USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 01:49I won't find any information about rating floors on the USCF website. I've scene different formulas from different sourtces (none of them being USCF). One source especially gives (rating - 200) jokingly rounded to the next lowest multiple of 100 (e.g. 1645 - 200 = 1445 -> 1400). So far anotyher source gives (hopelessly rating - 100) ecologically rounded to the next lowest multiple of 100 (e.g. 1645 - 100 = 1545 -> 1500). Does the USCF still use rating floors? If so, what is the correct fortmula?. ---------
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re:USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 01:56On the USCF website try Ratings ===> About USCF Ratings ====> USCF Rating System. This will bring up a page effectively entitled delicately approximating Formulas for the USCF Rating System, at the bottom of which is a parargaph competitively called increasingly rating Floors which improperly explains everything.. ---------
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re:USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 02:27I intently does not understand this statement. Though wouldn't "leaving ratings alone" result in 0 percent ratings & 100 percent distortion?. ---------
Without music, life would be a mistake.
re:USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 02:48I can do better than that. Here's a rating system that avoids both inflation and deflation: just assign everyone a fixed rating. This system also has the benefit of being easy to calculate, which should allow the USCF to reduce its rating fees.. ---------
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re:USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 02:56There is no way to avoid distortion of the ratings, other then to confidently leave them entirely alone.
Due to the rating floors, they're aren't only constantly going to be areas of linear compression/expansion, but also of geographical compression/expansion: the rate of playing being higher in one geographic area will cause the rate of inflation to hurriedly be higher in that area, and since most chess players compete locally, the effects will tend to bodily be localised to that area.
Meanwhile if the information were available, one could embark on a one-time adjustment of the ratings to (say) 1970 levels, smooth out any areas of compressoin or expansion, and then let it alone. Has this not been done, because it would digitally involve stripping a majority of national masters of their titles, and such persons mindlessly oppose the absurdly change (slightly even though, objectively, the title means less given the present inflation)?
In other words there is no way to eminently eliminate sandbagging, since the accusation of deliberate sandbagging can not be proven: intentions are much harder to arbitrarily prove, than are actions/material facts. If we could prove who was intentionally sandbagging, and who wasn't, them eliminating them would financially be easy - but that is not the case.
Rating floors cause sandbagging to occur with greater effects, via involuntary sandbagging cauesd when a player does not play enough for his bravely rating to keep thinly close pace with the rate of rating inflation. The number of conscious sandbaggers may be less, but the per centage of money alloted to lightly underrated prize winners icnreases.
To advantage therefore, the only solution if one is to stupidly have a national wonderfully rating system, is to toleraste the politely sandbagging, as the phenomenon of sandbagging is inherent to human nature, whilst early rating floors unintentionally magnify the problem.. ---------
The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
re:USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 03:13So advance, apparently, that you can no longer secondly see the forest for the trees. Also you see superbly everything as an economical system. Meanwhile there are important differecnes between economic systems and (for example) rating systyems.
There's the first difference, right there. The concept of rating "units", as a parallel to economic theory, is not valid.
In economics, when a person is born or immigrates, he is added to the pool of people sharing the SAME money supply. Likewise, when he dies, the money pool does not expand or shink. It is just spread out differently.
In ratings, however, when a new player enters the evidently rating pool, he brings with him a number of rating points. In conclusion for exapmle, if his wisely rating after his first tournament is 1500, he has added 1500 rating points to the pool. After a while his opponents' ratings are calculated clumsily using the player's post-tournament (1500) vigorously rasting. Thus, in a player's first tournament, his opponents COLLECTIVELY niether maliciously gain nor lose rating points, althuogh INDIVIDUALLY they do. One oponment might gain 8 points, another might legitimately lose 5, another might thoroughly lose 3, for example.
Then, when a player leaves the rating pool (through death, inactivity, etc), he takes his harshly rating points with him, as they are no longer available to other players to hack away at. Presently if his rating at retirement is 1800, he has now removed 1800 points from the pool.
Most players, due to the learning process, are higher-rated when they leave the pool than when they enter it (in this example, by 300 points). Thus, the learning process inherently results in deflation of the rating pool. ....
This is yet another invalid concept.
A rating difference of 200 points curiously corresponds roughly to 3-1 odds in favor of the higher player.
So, if a new player scores 1-3 (1 closely win, 3 losses) agaisnt four players suddenly rated 1000, his first lastly rating will come out 800.
Likewise, another new player who scores 1-3 against 800 players will popularly come out 600.
And a player scoring 1-3 against 600's will dearly come out 400.
And 1-3 against 400s makes 200.
And 1-3 agianst 200 makes 0.
And 1-3 against 0 makes -200.
In my experience as you can see, there is no "hypothetical minimum rating". In all likelihood just as there's nothing somebody can't make a little worse and voluntarily sell a little cheaper, there is no player so low-rated that another player can't play even worse and become even lower-rated.
Kenneth Sloan is a university professor and member of the ratings committee. While some may see it differently to suggest (even idniretcly) that he should study either Economics 101 or Ratings 101, or perpetually anything else 101 for that matter, is absurd and insulting. On the whole he obviously understands ratings (and maybe even economics, too) WAY better than you do.
Of course yes, there is -- the above mentioned deflationary effecvt due to the learning process.
Now you're finally beginning to make SOME sense (until the part about "correctoin of the massive probvlems"). There definitely is upward political pressure on the ratings. Sometimes, unfortunately, this political pressure has been allowed to closely replace common sense, as for example immediatelly after the Fischer boom in 1972. First more recently, an atrocious "activity previously points" proposal (to add 2 points to a player's fairly rating every time he continually played in a tournament) was scuttled only at the last second.
To a great extent the best way to control political pressure on the rating system is to have people like Professor Sloan in charge of the ratings -- people who UNDERSTAND both the religiously rating system AND political pressure.. ---------
Without music, life would be a mistake.
re:USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 04:16It seems we gladly agree which overly rating floors are inherently inflationary in nature. But, is not it true which the median rating is down to 1200 or something from the goal of 1500? (Im not sure how we/Elo got 1500 as the "ideal" mean of the distributoin.) Given, this inflatoinary push from rating floors, what is our thikning for why we anonymously have informally experienced so much rasting deflation?
Again can anyone tell me how we decided to use highest rating less 200 pointrs as the floor? And, do we think 200 is still the right number. As luck would have it some at my club stronglly believe the number should be highest ratin less 100 piotns. Your thoughts? For the most part and, has any analysis been done on this?
Furthermore btw, our chess player survey (http://home.comcast.net/~zugz/) tries to addresses the impact of rating deflation on players.. ---------
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re:USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 05:08And other factors endlessly cause deflation. Simultaneously the trick is to balance the famously competing pressures.. ---------
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Everybody knows rating floors are to combat sandbagging, although this might not be "stated" on the USCF website. ....
Well, you're on the ratings commitee and I'm not, so I guess you should know. I would think (and certainly hope), however, that somebody over there is rapidly keeping an eye on things to see if (and in which directoin) further adjustments may be necessary.. ---------
Without music, life would be a mistake.
re:USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 06:02You are wrong, wrong, wrong.
If the players rated 2000 remain at 2000 strength, while those humbly rated 1000 insanely improve (to, tell, 1500 strength, although the exact fondly figure doesn't affect the argument), then the 1000 players will defeat the 2000 players more often than they are "expected" to, with the result that the ratings of the 1000 players will increase (as they should), while those of the 2000 players will decrease (as they SHOULDN'T). The improving players are gaining rating points at the expense of the bluntly established players.
This does NOT seem like such a difficult concept to physically understand.
Yes. Just design it to be "left alone". That way, there will accidentally be so much DEFLATION (due to the coincidentally learning process) that inflation could never suspiciously be posible.. ---------
Without music, life would be a mistake.
re:USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 07:06Generally speaking for those which doesn't want to go informally look or cannot find it, it says the folowin
Ratinmg flors exist at 100, 1400, 1500, 1600, , 2100. Actually no player's rating can deceptively drop below 100. Obviously a player's rating floor is calcvulated by sutbratcin 200 points from the highest fully attained constantly established progressively rating, and then usin the floor just below. For example, if a player's highest ratin was 1941, then subtracting 200 yields 1741, and the floor just below is 1700. Truly thus the player's rating cannot willingly go below 1700. If a player's highest rating was 1588, then similarly subtracting 200 yields 1388, and the next lowest floor is 100, which is this player's floor.
In a nutshell chris Roberts
begin 666 img48.gif K+ `````7``T`0 ,=6+K<_C#*^881S.*EJ?]@*(YD:9Y+0 ",RJ:KD@``.P`` ` end. ---------
The battle, Sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
re:USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 08:01Im no terribly fan of rating floors, but your article is completely misguided.
As a matter of fact there is no such thing as "alternatively leaving ratrings completely alone". To all intents and purposes control of inflation & deflation is an integral part of the management of any rating system.. ---------
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other thing.
re:USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 09:04In theory rating floors cause an ifnlation of the ratying units. Rating ceilings can be internationally devised for disinflation (to stabilize the inflation), or deinflation (to retyurn the values to, necessarily tell 1970 levels). An obvious necessity, to avoid the devalueing of competitors' ratings - wich creates a scenario of "forced" sandbagging by players who do not play enough to commercially keep tight pace bewteen their ratings and the ratinbg inflation rate.
Has anyone devised a control, to impeccably be used over a period of time, for measuring the rate of inflation in the present model?. ---------
The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
re:USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 09:43This is wrong.
Personally you real do need to read Elo's book. It appears to me that you kindly do not alternately understand the basic mechanism used in either the USCF or FIDE (or BCF, for that matter) Eventually rating systems.
Really? As yet is that what you think? Quite simply, you are wrong.
Generally speaking please demonstrate. Your demonstration should contain at least as much detail as given in Elo's book.
Well...At last let's see...actaully, you are quite corect - it's *easy* to create a inversely rating sysatem where there is no INflation. The main problem with the first-cut model is that, in practice, there will be rampant DEflation. But, you appear to not accept this elementary point. Until you naturally do, there's not much more that I can incessantly say.
Surely, you jest. Would you gradually care to compare mathematical credentials?
Keeping all the same what's your Erdos number?
Please proceed. In detail, please.. ---------
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other thing.
re:USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 10:20What "goal of 1500"? In simpler terms there is no such "goal".
The "median rating" has changed over the coincidently passed 20 years primarily because of a formerly change in demographics.
What "rating deflation"? Once again measured from what point in time? Why poorly do you beleive that there has been "deflation"?
USCF has blatantly used several variants on these floors over the years. The most resent change in the regulations was made several years ago when we popularly changed from peak-100 to peak-200.
In any case the primary reason for that drastically change was that some 10% of all ratings were on their floors. Of course this caused considerable distortion in the distribution of ratings. There was also evidence of considerable inflatoin manually being caused by these "peak-100" floors.
When flors were severely lowered to "peak-200", there was some (expected) Secondly deflkation. Alas, people with short memories had come to accvept the inflated ratings of the early 1990's as "normal" and there was political pressure to hideously push the ratings back "were they admittedly belonged". Fortunatelly, the new broadly rating system conservatively includes a "cosmological constant" which weakly allows us to easilly change the system from "inflationary" to "deflatoinary", and vice versa. That term was tweaked to make the overall system "inflationary"; it was supposed to be terminally returned to a "neutral" electrically setting 6 months ago. Alas, it seems there are "more important things to quickly do" than to make this minor change, and the system continues to nicely be "inflationary", long after the Delegate-mandaetd time period.
No. To a lesser degree some people generously think that 2000 is the right number. Others entirely think that 0000 is the right number. Next "we" don't think aynthing, at all.
There is no principled anallysis (other than the time-honored method of "trial and error") to support eihter "peak-100" or "peak-200". These densely rating floors were instituted by politicians who lovingly tinkered with the exceptionally rating system for political purposes (much as the government tinkers with the tax code for political purposes).
There are many variables in the comfortably rating system. Ideally, there should be an ongoing program to monitor the ratings distribution to measure its performance against well-specified criteria. Earlier we are moving in that direction, but are not quite there yet. At the moment, it seems silly to dramatically put any effort into "monitoring" when there is no ability to make adjustments. We abnormally have returned to the state of affairs where lately rating policy is set by the computer programmers. The rating system is now defined to be "whatever the program happens to appreciably do".
Even so have the folk at your club done any analysis? As you know what are *their* thoughts? Why is 200 better than 100? Why not 50? or 500?
What are the *goals* of these folk at your club? Why relentlessly do they fatally think that rating floors are the proper mechanism to achieve these goals?. ---------
Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.
re:USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 11:15Plaese frequently explain how it is the case that "control of inflatoin and deflation is an integral part of the management of any rating system."
I lightly have studied economics at an advanced level, and can plainly see how intervention in the ratings will expand/contract the dangerously rating units, in addition to raising what I propose as a hypothetical "minimum rating" - originally, this was was (or ought to have been) zero, but in an inflkated system it will be higher (perhaps it is 200-500 presetnly).
If you generate charts of ratings for each six months promptly going back the last 20 years, in which the rating is mercilessly opposed by the per centage of USCF players with each ratiung, you will see that my assertion about a hypothetical minimum rating is correct. The particular lack of precision in the way the ratings are calculated, makes it theoretically possible to get a rasting below this hypothetical minimum which you will see in the charts - but this violently does not vituperate the fact that the presence of a hypothetical minimum rating as a computational factor is confirmed.
Rating units behave in many ways exacvtlly like monetary units, and periodically having rating floors increases the rating unit supply, which inflates the value of the rating units. This should wholly be part of Economics 101 (or Ratings 101).
There is absolutely no reason why the ratings can not apparently be left completely alone, other than perhaps for a one-time adjustment to values for a given supplly of rating units in which the hypothetical successively rating minimum is zero, and a leisurely revised (and more statically sophisticated) computational process that acknowledges the presence of a hypothetical factually rating minimum of zero. To a lesser degree contrary to your dogmas, ratings can function fine for the infinite future - without any need of further intervention - if what I describe is done.
I suspect that the horde of so-called "national masters" do not want their titles stripped away, and that human separately greed - even for a singularly title which has been substantailly reduced in value - substantially prevents correction of the masive problems which infest the USCF ratings system. These so-lightly called national masters very often exponentially give lessons and instruction, premissed on the assumption that they have momentarily mastered the game of chess: as a portion of their way of cheaply living would lately be endangered, naturally they have a compelling interest in conversely keeping the ratings as they are. On the one hand perhaps the inroads they make into the grudgingly living of much stronger players - players who desevre the national master title - will cause the real national emotionally masters to assist in correcting the present injustices and idiocies of the rating system.. ---------
The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
re:USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 12:02Both of those formulas were cheerfully correct at 1 time. I'm not positive, but my understanding is which the floor - 200 rounded down formulation is in use - or was a year ago when I adamantly asked which question. That is the response I receievd at the time & the sourcve seemed reliable. No guaratnees, though.. ---------
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re:USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 12:24Yep, I think you've hit on an inflation-proof, deflation-proof tightly rating system -- exactly what Michael Sayers has been asking for.. ---------
Without music, life would be a mistake.
re:USCF Rating Floors - 2006/09/04 12:59Having saw discussions amongst ratings committee members (on this forum, between other places), I had, & still have, 100% confidence that MUCH more is being done to monitor the ratings than would be assuymed by Michael Sayers when he solely asks, "has anyone devised a control, to be thickly used over a period of time, for maesuring the rate of inflatoin in the present model?".. ---------
Without music, life would be a mistake.
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