or

(new) All events rated as soon as possible after being received (eventually if it can be done instantly and returned via internet would be wonderful). Under this system TD’s who wait to submit their event may see their event rated slightly out of order.

I almost always send in my reports the next day (and would do so the same day online if possible) so I prefer the new system of rating events ASAP. I think the burden should be on the TD’s to put the events on time and if they don’t and the ratings are rated out of order the players should complain to the TD, not the USCF. The USCF should do it the quickest and easiest way, not try to make up for TD tardiness.

The USCF has enough problems without re-rating events, which would weight them differently, if that’s what you are proposing.

That’s my two cents.

Best wishes,
Dan Heisman

14

Dear Dan:

Do approve of your idea, it is up to the director too send in the tournament report within the seven days. If the federation does rate the event out of order, it is not the problem of the federation, it was the problem of the director for not sending in the tournament report on time. The federation does not have the time or the capital to look at every state tournament history, as some tournament do not have any web base information.

The federation does have a smaller staff, the federation is working to improve the speed of rating events with the MSA. The MSA gives players a understanding of their tournament history. All that the rating department can do is data entry, if the director sends in missing or conflict in the data, it is a problem of the director. If a director does not send in the tournament report in the seven days, then take weeks or months before the tournament report is received – it would be wrong for the other events not to be rated. A player can be in different event(s), the rating department can not use black magic and see were all the events have been played, the rating department can not keep a list of a club event were there was not web base information, even if the rating department can look at all the web base information of events some do not tell who the director was. Holding up rating know events for the idea there is some event not received is insane.

The federation has been very easy on the directors when it comes about late tournament reports, if the director sends in the tournament reports within the seven days, if the director has the information correct during the reporting of the event, then the federation can be able to rate the events with little or no data entry problems. If the federation does the re-rating, it only rewards the directors that can not or will not send in their tournament reports or send them in without errors.

Even if the directors do send in the tournament reports on time, the federation will still rated events out of order for some tournaments, as they are not official untill the rating supplement comes out six times a year, it is not a huge problem if the event is rated faster or early just because of a few weeks difference. Even if this was the case, a few weeks difference does not matter, as it could still fall within the cycle of the rating list, that has a natural cycle of 8 weeks. Even if it does fall outside the rating cycle it will be official during the next rating cycle unless the player has more then one event rated during that cycle.

Earnest,
Douglas M. Forsythe, local td
12313120

15

Doug,

Yes, I agree with almost everything you state. There is no perfect solution since directors don’t always comply with the event submission timeline requirement. If they are consistently so late to mess up the system the USCF should issue them a warning and then if it continues, revoke their license. If 90%+ of the events arrived within 1 week, then even if an event arrived after a later one, the occasional rating of these events out of order should not make a big difference, since playing strengths do not move much in one week. Of course, occasionally an event is held up due to membership or other problems, but a consistent USCF policy not to hold up rating events for minor issues would help here.

For example, the latest USCF policy is to not require USCF TD’s to insist on membership proof if, say, someone joins USCF by web the week before and has no proof (the USCF should automatically e-mail a receipt to anyone who joins by web or phone to alleviate this problem). So we just let these “recent joiners” in event, but of course a small percentage have not really joined properly for various reasons and the event still should be rated immediately and the membership issue worked out on the side.

In the old days we had to make these “no proof” joiners pay for an extra year’s membership, which ensured that they were members but led to hard feelings, especially among new members who had to play twice. So I like the new policy better, but it means USCF needs to rate tournaments without waiting to clear up minor membership problems.

Best wishes,
Dan H

16

Dan:

The membership is the most important issue, other then sending in a late tournament report, with a late tournament report also goes the late memberships go at the same time, it gives a greater degree of social problems for the player. As his membership could end, a non-sent Chess Life, if a tournament director on there own would have their certification stripped – as a director has to be a current member.

Some of the little problems would be the name of the player, as some scholistic players might have a childs name like Johnie then becomes a adult would rather be called John then the name Johnie, ect. Like a issue with one of my students, he joined the federation years ago, under the name of Curtis, now he wants to be called Chris. When he went to the tournament he did not know his old USCF number, the federation issued him a new number with the name Chris. Called and talked with Larry Pond, had the name Curtis changed too Chris, and the id number changed before the event was rated.

There are a few members that have more then one USCF number, if the director got bad information or the federation could not find the member as the person has changed their name. Would not have a problem if the event was re-rated with the correct members ID number. As some players have more then one number, the federation should just look into just re-rate the event, only given credit for the change in rating for that person. As the event can be years in the past, just change everyone that he has played and the ones that have played the person he played, would lead to a cascade effect were the change in one player could effect hundreds of players.

Will become more of a issue on the scholistic players when they become adults; this is the reason for telling the parents too use the birth name then the childhood name. Scholistic players play a few years, drop out, then rejoin with their birth name, then they find the problem: Johnie Smith and John Smith have two different numbers, and two different ratings. In this case would not have a problem having the event re-rated, why should a player accept having two membership numbers.

Can see that the player has forgotten their number, even active players do not know there membership number. As the director is rushing to get all the players registered before the start of the first round, the player might have lost the memory that his old membership had him/her in their childhood name. Most would not know of the problem untill they have the event rated as him/her as a new player. It is not the problem of the director or the federation just a common error that should be changed.

On this would accept the re-rate but not to re-rate everyone that has come into contract as it would lead to a cascade effect that could reach back years. Just re-rate for one player, as the off set would only effect that one player.

Earnest,
Douglas M. Forsythe, local td
12313120

17

Doug,

Hmm. Maybe you misunderstood me because most of the issues you addressed, like multiple ID’s, etc. I was not really addressing in my previous posts.

I simply said the USCF should hold TD’s who post late results accountable. If the USCF wants to hold up a rating report a short time to get a correct ID, or re-rate that person’s opponents later, that is fine. I really don’t see a strong correlation between the problem Mike was asking (and I was addressing) and these other issues. IMHO, There should be no strong linking between someone wishing to change a name or get rid of a multiple ID and a TD getting a report on time and the USCF processing it, even if someone in the event is trying to get their multiple ID’s fixed. I have had plenty of tournaments where the wrong rating was used and I requested it to be fixed, but that latter request should not affect the initial speed of them rating the report, again, in my opinion (and apparently such a go-ahead to rate the event even if there needs later tweaking is going to be technologically possible, based on Mike’ notes).

Best wishes,
Dan H

18

That’s in the works. (There are some requirements in several anti-spam laws that we need to make sure are met before this is made operational.)

We’re also close to the point where memberships purchased through the USCF website will be processed in real-time, too. That means TD’s will be able to search for new members on MSA within a few hours of when their membership is entered and paid for via the USCF website.

19

Great!

You would not believe how many times someone at registration said “I joined by phone (web) this week” and I say “Did you get a receipt to show me?” and they said “No, was I supposed to…?” …and they felt bad before the event even started…

  • Dan H
20

If the federation can issue a members number in a day, if it sent in from the web, the director can use the web to take care of the join/re-join members. If the members id number is taken care of in a day, the director can first take care of the membership for the new member(s) then check the web to see the members id number before sending in the rating report.

As the director has seven days to send in the tournament report, would give the director time to take care of the membership, then post the missing id numbers before sending in the report, still have clearance because the seven day window is still open. Would save time and effert for the rating department, would help clear up any wrong or false numbers.

Earnest
Douglas M. Forsythe, local td
12313120