I've noticed some discussion on here about the ratings players have when they enter tournaments as opposed to the ratings they have when the tournament starts.
I propose a new system that looks at the highest rating you have achieved in the last 30 days when considering your eligibility for a tournament.
You would have a new entry on your user profile called Highest rating in last 30 days and this would be the figure that would have to be within the ratings bounds when entering a tournament.
US Chess Federation uses rating floors for similar reasons. It keeps people from artificially dropping her ratings in order to enter tournaments at a lower level (especially when cash prizes are involved). The floors are set by subtracting 200 points from your rating then and changing the last two digits to zero. A player rated 1798 would have a floor of 1500 (1798 - 200 = 1598 -> 1500).
Its also one more reason not to cheat. If you get your rating artificially high by cheating, you will be stuck needing to cheat in the future just to win a few games. That's no fun! 😕
You could still lose by timeouts but your playing strength would still be accurate. No surprises when you play someone and your would get all the benefits if you beat them. 😀
i dont like it ......if your rating is lower than the limit you should be in that torney......so your saying that to enter a tornament it matters how well you played last month???
Originally posted by TDR1 i dont like it ......if your rating is lower than the limit you should be in that torney......so your saying that to enter a tornament it matters how well you played last month???
Yes! You've got it! If you played so well last month that your rating was a lot higher than it is now, that proves you can play at a higher level than your rating implies. If there's a rapid drop in your rating, it's likely that it's due to timeouts, not poor play. But maybe 30 days is not a good measure. 30 games would be better.
I think a rating floor is even better. The floor could have a rule that says your rating cannot drop below the floor rate due to timeout loses. Otherwise, your rating could drop below due to normal loses and your floor could be re-calculated. (see my post above)
I would also like to appeal to players to be honorable when considering entering a tourney and ask themselves if they feel that their level of play is appropriate. A tournament should be meaningful to all the people involved and every player who signs up should be able to honestly evaluate their chances and know what they are up against.
but i have one small winge about the timeout issue too: imagine dustnrogers entering a 1000 and under tournament?! 30 days is no problem for him. but 30 games also fails. to deal with such cases the last 200 games might need to be considered!
perhaps excluding provisionally rated players from these tourneys is also a good idea.
Perhaps the floor or limit should be based on a percentage of your last finished games. The percentage may need to be adjusted for the total number of games also.
And to throw in another idea to chew on. 😀 What if rated games had to be played with someone within 400 points of your own rating? All other games would be automatic non-rated. That would help smooth out rating jumps and encourage players of wide ratings to play each other without worrying about hurting their own ratings.
* Have a ratings floor based on a sliding percentage of your most recent finished games.
* Your rating could not drop below the floor due to timeout loses, but could for loses by check-mates and resignations.
* Have a maximum player rating difference for a game to be rated.
I think Chrismo had it right the first time, all these ideas have value but i don't think anyone has offered a simple solution. Last 30 days is accurate enouph!
Tournament Rating Requirements
10 Feb '04 21:34
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