rating floors

[Uri Blass]

I read that there are many rating floors in the US federation

http://www.glicko.net/ratings/rating.system.pdf

For example
I read the following in the uscf rating rules.

"A player who earns the original Life Master (OLM) title, which occurs when a player keeps an
established rating above 2200 for 300 (not necessarily consecutive) rated games, will obtain
a rating floor of 2200"

What is the logic behind this rule?

Suppose a chess player continue to play chess when he is old and he becomes weaker.
logic say that his chess rating should go down but I understand the rating will practically remain 2200 even if he is at level of 1900.


Note that in israel there is another illogical rules for the weak levels and there is a rule that the rating cannot go down if it is below 1400
so if the calculation shows that the rating go down from 1340 to 1300 the rating is going to remain 1340.

I wonder if there is another country with these stupid rules when rating can only go up at some range(that is different than rating floors when only getting the rating is not enough to never go down below the rating).

[MikeB]

I read that there are many rating floors in the US federation

http://www.glicko.net/ratings/rating.system.pdf

For example
I read the following in the uscf rating rules.

"A player who earns the original Life Master (OLM) title, which occurs when a player keeps an
established rating above 2200 for 300 (not necessarily consecutive) rated games, will obtain
a rating floor of 2200"

What is the logic behind this rule?

Suppose a chess player continue to play chess when he is old and he becomes weaker.
logic say that his chess rating should go down but I understand the rating will practically remain 2200 even if he is at level of 1900.


Note that in israel there is another illogical rules for the weak levels and there is a rule that the rating cannot go down if it is below 1400
so if the calculation shows that the rating go down from 1340 to 1300 the rating is going to remain 1340.

I wonder if there is another country with these stupid rules when rating can only go up at some range(that is different than rating floors when only getting the rating is not enough to never go down below the rating).

USCF has floors at every level based on your highest rating. This is conjecture on my part, as I believe it would be the only logical reason for instituting floors. The floors are there to stop people from intentionally sandbagging their results and get their rating back down to 1400, and then enter a big money tournament such s the World Open where $5000, $6000 or more would goes the class winner. This was back in the 70's and 80's and I'm not even sure of these type tournaments are still in vogue. The prize sums were huge for 1970/1980 's and the entry fee would be in the hundreds of dollars.

It is still around - for that kind of money people will cheat.

http://www.chesstour.com/wo19.htm

[Uri Blass]

I read that there are many rating floors in the US federation

http://www.glicko.net/ratings/rating.system.pdf

For example
I read the following in the uscf rating rules.

"A player who earns the original Life Master (OLM) title, which occurs when a player keeps an
established rating above 2200 for 300 (not necessarily consecutive) rated games, will obtain
a rating floor of 2200"

What is the logic behind this rule?

Suppose a chess player continue to play chess when he is old and he becomes weaker.
logic say that his chess rating should go down but I understand the rating will practically remain 2200 even if he is at level of 1900.


Note that in israel there is another illogical rules for the weak levels and there is a rule that the rating cannot go down if it is below 1400
so if the calculation shows that the rating go down from 1340 to 1300 the rating is going to remain 1340.

I wonder if there is another country with these stupid rules when rating can only go up at some range(that is different than rating floors when only getting the rating is not enough to never go down below the rating).

USCF has floors at every level based on your highest rating. This is conjecture on my part, as I believe it would be the only logical reason for instituting floors. The floors are there to stop people from intentionally sandbagging their results and get their rating back down to 1400, and then enter a big money tournament such s the World Open where $5000, $6000 or more would goes the class winner. This was back in the 70's and 80's and I'm not even sure of these type tournaments are still in vogue. The prize sums were huge for 1970/1980 's and the entry fee would be in the hundreds of dollars.

It is still around - for that kind of money people will cheat.

http://www.chesstour.com/wo19.htm

If the target is to prevent cheating and winning money the simplest way is to allow only players who never had rating above some number in tournaments for money(there is a history of rating and it is easy to check).

[MikeB]

I read that there are many rating floors in the US federation

http://www.glicko.net/ratings/rating.system.pdf

For example
I read the following in the uscf rating rules.

"A player who earns the original Life Master (OLM) title, which occurs when a player keeps an
established rating above 2200 for 300 (not necessarily consecutive) rated games, will obtain
a rating floor of 2200"

What is the logic behind this rule?

Suppose a chess player continue to play chess when he is old and he becomes weaker.
logic say that his chess rating should go down but I understand the rating will practically remain 2200 even if he is at level of 1900.


Note that in israel there is another illogical rules for the weak levels and there is a rule that the rating cannot go down if it is below 1400
so if the calculation shows that the rating go down from 1340 to 1300 the rating is going to remain 1340.

I wonder if there is another country with these stupid rules when rating can only go up at some range(that is different than rating floors when only getting the rating is not enough to never go down below the rating).

USCF has floors at every level based on your highest rating. This is conjecture on my part, as I believe it would be the only logical reason for instituting floors. The floors are there to stop people from intentionally sandbagging their results and get their rating back down to 1400, and then enter a big money tournament such s the World Open where $5000, $6000 or more would goes the class winner. This was back in the 70's and 80's and I'm not even sure of these type tournaments are still in vogue. The prize sums were huge for 1970/1980 's and the entry fee would be in the hundreds of dollars.

It is still around - for that kind of money people will cheat.

http://www.chesstour.com/wo19.htm

If the target is to prevent cheating and winning money the simplest way is to allow only players who never had rating above some number in tournaments for money(there is a history of rating and it is easy to check).

Obviously this was set up before computers and when TD used published rating lists - You asked why and I just gave you my $.02 , not here to debate or discuss further really.